The Most Metal DIY Stenoboard Ever

Sillyworld from the Plover Discord just posted pics of this incredible DIY steno board, with a custom printed circuit board and rad underlighting. I've recently been enjoying the Gideon the Ninth series, and let me just tell you, the steno pool AU fanfiction practically writes itself. I LOVE IT.

Better RTF Handling

If you've ever been frustrated by the less than perfect way that Plover handles RTF/CRE files (the court reporting dictionary format that's never quite been implemented as smoothly as Plover's native JSON format, but which is pretty useful if you're using Plover alongside commercial steno software), try this new plugin from sammdot: Plover-Better-RTF, a Plover plugin for better RTF dictionary handling that's powered by rtfcre.

rtfcre is a Python library for reading and writing steno dictionaries in the RTF/CRE (Rich Text Format with Court Reporting Extensions) format. The library provides an API similar to that of the json module for reading and writing dictionaries.

rtfcre also comes with a little command-line utility that you can use to convert your dictionaries between Plover's native JSON format and RTF.

Features:

Speed: The parsing logic is written in Rust using parser combinators, making it much faster than practically any pure-Python implementation.

Comments: Rather than just exposing translations, rtfcre also reads the comments embedded in each entry ({\*\cxcomment like this}).

Unicode: Full Unicode support -- while the dictionary files are not encoded in UTF-8, Unicode characters in translations are still fully supported. Translations can be in any language and they will seamlessly be converted to escapes when writing.

Plover support: Translations are converted automatically to Plover's native syntax (e.g. fingerspelling is represented with {&a} rather than {\cxfing a}) and converted back when writing.

Sneak Peak at EcoSteno

An official site is pending, but if you're interested in a new steno machine in the works that's focused on affordability, you might want to look through the EcoSteno's Github page. It's a cool and promising new project, and I can't wait to see more!

Workaround for Plugin Problems

Seems like some people are having problems with the Plover Plugin Manager. The devs are hoping to fix those issues on the next release, but until then, this article might prove helpful:

Manually Installing Plugins

Unofficial Version for Big Sur

If you're on MacOS Big Sur and you're having issues with Plover, try this new unofficial build by Discord user Sammdot. Hopefully it'll do the trick!

Plover and Steno Explained

Check out this amazing video from Aerick! It's so clear and eloquent, with phenomenal graphics, concise explanations of how steno works in just the right amount of detail for a total novice, and it's even captioned! Spread it far and wide!

Public Domain Steno Practice

Nael on the Plover Discord recently dug up a cool resource for text-based practice: Typelit, which allows you to pick a public domain book to type your way through as you read it. Great for drilling, dictionary building, and not being bored out of your skull! I'd recommend A Journal of the Plague Year, which used to be one of my favorites back in high school, but... Perhaps let that one sit on the shelf a while longer. Maybe go for something light and fluffy, like Moby-Dick, instead.