Typey Type Improvements

Typey Type just doesn't stop getting better, huh?

Di's latest Patreon update lays out all the fantastic improvements!

KAOES game improvements
The Typey Type KAOES game now has an option to play with Raw or QWERTY steno input. Thanks to trustyset for their feedback on the KAOES and suggesting QWERTY steno mode is added!

To use the raw steno option, you can use a dictionary to type raw steno. I created this raw steno dictionary that you can download from the Typey Type KAOES help modal or the GitHub steno dictionaries repository. When using the raw steno dictionary and raw steno mode, the KAOES game will clear the input whenever you type " *". Thanks go to another Typey Type student using the feedback form for pointing out the challenges of typing the star key when Plover treats star as undo!

For the folks that know their way around developer tools…

… you can also tweak your local data data to set a custom number of rounds to win the KAOES game. Set the typey-KAOES-rounds key in your local storage to a number between 1 and 10000 and refresh the page. This is only an experiment so far so you won't see the max rounds number update on the page, but if you've set a high number you'll have an effectively infinite KAOES game. Thanks again to the Typey Type student who suggested that through the feedback form!

No more stroke "overruns"
In the past, if you typed a word like "French" but accidentally hit the "-S" key, Typey Type would see the text "French", mark it correct, type "es", and mark the next word incorrect. Well, no more! Typey Type will now let all the text of "Frenches" appear without marking the word "French" correct until you fix the typo. This was a complex challenge to solve, and huge thanks go to na2hiro for writing the code to fix that!

Updated backup banner
The Progress page has also had a visual update. There used to be a couple of large panels explaining how and why to import and export your words progress. They were so large that some new starters didn't realise there was more to the page underneath. So the visual update has reduced the amount of space taken up for this. But some new starters also lose their progress by accident and get frustrated and abandon steno! So we made sure to keep the new banner prominent and to the point: Back up your progress regularly. Thanks again to na2hiro for sharing their feedback of their experience with the Progress page and for writing the code to update it!

Bookmarked lesson searches
The main Lessons page now shows your search text in the address bar. This lets me share a links like a search for all lessons with "fingerspelling" or "briefs" in the title e.g. https://didoesdigital.com/typey-type/lessons?q=fingerspelling

This also means if you search for a lesson, go to it, then hit the back button, your search will still be there.

Thanks again to na2hiro for writing the code for that! Behind the scenes, na2hiro has also been contributing lots of code to update how "state" is managed in Typey Type, which has made some subtle changes to how pages load and made Typey Type more resilient against errors (from flakey Internet connections). We've been making these changes so that Typey Type is easier to change and maintain, which I hope will make it more inviting for more developers to contribute. It certainly makes my life easier!

Yawei Chinese steno
There's now a Yawei Chinese steno layout option. Thanks to Devin for reaching out to me and collaborating to make that diagram and its behaviour possible!

If you use this layout, let me know! I'd love to hear feedback.

Dictionary improvements
Thanks to Monniasza for sharing feedback on the steno dictionaries repository! I've made a handful of dictionary updates to reduce misstrokes shown to people on Typey Type. It is a continuous activity!

Other updates
The KHAERT bot has more responses to questions about Plover now, thanks to student feedback. Feel free to suggest more!

Type Type now remembers your preference to "hide settings" when you come back to it.

The Italian Michela layout on the Writer page now fits better on small screens.

Updates some entries in the longest single-stroke briefs lesson since some previously single-stroke words were removed.

Updates links to Learn Plover since it moved.

Added a little detail about me to the About page for some curious folks.

Reduced some errors from Google translate

I don't always share smaller updates until I have a few to share together, but this may have been a bit overdue! I hope you like these improvements. As always, let me know what feedback you have!

Ploverizing a Mechanical Steno Machine!

Check out this amazing GitHub repo, detailing the process of turning an old non-electronic steno machine into one that's compatible with Plover! Extremely, extremely cool!!

Shrimple: A Python Dictionary for Orthospelling

Another in my series of cool Plover tricks that I don't (yet?) use personally, but that have become rather popular in the Open Steno Community. If traditional fingerspelling feels too slow, clunky, or laborious to you, you might want to try StenoHarri's Shrimple, a Python dictionary that allows you to fingerspell orthographically using chords. As helpful Plover Discord denizen Hellochap explains:

Basically it allows you to temporarily make your whole keyboard type literally, so like everything just goes to its corresponding letter. usually you have either a starter stroke to activate it, or you combine your first letter with a key like + or 🦐. and then to exit the mode you press S-P or punctuation or a Jeff’s phrase etc. Typically now we just notate whatever you use to enter shrimple with just the shrimp 🦐, regardless of if you use a shrimp key or not, just for funsies.

so in example: 🦐AB/RA/KRA/TKAB/RA/S-P -> abracadabra

And we also have other starter strokes for starting with a capital, or all caps etc.

Ingenious!

Open Steno Community Survey Results 2024

Sorry I'm rather late to the game with this one! I didn't notice that the survey results were posted back in June. But better late than never, eh?

Here are the results!

I also found this nice blog post highlighting a few of the responses. I'm so proud of the way the Open Steno community has grown and deepened over the years. It's beautiful to see.

Javelin Updates!

The amazing Tharelia (aka Jeffrey Lim, creator of Javelin and the Jarne) writes:

Hi all, there’s been a couple of scattered updates on Javelin, but here’s a summary of the key things that have changed since the last summary update in May.

Firmware
Added support for orthospelling, including an example configuration for Shrimple.
Added mouse controls; mouse button presses can be configured in the visual editor. (requires firmware dated August 3 or later)
Added layouts for Corne v3 and Kyria rev3 so they can use the visual editor under the Script web tool
Added templates, using commands =set_value and =transform
Added commands: :stitch, :stitch_last_word
Added detection of incomplete firmware dictionary uploads
Lots of performance improvements and fixes, including a JIT for the regex engine on the Jarne.

Firmware Builder
Added support for orthospelling dictionaries
The layout or script is now built into the firmware to allow easier modification later.
The download size of the base image when building a firmware has been reduced by 80%
Added new expert option to enable the firmware to send button press events.
This enables the key layout tool to show which keys are being pressed

Firmware Tools
Added Bootloader tool
Added Key Layout tool, to show the layout of the active layer.
Button presses will be shown if enabled when building the firmware.
Added Template Values tool
Lots of visual tweaks/spacing tidy ups across the tools
The Visual Editor has had a lot of upgrades to support the Jarne, including script options/templating.
Documentation for this is pending.

Steno Team on NitroType!

Steno practice is more fun with friends! Join the Steno Team on NitroType for some friendly competition!

Daniele Triumphs at Intersteno!

A guest post from the amazing Daniele Casarola, who just won second place in Audio Transcription - Seniors Division at Intersteno using Plover!! So incredibly impressive and cool!!!

The 54th Intersteno concluded on July 17, 2024, a biennial event held in Katowice, Poland.

The event lasts a week, during which speed writing professionals gather.

This year, the Congress and its seven international competitions saw the participation of over 400 people from countries across all five continents: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Czechia, China, Korea, Croatia, Denmark, France, the Philippines, Finland, Germany, Japan, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Romania, Slovakia, the United States, Turkey, and Hungary.

I attended my first Intersteno in 2017 in Berlin, then in 2019 in Cagliari, in 2022 in Maastricht, and finally this year in Katowice.

I have always used the stenographic keyboard and the Plover application with the plugin for the Italian method, from version 3.0 up to the latest 4 RC2.

2017 was also the year I started working as a stenographer, so my ranking in the competitions was decidedly low.

I was impressed by the speed and accuracy that the stenographers who reached the podium were able to achieve, especially the American stenographers, with whom the Italian stenographic method shares the same keyboard layout.

Even when replicating the same competition alone in the tranquility of my studio, I couldn't match the same results.

The nature in which Plover was developed allows for deep customization.

This allowed me to introduce accessibility tools and make the stenographic method more usable.

Furthermore, I was able to customize the dictionary not only in terms of abbreviations but also with additional orthographic rules, aiming to reduce the number of keystrokes as much as possible.

It was a long job, requiring a lot of patience, but with each new competition, I saw improvements.

Until July 17, 2024, when in the Audio Transcription test, I reached the second position on the podium, naturally below an American stenographer :)

Plover has always proven to be a reliable tool, performing its job without interruptions or crashes.

The experience of live competition is not like that of everyday work.

Being all gathered in a large room.

The silence, and tension accompanying the countdown.

The starting whistle and the frantic noise of fingers on the keys.

Hands starting to tremble with emotion and the vain attempt to control them.

These are moments where more than competing with others, you compete with yourself, putting into practice the training done, the new abbreviations, and trying to control your emotions.

A heartfelt thank you to the whole team that has worked on and contributed to the development of Plover, which has allowed me to reach this milestone.