Monday, October 31, 2011

Experimental Windows Port is Up!

Edited to add: New version, hot off the press, right after I originally posted this. Now it works with both Gemini PR and TX Bolt protocols. That means if you have a Stentura Protege, Cybra, or Fusion, you can press the second and third button of the machine simultaneously to put it into Bolt mode, then use the device manager to see what serial port it's outputting to, and then configure Plover accordingly! Also, I was wrong -- you can totally edit the dictionary. Its path is right there under "configure/dictionary". Woo!

Extremely exciting news. The Plover Project has been joined by Hesky Fisher, an expert programmer whose girlfriend Rachel is currently in steno school. He's been helping us support more steno machine protocols and somewhere down the line he's probably going to be an integral part of the Hover Plover team, since he's got tons of experience in game development, but right now he's working on a Windows port of Plover, which has the potential to multiply our current numbers a zillionfold. (Ubuntu is pretty freaking great, but I know firsthand how intimidating it can be, and most people aren't willing to install Wubi just for the sake of a single program). Hesky's gotten the first version working already! It's a selfcontained .exe file:

Plover.exe


And here's the qwerty-to-steno chart, just as a reminder

Just download it and run it. You'll see the red P appear in your taskbar. Press it so it turns green, and then use your qwerty keyboard or supported steno machine (see above) to write steno into any Windows program! There are a few limitations with this current version. It can't send command strokes, and a side effect of that results in Plover spitting out part of the buffer unpredictably sometimes. But it's a great way to see how Plover works with a minimum of effort. And remember, you don't need an n-key rollover keyboard to see it in action; just about every keyboard is able to write "so is this working?" (SO/S-/TH-/WOG/HF in steno or av/a/rw/ldv/ru in qwerty). Download it, give it a shot, and spread it around to anyone who might be interested. A more complete version is coming soon!

10 comments:

Jade said...

Downloaded and tried! Not writing this comment in it because your theory is too foreign to me...but, at the risk of deploying the year's biggest understatement, WHOA. This is the best nerd thing I've seen in so long! I have a physical feeling of joy doing steno on the Qwerty for the first time! Incredible stuff, all involved.

mirnhoj said...

Awesome! Besides the aforementioned limitations, it's working great! Glad to see the increase of developers in the community.

Jay Liu said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jay Liu said...

Yes, absolutely wonderful!

robb said...

Adding another WHOA, this is really exciting. Have been hoping for this. Will download and try tonight.

Stan Sakai said...

OMFGG. It works with my Lightspeed Steno Writer. Omg omg omg.

Stan Sakai said...

That "unknown" is me, Stan :P.

Tony said...

Hmmm, it's not working with my Gemini TX protocol writer so far. The querty keyboard on my laptop works just fine with it, though.

Stan Sakai said...

To the people using the TX protocol:

Go into the configuration settings and try using these values:


[TX Bolt]
port = COM5
baudrate = 9600
bytesize = 8
parity = O
stopbits = 2
timeout = 2.0
xonxoff = True
rtscts = True

-Stan

Jaded said...

I have installed my elan CYBRA steno machine and it's not being found by the Plover configurator. Any help would be awesome since I can't get the machine to work otherwise!!! (My computer recognizes the writer, but it's not on the Plover.)

xkirstenangelx@aol.com if anyone can help. Thanks!