Finally tried it: you're right. For some
reason it seems much more difficult than
looking up a word in a dictionary; either
handling the pages makes the slow process
seem faster, or the analog nature of being
able to go {for,back}ward a {little,lot}
is easier on the wetware.
> Even with the probabilities from my old email, I can't input text
> nearly as fast with this method as I can with, say, Tegic T9. I tried
> a certain short phrase; keyboarding it with QWERTY, it took me about 3
> seconds; with T9, I entered it in 25 seconds; with the traditional
> keypad entry "press 2 once for A, twice for B, three times for C", it
> took 37 seconds; with this 4-key method, it took me 148 seconds with
> the probabilities guessed from /usr/share/dict/words and 116 seconds
> with word probabilities from my email. Conditional probabilities
> based on previous words might help some.
I never learned to code Morse, but it seems
that 20 wpm is the equivalent of 55 wpm for
a typist, which implies that a one-key (but
expert-friendly) solution could've entered
that phrase in about 10 seconds.
Maybe this is of interest?
<http://altmark.nat.uni-magdeburg.de/~jschulen/morse/cw_key.html>
> CW_KEY is a tiny program to control your computer with only few keys
> (1..3) using morse code.
-Dave
:: :: ::
#!/usr/bin/python
#
# eviscerate Kragen's four-key input method, and instead use
# a linear search method with five keys: ("rogue" keys + space)
# ^
# larger (k) jumps
# < jump back (h) + (l) jump fwd > (spacebar) accepts
# smaller (j) jumps
# v
# would something like mouse-acceleration (with the keyboard
# repeats) work? It might not only be better for zooming,
# but would also get this technique down to three keys.
#
import os, sys
def chomp(line):
if line.endswith('\n'): return chomp(line[:-1])
return line
def read_wordlist(filename):
class wordlist:
def __init__(self, filename):
self.filename = filename
infile = open(filename)
self.words = []
for line in infile.xreadlines():
word = chomp(line)
self.words.append(word)
infile.close()
def start(self): return 0
def end(self): return len(self.words)
return wordlist(filename)
def bound(val, low, high):
i = int(val)
if i < low: i = low
if i >= high: i = high
return i
class cursor:
def __init__(self, wordlist):
self.wordlist = wordlist
self.max = len(self.wordlist.words)
self.scale = self.max/10
self.pos = self.max/2
self.shuttle(0)
self.zoom(1)
def options(self):
return '[%s]' % self.get()
def get(self):
return self.wordlist.words[self.pos]
def zoom(self, how):
self.scale = bound(self.scale * how, 1, int(self.max/10))
def shuttle(self, how):
self.pos = bound(self.pos + how * self.scale, 0, self.max-1)
def main():
print "reading wordlist..."
wordlist = read_wordlist('/usr/share/dict/words')
os.system('stty cbreak -echo')
backspace, delete = '\b', '\177'
try:
while 1:
c = cursor(wordlist)
msg = ''
while 1:
msg += c.options()
sys.stdout.write(msg)
char = sys.stdin.read(1)
sys.stdout.write((backspace + ' ' + backspace) * len(msg))
msg = ''
if char == 'h':
c.shuttle(-1)
elif char == 'l':
c.shuttle(+1)
elif char == 'j':
c.zoom(0.1)
elif char == 'k':
c.zoom(10)
elif char == ' ':
break
else:
msg = "unknown char '" + char + "' "
sys.stdout.write(c.get() + ' ')
finally:
sys.stdout.write("exiting...")
sys.stdout.flush()
os.system('stty -cbreak echo')
if __name__ == '__main__': main()
