Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Hi, I'm one of the Dasher developers, and am also interested in hacking on OpenMoko. So, getting Dasher going is fairly likely. This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time when inputting text. Yes, this is the main difference between Dasher and T9. However, the comments about needing a lot of screen resolution or CPU aren't so true -- we did Dasher on the iPaq seven years ago at full-speed and using 150x150 resolution, and it works great. The reason we get away with not so much resolution is that you're only really ever being asked to choose between five or so probable letters at each turn, and it doesn't take much screen space to show those, and you can predict whereabouts you're headed by knowing the alphabetic order of which character comes next. Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of information input. (I'm not sure what you mean by approach -- Dasher *is* an arithmetic coder, and matches the information-theoretic efficiency of one in terms of bits/input to characters/output.) But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration, sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're blind. Yes, but the Neo doesn't have a keyboard, and doesn't have keys for T9 that you can use without looking at the screen, so I don't think this is a useful criticism. Dasher's very tolerant of vibration and mistakes, unlike T9 on a touchscreen -- it's much like driving a car, in that if you oversteer or understeer you just correct yourself later, because it's all about navigation and where you end up. We can type easily over 20wpm on the iPaq with a touchscreen and stylus. Thanks! - Chris. -- Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop per Child ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Thank you for this post chris, nice to know, that dasher was running on a so old and slow device already. I'm see the things like you do: Touchscreen means you always have to stare at the device for making inputs. Like I said - I had a nokia 7710 before and it was nearby impossible to use it blind. Even if you had a fullscreen T9-keyboad with huge keys you had to check the display, because you cannot feel which key you are pressing. I also like the driving a car comparison :) 2007/5/30, Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi, I'm one of the Dasher developers, and am also interested in hacking on OpenMoko. So, getting Dasher going is fairly likely. This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time when inputting text. Yes, this is the main difference between Dasher and T9. However, the comments about needing a lot of screen resolution or CPU aren't so true -- we did Dasher on the iPaq seven years ago at full-speed and using 150x150 resolution, and it works great. The reason we get away with not so much resolution is that you're only really ever being asked to choose between five or so probable letters at each turn, and it doesn't take much screen space to show those, and you can predict whereabouts you're headed by knowing the alphabetic order of which character comes next. Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of information input. (I'm not sure what you mean by approach -- Dasher *is* an arithmetic coder, and matches the information-theoretic efficiency of one in terms of bits/input to characters/output.) But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration, sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're blind. Yes, but the Neo doesn't have a keyboard, and doesn't have keys for T9 that you can use without looking at the screen, so I don't think this is a useful criticism. Dasher's very tolerant of vibration and mistakes, unlike T9 on a touchscreen -- it's much like driving a car, in that if you oversteer or understeer you just correct yourself later, because it's all about navigation and where you end up. We can type easily over 20wpm on the iPaq with a touchscreen and stylus. Thanks! - Chris. -- Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop per Child ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
There's always the multipress key input method: http://www.robocal.com/prod/robocal/robodicto.php It's low-tech, and works on all phones, since the logic is in the server. I admit it's a bit tedious, but, ... Ted Gilchrist On 5/31/07, Thomas Gstädtner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thank you for this post chris, nice to know, that dasher was running on a so old and slow device already. I'm see the things like you do: Touchscreen means you always have to stare at the device for making inputs. Like I said - I had a nokia 7710 before and it was nearby impossible to use it blind. Even if you had a fullscreen T9-keyboad with huge keys you had to check the display, because you cannot feel which key you are pressing. I also like the driving a car comparison :) 2007/5/30, Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi, I'm one of the Dasher developers, and am also interested in hacking on OpenMoko. So, getting Dasher going is fairly likely. This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time when inputting text. Yes, this is the main difference between Dasher and T9. However, the comments about needing a lot of screen resolution or CPU aren't so true -- we did Dasher on the iPaq seven years ago at full-speed and using 150x150 resolution, and it works great. The reason we get away with not so much resolution is that you're only really ever being asked to choose between five or so probable letters at each turn, and it doesn't take much screen space to show those, and you can predict whereabouts you're headed by knowing the alphabetic order of which character comes next. Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of information input. (I'm not sure what you mean by approach -- Dasher *is* an arithmetic coder, and matches the information-theoretic efficiency of one in terms of bits/input to characters/output.) But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration, sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're blind. Yes, but the Neo doesn't have a keyboard, and doesn't have keys for T9 that you can use without looking at the screen, so I don't think this is a useful criticism. Dasher's very tolerant of vibration and mistakes, unlike T9 on a touchscreen -- it's much like driving a car, in that if you oversteer or understeer you just correct yourself later, because it's all about navigation and where you end up. We can type easily over 20wpm on the iPaq with a touchscreen and stylus. Thanks! - Chris. -- Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop per Child ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community -- Botcast Network: http://www.botcastnetwork.com ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 And it's completely not relevant, as the Neo needs an input method that works for local apps ;) Andreas Ted Gilchrist wrote: There's always the multipress key input method: http://www.robocal.com/prod/robocal/robodicto.php It's low-tech, and works on all phones, since the logic is in the server. I admit it's a bit tedious, but, ... Ted Gilchrist On 5/31/07, *Thomas Gstädtner* [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thank you for this post chris, nice to know, that dasher was running on a so old and slow device already. I'm see the things like you do: Touchscreen means you always have to stare at the device for making inputs. Like I said - I had a nokia 7710 before and it was nearby impossible to use it blind. Even if you had a fullscreen T9-keyboad with huge keys you had to check the display, because you cannot feel which key you are pressing. I also like the driving a car comparison :) 2007/5/30, Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi, I'm one of the Dasher developers, and am also interested in hacking on OpenMoko. So, getting Dasher going is fairly likely. This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time when inputting text. Yes, this is the main difference between Dasher and T9. However, the comments about needing a lot of screen resolution or CPU aren't so true -- we did Dasher on the iPaq seven years ago at full-speed and using 150x150 resolution, and it works great. The reason we get away with not so much resolution is that you're only really ever being asked to choose between five or so probable letters at each turn, and it doesn't take much screen space to show those, and you can predict whereabouts you're headed by knowing the alphabetic order of which character comes next. Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of information input. (I'm not sure what you mean by approach -- Dasher *is* an arithmetic coder, and matches the information-theoretic efficiency of one in terms of bits/input to characters/output.) But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration, sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're blind. Yes, but the Neo doesn't have a keyboard, and doesn't have keys for T9 that you can use without looking at the screen, so I don't think this is a useful criticism. Dasher's very tolerant of vibration and mistakes, unlike T9 on a touchscreen -- it's much like driving a car, in that if you oversteer or understeer you just correct yourself later, because it's all about navigation and where you end up. We can type easily over 20wpm on the iPaq with a touchscreen and stylus. Thanks! - Chris. -- Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop per Child ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org mailto:community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org mailto:community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community -- Botcast Network: http://www.botcastnetwork.com ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGXxTLHJdudm4KnO0RAv7XAKC91ayYJcdRXsfYdAxHTRNQKsKXcgCgyE8Z GkKS6RV3tVh+HXord4O1e2E= =H7/e -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
I gotta say that I just tried the Dasher applet and after just a little bit of practice was humming along. I am very excited that this may (will g) be available on openMoko. On 5/29/07, Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I'm one of the Dasher developers, and am also interested in hacking on OpenMoko. So, getting Dasher going is fairly likely. This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time when inputting text. Yes, this is the main difference between Dasher and T9. However, the comments about needing a lot of screen resolution or CPU aren't so true -- we did Dasher on the iPaq seven years ago at full-speed and using 150x150 resolution, and it works great. The reason we get away with not so much resolution is that you're only really ever being asked to choose between five or so probable letters at each turn, and it doesn't take much screen space to show those, and you can predict whereabouts you're headed by knowing the alphabetic order of which character comes next. Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of information input. (I'm not sure what you mean by approach -- Dasher *is* an arithmetic coder, and matches the information-theoretic efficiency of one in terms of bits/input to characters/output.) But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration, sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're blind. Yes, but the Neo doesn't have a keyboard, and doesn't have keys for T9 that you can use without looking at the screen, so I don't think this is a useful criticism. Dasher's very tolerant of vibration and mistakes, unlike T9 on a touchscreen -- it's much like driving a car, in that if you oversteer or understeer you just correct yourself later, because it's all about navigation and where you end up. We can type easily over 20wpm on the iPaq with a touchscreen and stylus. Thanks! - Chris. -- Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop per Child ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Finger Splash looks very cool and useful. Imho a cool idea. @[EMAIL PROTECTED]: You are right, abcde... keyboards can be used for blind typing. But not on a only-touchscreen-phone. I used a Nokia 7710 for about 1.5 years and typing blind was simply impossible. Theres no feedback at all. 2007/5/30, Ben Burdette [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Dasher is only really information efficient considering the input only. The output stream needs to be quite dense. This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time when inputting text. Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of information input. But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration, sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're blind. (Hmm. /me ponders dasher with audio prompting) T9 or even abc def ... you can use blind. Even qwerty with real hardware keys. (I think on-screen keyb would be optimistic :) ) To me, it looks like Dasher has a some drawbacks: one, it seems to be CPU intensive - there's a lot of animation going on during text entry. Not a problem for PCs, but it might not be optimal on a low power device. two, its storage intensive. You have to have a dictionary of some sort available for it to do its prediction. Or, several dictionaries, each for a different type of text entry (like english and japanese, or english and C++ programming). three, it takes up a lot of screen space. If you are just doing pure text entry without needing to look at something else, that's ok. But I'd rather it didn't take up the whole screen so that I can't see an IM that I'm replying to, or several lines of the website form I'm filling out. That's not to say I'm against Dasher. But I'd like to see a lot of flexibility available in openmoko text entry so that I can change to dasher, or some other text entry method when needed, or just to try things out. I hope someone will implement it for openmoko, together with several other alternatives for doing text entry. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Just one more thing On my laptop I have this little joystick button in the middle of the keyboard. If we could get a button like that on the side of the neo phone, dasher would be great. On 5/30/07, Flemming Richter Mikkelsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just one problem. If we only have one button, there is no way to adjust the speed. On 5/30/07, Flemming Richter Mikkelsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I tried dasher for 2 minutes and I write faster with dasher than on my mobile phone. I also would like the two extra side buttons for dasher but we don't need it. We have the aux button. In pressed mode, it can mean down, and in released mode, it can mean up. I know I will use dasher on my neo when I get it. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
What is wrong with just using the stylus? I've tried it with my Wacom tabled, Dasher works great! If your using an on screen keyboard, you'll need the stylus anyway. On 5/30/07, Flemming Richter Mikkelsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just one more thing On my laptop I have this little joystick button in the middle of the keyboard. If we could get a button like that on the side of the neo phone, dasher would be great. On 5/30/07, Flemming Richter Mikkelsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Just one problem. If we only have one button, there is no way to adjust the speed. On 5/30/07, Flemming Richter Mikkelsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I tried dasher for 2 minutes and I write faster with dasher than on my mobile phone. I also would like the two extra side buttons for dasher but we don't need it. We have the aux button. In pressed mode, it can mean down, and in released mode, it can mean up. I know I will use dasher on my neo when I get it. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
I just watched the Google Video and I found it to be a very cool item. The one-handed aspect of typing with Dasher is useful but I think that using a finger or stylus would be more accommodating -- tilt control (if we had it) could possibly make the screen unviewable, and in/out with the single button might override (or be overridden by) whatever that button's default action is. Another option, with our high-res screen, could be a dasher-like implementation but be more touch-based, i.e. the most likely letter is next and colour-coded and layed out pretty identically, etc, but rather than navigating to the next letter with an always-in-contact stylus-to-screen or always pressed button, one would just tap the next letter with a finger or stylus, with navigation/zoom abilities Original poster, thank you for the link to the Google Video! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Frank Coenen wrote: What is wrong with just using the stylus? I've tried it with my Wacom tabled, Dasher works great! If your using an on screen keyboard, you'll need the stylus anyway. This is a bit OT but, if you are using the stylus, some people may find it more efficient to use simplified handwriting, such as found on the original Palm devices. Some loved it and some said it sucked, but I found it pretty usable after very little practice. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Flemming Richter Mikkelsen said the following on 30/05/07 14:21: Just one more thing On my laptop I have this little joystick button in the middle of the keyboard. If we could get a button like that on the side of the neo phone, dasher would be great. A little scroll wheel like on mice or on the side of a BlackBerry would be good for Dasher. Scrolling is a common operation, it'd be cool to have it on the OpenMoko. Rory -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGXaPKfM8hGU8tATMRAoNXAKDYcXudmdnC2XQfx/CoOrRO9cSOSQCgn1Ur I/EnKOpYTyd51MTpeITDNf0= =8BCe -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
shamless_plug Many fingerprint sensors that would fit where the button is have a navigation function. They operate much like the touchstick, or a mini touchpad, when not capturing a fingerprint. They are gaining traction in the tablet and ultra-mobile PC market for doing scrolling and simple navigation when a stylus is overkill for a certain quick navigation action. For example, this tablet has one on the top left (as pictured) http://www.tabletpc2.com/Review-FujitsuST5020-Article020605.htm /shamless_plug --Steve On 5/30/07, Rory McCann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Flemming Richter Mikkelsen said the following on 30/05/07 14:21: Just one more thing On my laptop I have this little joystick button in the middle of the keyboard. If we could get a button like that on the side of the neo phone, dasher would be great. A little scroll wheel like on mice or on the side of a BlackBerry would be good for Dasher. Scrolling is a common operation, it'd be cool to have it on the OpenMoko. Rory -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGXaPKfM8hGU8tATMRAoNXAKDYcXudmdnC2XQfx/CoOrRO9cSOSQCgn1Ur I/EnKOpYTyd51MTpeITDNf0= =8BCe -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
shamless_plug Many fingerprint sensors that would fit where the button is have a navigation function. They operate much like the touchstick, or a mini touchpad, when not capturing a fingerprint. They are gaining traction in the tablet and ultra-mobile PC market for doing scrolling and simple navigation when a stylus is overkill for a certain quick navigation action. For example, this tablet has one on the top left (as pictured) http://www.tabletpc2.com/Review-FujitsuST5020-Article020605.htm http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wish_List_-_Hardware#Finger_print_sensor ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
On Tuesday, May 29, 2007, Peter Hoffmann writes: Hi i just stumbled over a video at the google talks series[0] about information-efficient text entry using dasher[1]. I think this is quite an interesting input method for mobile devices with touch screens or motion sensors. And it is open source and its user interface is based on gtk. An other great point is that it is not only limited to english text, but you an use any input language/alphabet you want. I'm looking forward to test it on a neo. What do you think? Regards Peter [0] http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5078334075080674416 [1] http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/ I think you should've searched the wiki :) http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wishlist:Text_Input lists Dasher as only one of over a dozen different wishlisted input methods. --pj ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Paul Jimenez schrieb: On Tuesday, May 29, 2007, Peter Hoffmann writes: Hi i just stumbled over a video at the google talks series[0] about information-efficient text entry using dasher[1]. I think this is quite an interesting input method for mobile devices with touch screens or motion sensors. And it is open source and its user interface is based on gtk. An other great point is that it is not only limited to english text, but you an use any input language/alphabet you want. I'm looking forward to test it on a neo. What do you think? Regards Peter [0] http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5078334075080674416 [1] http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/ I think you should've searched the wiki :) http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wishlist:Text_Input lists Dasher as only one of over a dozen different wishlisted input methods. --pj I knew the text_input section in the wiki and added the link to the video . But I found the presentation so interesting to share it with the list too. Regards Peter ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: information efficient text enty using dasher
Dasher is very neat, seems the method would be well suited to a wheel button. I wonder if theres a method of entering text that would be well suited to messaging but still handsfree. Voice recognition is the only thing I could think of. Matt ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Imho it would be fantastic to have 2 navkeys at the right side of the phone to use dasher in the 1D-mode. So it could be possible to write texts using the right thumb what means typing with only one hand would be possible. A touchpad like seen on devices like the Cowon iAudio 6 or the Creative Zen-Touch-Series would be even better. Btw: I tried dasher for some minutes and its a bit hard at the beginning. After 5-10 mins of training it works very well! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
I did the same thing. I had played with it in the past using the browser applet and it really didn't do it much justice. I put it on my pda and (after some training) and you were inputting common words, then it wasn't that bad, but still not a super intuitive method for input, but may be a good option since we don't have a hw keyboard. My favorite input method is still the finger splash concept (needs some tweaking to the concept though) http://www.micropp.se/openmoko/ Thomas Gstädtner wrote: Btw: I tried dasher for some minutes and its a bit hard at the beginning. After 5-10 mins of training it works very well! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Jonathon Suggs wrote: My favorite input method is still the finger splash concept (needs some tweaking to the concept though) http://www.micropp.se/openmoko/ I like that one. One issue would be the font size, though - the secondary letters are quite hard to read on the Neo, and the multi-letter functions are basically unreadable (while unsplashed). - Werner -- _ / Werner Almesberger, Buenos Aires, Argentina [EMAIL PROTECTED] / /_http://www.almesberger.net// ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Jonathon Suggs wrote: My favorite input method is still the finger splash concept (needs some tweaking to the concept though) http://www.micropp.se/openmoko/ I like that one. One issue would be the font size, though - the secondary letters are quite hard to read on the Neo, and the multi-letter functions are basically unreadable (while unsplashed). Dasher is only really information efficient considering the input only. The output stream needs to be quite dense. This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time when inputting text. Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of information input. But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration, sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're blind. (Hmm. /me ponders dasher with audio prompting) T9 or even abc def ... you can use blind. Even qwerty with real hardware keys. (I think on-screen keyb would be optimistic :) ) ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
Dasher is only really information efficient considering the input only. The output stream needs to be quite dense. This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time when inputting text. Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of information input. But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration, sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're blind. (Hmm. /me ponders dasher with audio prompting) T9 or even abc def ... you can use blind. Even qwerty with real hardware keys. (I think on-screen keyb would be optimistic :) ) To me, it looks like Dasher has a some drawbacks: one, it seems to be CPU intensive - there's a lot of animation going on during text entry. Not a problem for PCs, but it might not be optimal on a low power device. two, its storage intensive. You have to have a dictionary of some sort available for it to do its prediction. Or, several dictionaries, each for a different type of text entry (like english and japanese, or english and C++ programming). three, it takes up a lot of screen space. If you are just doing pure text entry without needing to look at something else, that's ok. But I'd rather it didn't take up the whole screen so that I can't see an IM that I'm replying to, or several lines of the website form I'm filling out. That's not to say I'm against Dasher. But I'd like to see a lot of flexibility available in openmoko text entry so that I can change to dasher, or some other text entry method when needed, or just to try things out. I hope someone will implement it for openmoko, together with several other alternatives for doing text entry. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: information efficient text enty using dasher
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dasher is only really information efficient considering the input only. The output stream needs to be quite dense. I was commenting on finger splash. I agree that Dasher seems extremely stressful, more like a fast-paced video game. - Werner -- _ / Werner Almesberger, Buenos Aires, Argentina [EMAIL PROTECTED] / /_http://www.almesberger.net// ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
