Cool Rig

CashewGuy says:

I put some time into fiddling with my vial settings and plover and got the kyria quite workable, at least such that I can practice and get a feel for some stuff! Pretty cool. Rather lowtech.

The Leversteno!

The Leversteno is now available for preorder from Nolltronics! They sent me one to review and I'll definitely be doing that soon, but I wanted to make sure everyone knew about it. It's such a cool and ingenious device!

Mejiro31 Now On Sale

The Mejiro31 steno keyboard is now on sale in Japan. Looks super cute!

Answer Not in Progress

 So last spring I did an interview with the website Answer in Progress, which makes explainer videos on various interesting topics, because they said they were doing a video on stenography. Exciting! I thought the interview went really well. But the video never came out. Today I finally got curious about why, and found a podcast episode on their Patreon about all the videos they wound up canceling in 2025. Stenography is one of them. It starts at 19:00, but the short answer is that the video producer bought a non-ergonomic steno keyboard and wound up getting a repetitive stress injury from trying to learn steno. NOOOO! Let this be a lesson to all steno newbies! Ergonomics are incredibly important. Try to use a tentable machine whenever possible. Use a tripod if you can. Put the machine low enough to keep your shoulders down and your forearms parallel to the ground. And use springs that as light and shallow as you can find. That should help prevent RSIs! I'm really sad to hear about the injury, and secondarily sad that the video won't come out. Ah, well. 

Five Steno Machines in a Backpack

It was so good to see everyone at PyCon and to get to talk steno with a few of you! I thought it might be fun to show you the five steno machines I brought to the conference (Infinity Ergonomic, TinyMod, Jarne, Jarne Blade, and Asterisk) and what my backpack looked like with those machines plus three computers and all my other steno gear in it. The gray backpack was pretty much all clothes and the black backpack was pretty much all steno stuff. Strapped together, they made a pretty efficient travel bundle, and they were both able to go on the plane as carryons, which was convenient.

Find me at PyCon!

I'll be captioning PyCon for White Coat Captioning this weekend. If you're a member of the Open Steno community (or even if you're just curious about steno), please feel free to come find me! I'd be happy to talk steno and let you try out my various steno machines! :D

Asterisk Back in Stock!

The most affordable steno board of all time is back in stock! I strongly suggest using electric foam with it, since I found that it turned the board from very tricky to use into a real pleasure.

Instagram video with 5 million views!

Peter of Stenokeyboards has really been getting the word out about steno! Over 5 million views! Dang!!

Plover2Cat 4.1.0 Released

 Update via the Plugin Manager. Changes listed here!

Plover v5.3.0 Released!

Plover v5.3.0 has been released!

Features

User Interface

Add missing translations. (#1825)

Alter form and tab order in Add Translations widget to be more logical and save strokes when navigating with keyboard. (#1833)

Bugfixes

Core

Fix translation catalog generation. (#1824)

User Interface

Fix lookup QT GUI errors. (#1830)

Improve plugin manager keyboard navigation. (#1834)

Align tooltip format. (#1834)

Improve menu dropdown item order. (#1834)

Fix trailing slash when space placement is set to After Output in the Add Translation dialog. (#1836)

Linux

Make wmctrl optional on Wayland to prevent crash on startup. (#1832)

Fix modifier alias keys in wayland. (#1838)

macOS

Fix Plover terminal commands on macOS. (#1827)

Captioner Mike Teaches Steno

Mike Rowell, also known as Captioner Mike, is giving online steno classes and wanted to make sure that the Open Steno community knew about them. He says:

I'm teaching a version of the intro course, NCRA A to Z, with my own added outlines/those from Chase Frazier's Champion Steno theory, starting the second Sunday in May, 5/10, 10a-11a instruction, 11a-12p (PDT) for open office/rambling. I'll also be doing Saturday office hours from roughly 8:30-11:30a (PDT) for people wanting help with practice. The course is designed for would be school students, looking to get their feet wet, from the never-seen-the-keyboard phase through as much theory as we can reasonably get through. I was hoping I might find some volunteers here to help set up would-be steno learners with Plover, give recommendations on your favorite cheap writer, etc.

Join the Open Steno Discord for the Zoom link if you're interested!

Jarne Firmware Change

Tharelia writes:

Heads up to Jarne (Blade) owners that firmware April 2026 makes a change in the Bluetooth split protocol between the halves, and will require that you update both the main and pair firmwares.

This was done as work on the Jaffle made it clear that it was necessary to make a couple of changes to improve the performance and power consumption further, and that change has benefits for the Jarne and Jarne Blade too.

Ztype with Plover

From earlier this year, Gfixler plays Ztype with steno. I just really love watching demonstrations of video games + steno.

Awesome Plover Repository

This isn't actually new, but it's new to me: The Awesome Plover repository on Github. It's got a curated list of useful and popular dictionaries and plugins. If the master list of plugins is too overwhelming, it might be a good place to start.

Plover 5.2.3 Released!

Plover 5.2.3 has been released!

Features

No significant changes.

Bugfixes

macOS

• Fix DMG background image display issues on macOS 26.2 Tahoe. (#1821)
• Fix missing menu bar icon on macOS 26. (#1822)

API

No significant changes.

RPR With Plover Sans Steno School!

Check out this fantastic success story from Amy Hua, a self-taught stenographer who now holds an RPR (Registered Professional Reporter) certification from the National Court Reporters Association! This is something I really hoped would happen when I founded Open Steno, and I'm so thrilled to see that she managed to do it!

Plover 5.2.2 released!

Plover 5.2.2, a bugfix release, is now available!
Bugfixes

User Interface

Hide Wayland keymap help text when not on Linux and improve wording. (#1817)

macOS

Fixed startup hang when launching Plover on Intel Macs (#1820)

Cool New Prototype from Sasha

Look at this cool flex lever steno machine Sasha sent me! I love how the design almost looks like dazzle camouflage. I'll post a full review once I've put it through its paces!

Plover v5.2.0 released!

Plover v5.2.0 has been released!!

Features:

Linux

Support determining keyboard layout from Wayland with the wayland-auto layout. (#1807)

Avoid unnecessary rapid modifier key press/release while typing. (#1810)

macOS

Add appearance configuration option. (#1786)

Windows

Add appearance configuration option. (#1786)

Bugfixes

Core

Fix a corner case in plover -s (script). (#1803)

User Interface

Fix default window sizes and extensions config table. (#1789)

Update Thea's name and email. (#1792)

Remove broken use_timeout checkbox in serial options. (#1793)

Make the plugin manager handle some exceptional cases. (#1802)

macOS

Hide the Start Minimized setting on macOS due to bug in macOS 26. (#1788)

API

Core

Migrate HID library to cython-hidapi. (#1812)

Thanks as always to our lead dev, the wonderful mkrnr!

Site for Lapwing Drills

Toyboot4e made a webapp for Lapwing Drills!

Javelin Year in Review

Tharelia writes:

Javelin 2025 Year in Review

Here's a recap of some highlights from 2025:

Firmware

New Features

* Added Passport protocol

* Added support for encoders and pointers (e.g. Cirque trackpad)

* Added configurable delay between output

* Added support for alternate steno systems (e.g. German Regenpfeifer); switched default system to extended-english

* Added MIDI output

* Added infrared capability

Enhancements

* PloverHID is now the default alternative steno protocol for all boards that used to switch between Gemini PR and Embedded steno.

* Paper Tape and Steno Layout web tools work when using steno protocols

* Fully flexible host layout configuration

* Added a range of cryptographic signing methods for security key implementation, including post-quantum algorithms: Dilithium2/3/5

Web Tools

Connectivity:

* Added Linux support for WebHID over Bluetooth

* Added WebSerial and WebBluetooth connectivity methods

New Tools:

* Asset Tool

* Audio Tool

* Bluetooth Tool

* Infrared Tool

* Security Key Tool

* Serial Bridge Tool

Tool Enhancements

* Lookup Tool now shows prefixes and related outlines

* Added Hesitation times to Paper Tape export

* Added Occurrence Rating and Dictionary options to Suggestions tool

* Added timestamps and ability to execute scripts within Console tool 

* Added ability to add keyboard outlines and interactive controls to Key Layout tool

Visual Editor

* Added cut/copy/paste support

* Added undo/redo

* Added prefab support

* New Triggers:

  * Double Press

  * Rapid Fire

* New Actions:

  * Audio Sequence

  * Condition

  * Delayed Action

  * Set Variable

Firmware Builder

* RTF dictionary support

* Option to ignore bad dictionary entries

There have also been a number of significant power and performance optimizations and bug fixes through the year.

Happy New Year!

BYOK: Not Yet Ready for Steno :(

Well, I finally got my long-awaited BYOK, but unfortunately it doesn't work with any of the four steno machines I tried on it (all running different versions of Javelin, including one in compatibility mode). Apparently it's a problem with the implementation of the HID protocol on the BYOK firmware, and according to Tharelia that's likely to be causing problems with all NKRO keyboards, not just steno machines, so with luck the other customers struggling with similar issues will pressure the company to prioritize a fix. I hope they do, because it's a lovely little machine, and I can see myself using it for novel writing, editing, maybe even live captioning! Fingers crossed they figure it out soon.

Steno Stednesdays

Jonas says:

I've been learning lapwing for a few months, currently have my wpm between 30 and 60 depending on my familiarity with the text. As I've also been getting back into twitch streaming I've started up "Steno Stednesdays" on Wednesdays to share my progress and chat while I practice!
My next one will be today at 1pm pacific, and I plan to post here whenever I go live in case anyone wants to tune in!
ChannelJonas