Autocorrect in Your Keyboard Firmware (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Autocorrect in Your Keyboard Firmware (2021)

getreuer.info

40 pointssamwho30 comments

> It runs on your keyboard, so it is always active no matter what software.

I like the idea, but wouldn't that get annoying in contexts where you don't want it? My text editor already annoys me with auto-correct, I'm not sure I want even more of it! Ideally, I think this would be an OS-level feature, but one that only targets specific contexts (e.g. 'rich text' fields, not 'plain text' ones; configurable at an app level).

Try to run around in a game, ends up typing an incomprehensible dissertation

> but wouldn't that get annoying in contexts where you don't want it?

It would get dangerous if such a keyboard was used by your doctor or pharmacist. Auto-incorrecting names or dosage of drugs? No thank you.

On the other hand, I'm really not sure if that's a step up or down from pharmacists doing load-bearing handwriting recognition of doctors' prescriptions.

When was the last time a doctor hand-wrote a prescription? 15 years ago?

Still very common in smaller hospitals and independent practices around India.

Last week, near Boston MA.

Tell me you haven't worked in health without telling me you haven't worked in health.

You might want to check my profile ;)

Haha, touché!

Well I can confidently say that your health is different to places I've experienced.

I bet you don't even still use faxes...

Yeah, it's undeniably neat, and sometimes you might not have another option (e.g. if you can't install/modify software on a given device), but whenever there is a choice I'd want to have autocorrect done on the highest possible layer.

I'd hate to have vim commands, game inputs etc. "autocorrected".

Or even better- your password

Another layer of security. Keyvault compromised? No problem, my passwodrs are safe with me!

Such ideas generally interfere with usability. I loath any such automations. Some more examples: the menu changes when the mouse hovers over the item; the window size or position changes when the window movement nears the border; Word automatically indent bullet items etc etc. The people designing such systems think they are designing a smart system and the usability is horrible, for me at least.

Can I raise you with Word and outlook adding ‘smart’ quotes, and Excel destroying CSV data?

Cute and clever idea. There's even overriding autocorrect (hit and release Ctrl before the last letter triggering the autocorrect).

But while principially possible even in the restricted environment of keyboard hardware it is questionable whether it's a good idea after all. It's not a lot more than a toy, especially because the dictionary is limited and hardcoded.

I respect and acknowledge the ingenuity. It must have been a lot of fun to get this working for Pascal Getreuer. Kudos!

I absolutely love everything about this. The hacking, the code optimization, the ingenuity and attention to detail.

And I absolutely hate it. How would you type fitler?

   f i t l e [SPACE] [BACKSPACE] r

Maybe?

Either way, have my upvote!

I guess it can be used also in other ways, especially when you hit a wall.

E.g. my Italian windows key map does not have tilde nor backtick available, and it's just a pain to type the usual alt 126 thing on a modern laptop keyboard, where even the HOME key requires some Fn shenigan. Dell and MS, wow!

This would be extremely useful, since phones typically add the correct accents automatically. But on my laptop I need to do this myself (using a deadkeys layout).

Using linux solves the issue though alt+ì = ~

there's also ÈÉÒÀÌÙ and a bunch of foreign letters like ßøþñħŋđðŧ

I keep a second layout, the "US, alt. intl." (US international alternative?)even on computers without US keyboards, then use a hotkey such as win + space to swap between them and "\" becomes the backtick. Not only it's easy to write "~" but it's also easier to write upper case accented letters since it's just backtick + shift + vowel

If you haven't tried yet, PowerToys' keyboard manager allows shortcuts for single character outputs.

That's what I do for accented characters (e.g. Alt+Shift+C -> ç) and currency characters, it works pretty decently (found it more reliable than AutoHotKey for instance)

I wonder if ideas from the embedded steno community [1] [2] could not be used, as this type of chording/key stroke replacement is the basis of how it works.

[1] https://github.com/jthlim/javelin-steno

[2] https://lim.au/#/software/javelin-steno

One of the first things to be turned off are such autocorrection annoyances, whereever. Instead of constantly having the writing flow interrupted by such overzealous tools, it is much more preferable to spellcheck a document once the text composition is complete.

One of the most idiotic ideas I've seen recently. How to greatly annoy a user without even providing an option to turn this thing off.

There are options to turn this off - build and flash QMK with the feature turned off. A hotkey to toggle the feature doesn't seem impossible either.

Agreed. There is just too many limitations for it to be ever useful, unless you build out a large dictionary with a huge CPU cost... A true waste of effort, albeit a fun one if you wanna learn QMK programming

It doesn't seem useful to everyday computing but I imagine there are niche scenarios where it could be valuable. Stenography comes to mind, or perhaps some machine control or clerical application where there are a limited set of input words that are valid and free typing is rare or disallowed.

A "sticky" modifier key (like caps lock, num lock, etc) that enables or disables it would vastly increase the value in a general situation though.

Sounds like a devious prank to pull on a coworker. Flash their keyboard with firmware that has builtin cloud -> butt, or their -> there and vice-versa

Dwight -> Diapers

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