TIPP10 – Free Touch Typing Tutor | Hacker News Reader

TIPP10 – Free Touch Typing Tutor

tipp10.com

50 pointsTomte28 comments

See also:

- https://www.keybr.com/ for learning touch-typing discipline with not-quite-English words.

- https://monkeytype.com/ for a very pretty online touch typing website, with many features.

I've been using keybr to great success. Gone from about 30wpm pecking to 40 touch-typing (with the base now to improve going forward) in a few weeks at half an hour every day or so. Also helpful was the recently featured typelit.

I drilled keybr from 30wpm to 110 several years ago and still come back every few days to practice. It is a great tool. I sometimes use it to "study" documentation by pasting it in as a custom prompt.

That's a great idea. I normally use https://www.spreeder.com/app.php but will try this!

I used GNU typist[1] when I picked up touch typing.

The only weird thing was that it insisted on two spaces after a period which I think is stupid, so I replaced all double spaces with single ones in the tutorial files.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/savannah-checkouts/gnu/gtypist/gtypist.h...

I think that may be the style of the older generation - remember my grandparents doing this when I first started using a computer.

Also, I never actually use it personally but a double space on a Mac keyboard automatically enters a period and a (single) space for you.

Great now i feel old. I was taught to use double space after periods.

I will happily continue double spacing until my fingers curl in death. Except on my phone: whatever it does, I've determined, is beyond my control.

Same!

It was only 6-7 years ago that I switched to single spaces.

The double-space after the period is good when using a monospaced typewriter, because for readability there should be more space between sentences than between words (not twice as much, but that's the best you can do with a typewriter unless it has a half-space.)

Now that most writing is done on word processors that use proportional fonts and manage the spacing themselves, it's no longer called for.

If you run the GNU Emacs tutorial, you will also find the hint to use two spaces after a sentence. Emacs (and possibly other programs) can such distinguish between abbreviation points and sentence endings. E.g., M-a and M-e jump to the start and ending of a sentence.

Double spaces after a period is a holdout from the typewriter era, designed to improve legibility with monospaced fonts.

I reached 90 WPM through an organic process that started with hunt-and-peck. Reverse engineering that process, I discovered that I often perform rolls were standard QWERTY touch typing would have me do a single finger bigram (SBF). That is, I do not always use the same finger for the same key to avoid SBFs.

So learning to touch type for me is a frustrating experience because it forces my fingers into less efficient movements.

That’s why I’m working on learning an optimized layout called Hands Down Neu. Up to 20 WPM atm using feurix “speedpad” to train and track progress offline. Matplotlib to graph progress.

How much has it damaged your QWERTY skill? I have avoided trying to learn another layout because occasionally you need to use someone else's keyboard and I don't want to look like an idiot.

I use Colemak DH, and have done for a few years. I could never touch type very well on QWERTY anyway so using QWERTY I am no slower than I was originally (in fact, I'm probably faster, since I now use my fingers properly). As long as it isn't very frequent, using hunt-and-peck on any QWERTY keyboards you come across is fine, and touch typing a different layout won't affect it.

Probably off-topic, but I recently made the stupid decision of learning dvorak while I had to get some important work done.

I am currently at: 1) I don't type dvorak fast enough which really reduces my motivation, but I'm getting faster pretty quickly 2) My qwerty typing skills have gotten even worse, I look a bit stupid when I try to fix problems on other computers at ~15 WPM.

Generally I don't regret starting to type dvorak, I just wish I had done it another time where typing slowly doesn't affect me as much.

I started learning Dvorak my first semester of college (many years ago). I sort of "regretted" it for a while, especially when I needed to write a paper before a deadline. But I pushed through and am glad for it.

Keep at it!

If you regularly use both (I use workman on my ergo layout board at home and qwerty on my [school] laptop) I type roughly the same speed on both

Shouldn't it be SFB?

"my fingers into less efficient movements" - don't lie to yourself. I could type fast from games, but standard touch typing saves my index finger joints and lets me type in meetings without being distracted at all. I also finally understand why the notches on f and j exist and can pick up most keyboards and just type.

I still want to take classes sometime so space and special characters don't slow me down. Key to touch typing is always keeping fingers and hands at neutral position, which is still hard for me to do when typing something long.

> "my fingers into less efficient movements" - don't lie to yourself.

I used to type at 120+ wpm using my self taught typing experience.

I purchased a new keyboard recently with ortholinear layout and figured it would be a good time to learn proper touch typing. I'm at 70-80 wpm and cannot see how to improve unless I _free_ myself from pure touch typing.

There are just limitations to how a single hand can move when multiple keys have to be hit on the same side or even the same finger.

Could you give me some concrete examples? Genuinely not arguing for sake of argument. I can still "burst" half a sentence quicker using "no form", but for sustained fast typing, I find touch typing to be the best. If you want to get to 120wpm, the few key (hue) points to focus on are training yourself to hit the space with the correct thumb, to use both shift keys, to turn caps lock on when you are typing a long const, and then obviously to memorize all the number keys and their symbol equivalent. And, of course, consistency.

I find this to be a really good test for programmers: http://wpm-test.com/programming-typing-test/

Most people will double their speed with plain text as compared to above.

I don't like how TIPP10 requires registration to use the app, personally.

I taught myself touch typing more than 20 years ago via the free tests at https://typingtest.com, which is still around. I still go there occasionally to compare keyboards. The site is great because you can launch into a test instantly with no registration.

IMO those kinds of short passages are all you really need to get good at typing.

I was about to make a comment arguing that you only use 9 fingers to touch type, but as I was typing it I realized that I use don't always use the same thumb to press the space bar. TIL

Hoping the author reads this: I'd be using your online version if it didn't require a login, especially with a confirmation email after account creation. You lost me right there. Too high threshold, giving you my real address or going through the hassle of a burner one. I'll just use one of the hundreds of alternatives now.

Please do some serious thinking whether this login thing is really needed. I may not be interested in the features that need some statistics tied to an account.

I like typelit.io as I can read books at the same time

Any comparisons to https://www.typingclub.com/?

I used the desktop version to learn touch typing. Can recommend!

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