Dasher: Information-efficient text entry (2007) [video]

A few past (tiny) threads. Maybe this one will get more attention:

Dasher: Information-efficient text entry (2007) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27724932 - July 2021 (1 comment)

Dasher: information-efficient text entry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=807997 - Sept 2009 (1 comment)

A keyboard without keys - Dasher - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132630 - March 2008 (4 comments)

Dasher: information-efficient text entry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16521 - April 2007 (2 comments)

There's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software).

RIP David MacKay. The world could really do with him right now.

You can download it here: http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/Download.html

------

The text below this line was completely written with daSher ! where is the period . Oh, there it is down at the bottom of the box .

----

Played with it for about 10 min, and I timed myself. 5 minutes to type the above. :P

I think it could be really fun if it learns my patterns and I learn it. I found that turning the speed up helped me get paths better, but as you can see the S was fighting me, and sometimes getting "back" felt tough, but it's the same with a keyboard I am just more used to it.

minute 32: breathing as one-dimensional input method (!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpOxbesRNBc&t=1920s

current version of Dasher in the browser: https://dasherv6demo.netlify.app

Incredible! I feel like there’s so much room for improvement for mainstream input methods. Amazing this existed in 2007 — too bad I can’t use it on my iPhone.

Funny I was just thinking today that this would be good for a smart watch.

loved that demo back then but it seems swiping mobile keyboards ate up most of the non-disabled target audience. a bit off topic but its weird how sentimental i get seeing that google tech talks intro. its like a flashback to a past where google still was only the good guy and i still naively thought open source and open rest apis would inevitably lead to an open, connected and free digital world.

tl;dr demonstrates a software tool for typing by navigating through a probability weighted letter cloud. The 'standard' navigation involves mousing up / down to get toward letters and forward / back for speed and backspace. 'Standard' because they determined this can be useful for people for whom a querty keyboard is a challenge (disabled or non latin alphabet). Jump to 6:43 to see it in action.

This feels like a possible tool for getting through text adventures easier. I find that I am not good at guessing the right words for something very free form, like Emily Short's _Galatea_. With Dasher embedded, I could navigate through the language model weighted by the verbs she built the game around, with less artifice / spoilers than choosing from the full list of words.

I was going to suggest maybe using this to augment my phone's swipe keyboard, such that - when it doesn't guess the word and it doesn't show up in the three suggested alternatives, I could touch the side and flow through all the alternatives it thought of. But, like the author, I can see that mode switch is worse than pure swipe or dasher.

Is it possible to get this on android?