New Steno Dictionary for Emacs

Lorem Ipsum writes on the Plover Google Group:

I just pushed a version 1.0 of a dictionary for use with Emacs. It provides only modifiers for the English alphabet right now. In order to get a release out, I didn't create definitions for Super or for left-hand patterns. It plain language, you can do M-x, C-f, etc. but not M-: or Super-a. Theoretically, everything is explained in the accompaying website.

The "features" are:

Explanation of the dictionary design and design process
Control modifiers
Alt/Meta modifiers
Shift modifiers
C-S, M-S, C-M-S combinations
Escape
Function keys
Please feel free to kick the tires.

The roadmap for v2.0 is to incorporate the (brilliant) ideas of EPLHREU so that the dictionary works for symbols as well as English letters. Seeing as it took nearly 8 months to get this far, expect v2.0 some time around the next United States presidential election ;).

Dictionary: https://github.com/excalamus/plover-emacs/blob/main/plover-emacs.json
Explanation: https://excalamus.github.io/plover-emacs/
Github: https://github.com/excalamus/plover-emacs

I'm a Vim fan myself, but this looks very cool! Nice work, all.

Lovely Plover Tutorial for Mechanical Keyboard Fans

Wow, check out this detailed write-up of reasons mechanical keyboard enthusiasts should try steno, plus how to get ZSA keyboards configured to use Plover using Oryx: The ZSA Keyboard Configurator, by Paul of the Plover Discord. What a thoughtful and well-written post. Great photos, too! I hope it hooks us a few new users. Thanks, Paul!

Typey-Type Keeps Adding New Stuff

The amazing DiDoesDigital just keeps making Typey-Type better and better. From her most recent newsletter:

In the last few months, I’ve made a bunch of new Typey Type lessons:

Top verbs

Two Hanged Women by Henry Handel Richardson: Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson was an Australian author who wrote Two Hanged Women under her pen name, Henry Handel Richardson. She most famously wrote The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, but it’s far too long for a good Typey Type lesson, so you get a short story instead!

The Man from Snowy River by Banjo Paterson: Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson was a bush poet, famous in Australia, even appearing on our $10 note. He also wrote “Waltzing Matilda”, our unofficial national anthem. For this lesson you’ll either want to download the latest Aussie vocab dictionary or treat it as fingerspelling practice when you reach “Kosciuszko”!

Virginia Woolf’s Monday or Tuesday short stories: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”

Orthography rules to match the Learn Plover lesson on orthography rules

Stenotypos: This list of tricky words that are easy to slip up on using steno come from a combination of suggestions from Jenny and another community lessons contributor, Jeremy. It is meant to be hard, so you can get fast feedback on the finicky parts of stenography and kick any bad habits you might have with words that are frequently mixed up.

Cardinal Number Words: contains material like “one thousand”, “one hundred”, and “ninety”.

Ordinal Number Words: contains material like “thousandth”, “hundredth”, and “ninetieth”.

Fantastic Splitography Video Review

Watch Aerick's wonderful video review of the Splitography! It's four months old, so I'm pretty late to the party here, but it's really thorough and well thought out, with detailed comparisons to the Georgi, a demonstration of switch swapping, and quality human captions. Well worth watching, and as someone who owns both a Georgi and a Splitography myself (they're both great machines), I find all of his points extremely fair.

Hobbyist Steno Machine Spreadsheet

Wow, look at this cool spreadsheet laying out all the specs of various hobbyist steno machines! I guess this has been around since May, but I only spotted it when it was recently linked to on the Plover Discord. EDIT: Credit for this excellent spreadsheet goes to Discord user Julia, though it was first brought to my attention when linked by Discord user Biscuits. In mentioning the spreadsheet, they also pointed me to a linktree by SKWREPB (of OSP Community Survey Fame -- see previous post), which is a useful list gathering links to many of the most important steno resources in one place.

Take the 2021 Open Steno Project Community Survey!

The 2021 OSP Community Survey has been open for a few days already and already has 78 responses as of this post, but I wanted to make sure to post it here as well, to make sure its reach is as wide as possible! Please take it and let us know about your experiences, aspirations, and helpful thoughts about open source steno and the community as a whole! Many many thanks to Jennifer Chan (AKA SKWREPB) for putting it all together!!

3D Printed Flat Keycaps at the StenoKeyboards Store

The marvelous Uni keyboard (as mentioned many times previously) is currently sold out, but Peter's StenoKeyboards.com Store is currently selling both white and black 3D printed keytoppers that are flat and MX compatible. A great option for both DIY keyboard projects and for reconfiguring NKRO mechanical keyboards for use with Plover!