Improve your touch typing
keybr.com
keybr.com
However, very often I will do something like spelling "icnorrect" from feeling, then hitting backspace exactly eight times and re-type "ncorrect"... which is simply not supported by this software.
And, it should move the cursor without moving the text.
Anyway, as someone who's tried to learn to type on prototype hardware without a working backspace, I appreciate the feature :)
What this really means is that I close browser windows with great frequency whenever I'm typing something and make a typo, and hit CTRL-W.
There's no reason to keep the host key as right control if it causes problems like that. You can set it to something different in VirtualBox's global preferences (Control-G) > Input > Virtual Machine.
Also, you may prefer to run your VMs headless with vboxheadless (man vboxheadless). May save you some time and frustration, and video memory. Then ssh into them by going into the guest settings and forwarding port 22 to a host port (I use 12322).
Something which really grinds my gears is when software has non-rebindable hotkeys. Why are keybinds hardcoded? We can change our controls in games from WASD to ESDF. Why can't we change our copy key in Windows from CTRL+C to CTRL+L, without using 3rd party software?
Having written my own applications on occasion, I know this isn't that difficult. So why is it so uncommon?
For what it's worth: I use AutoHotkey (on Windows) for configuring system wide shortcuts.
Official homepage: http://www.autohotkey.com/ My own ahk files: https://github.com/philippotto/shortcut-collection
The reason the feature doesn't get included as often is because of exactly this. Even someone who could make use of the feature, and is annoyed by the current keybindings, doesn't take advantage of re-binding. The reason it is available on video games, on the other hand, is because its necessary for controller support, which a large enough portion of the video game community uses for it to have high demand.
In-app rebinding also makes life difficult for the developer in the future, because any new feature added may have it's key rebound by some users.
Look at Emacs. Technically users can rebind things, but it's easier to learn the defaults since every other key is already bound to something else.
Generally everything is rebindable internally, but users are only offered compatibility modes with other popular software.
And discussing this reminds me how much of a pain it is. What we need is a system where we set our own defaults in an XML file or some other common format (or use a software tool to do that). Then we can select this keymap when we install applications.
But this makes it a real pain to close a tab.
The other thing that I'd love to see (I may have missed it) is typing proficiency on programming punctuation.
plus, lots of linux apps and the command line you have ctrl+w to go back a word. just fyi. :) quicker than hitting backspace a bunch.
I'm not sure sticking to this measure for typing speed now that hardly anyone uses typewriters -- but errors do break flow, and for that reason it is good to train towards perfect typing -- even if that means typing a little "slower".
Because that's a bad habit when deliberately practicing. A good typing program should have a couple of modes. One that forces you to keep moving forward even if you make a mistake (and not let you backspace, this develops speed). Another one that will make you stop until you hit the correct key (for beginners or to break bad habits).
Depends on what skill you want to focus on.
That and the not-supporting the backspace thing got me a bit.
Still, its a great website design, very easy to get started.
"pon" is an English word, its a (perhaps rare, now) shortened form of "upon" (through age, among other things, it is established both with and without an apostrophe.)
On that subject, what does the word "wyrm" mean?
Edit: Apparently I'm wrong (it's not interchangeable for worm), and it means snake/serpent.
This is a mana wyrm from Warcraft:
http://huangstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/WoWBurningCrusade_...
And this is a wyrm from the Final Fantasy universe:
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/ffxi/images/e/e9/Wyrm.jp...
I'll let you google some more. :)
Æfter ðám wordum
wyrm yrre cwóm
After those words
the wrathful wyrm
came,
atol inwitgæst
óðre síðe
awful cruel visitor
a second time,
fýrwylmum fáh
fíonda níosian
with hostile, gleaming
flood of fire to seek
his foes
láðra manna·sydaudio
líg ýðum for·
the hated humans;
the flame came forth
in waves,
born bord wið rond·
byrne ne meahte
burned shield to
the boss;
the byrnie could not
geongum gárwigan
géoce gefremman
to the young spear-
fighter lend support
ac se maga geonga
maéges scyld
but the young man,
under his kinsman's
shield
elne geéode
þá his ágen wæs
courageously
advanced,
when his own was
glédum forgrunden.
Þá gén gúðcyning
consumed by fire.
To get really fast typing speed, you need to develop muscle memory for words not just letters. For example, when I type the word "complete" I don't think "c", "o", "m", etc. I literally just bolt out the word complete without even thinking about it. I don't believe there is any other way to be able to type more than 2 words per second.
This might be useful to get you to a certain level of moderate proficiency but I believe it will hurt you at higher levels.
I think I agree. Is there any research on this?
There seems to be at least a handful of made up words in there.
I haven't seen any research specifically for typing -- but I think it stands to reason that we use word-images when typing, just as we do when reading, listening and speaking. Once we become proficient at using typing to communicate.
Also, correcting doesn't seem to work like any typing tutor or text editor I know of. Every time I hit backspace and typed the correct letter, it said I typed the wrong letter. Apparently, backspace acts like some weird double-backspace. You have to retype the letter before the mistyped one as well.
Backspace functionality is frustrating as hell.
The algorithm settled in the local minimum.
But after doing that for a good 20 minutes, they gave up on teaching me how to type "Q".
Part of the issue was that Z comes right before that and was filled with one-sided words like 'dazed'(5/5 left-handed strokes) and 'sized'(4/5 LHS's).
And then you qet to Q and you're now forcing yourself to go in the opposite direction with a fatigued hand.
http://i.imgur.com/9X0nFgv.png
The Q-A-Z finger layout requires extremely un-ergonomic compromises: a bent left wrist and/or using side-to-side finger movements rather than "curls".
A simple switch to using the columns Q-A-Shift, W-S-Z, E-D-X, etc. puts your left hand and fingers into a far more comfortable position. Neutral inward-slanted wrists and naturally curling fingers. I suppose E-S-Z might be even better.
I'm very surprised that the "standard" Q-A-Z finger placement for the left hand is still taught. There is a far more comfortable alternative available on any hardware keyboard. I'm curious if there are any other W-S-Zers who type the same way I do.
http://www.typematrix.com/ http://www.keyboard.io/
Standard keyboards already have pretty good columns when you use a neutral slanted hand position. The right side especially, and the left isn't bad as long as you use the W-S-Z offset bottom row.
Originally, it meant not looking at either the keyboard or the output (screen or, for an actual typewriter, the typed page) but only the source from which you were typing, if any -- it referred to typing accurately by touch alone.
It was a key skill when incorporating edits meant retyping, and looking at the output meant you couldn't also be looking at the source, and switching between the two had a significant productivity cost for a high-volume typist.
Its less critical of a skill today but still a useful skill to have if you need to reference some source document for information while typing, etc.
It works for most of the traditional forms of typing (audio typing, typing from shorthand, etc) where you have a body of stuff that needs to be typed and not so well for stuff that programmers type where you're creating as you type.
You must check the text for errors when you've finished typing it so it makes sense to do all the error checking then. Some people find the cognitive focus switching of correcting errors as you type tricky.
For the kind of typos that you would need to be watching the output to correct, it totally makes sense to batch those up sometimes.
This site teaches the letters "eaint" first. I think it's better to introduce the home row first. Don't worry that you can't type much English with the home row (unless you're using another layout like dvorak). Just get them good with different combinations of "asdfjkl;". Then once you have that, you introduce new keys by having them practice the jump from the correct home row key typed with the same finger to the new key and back. Let's say we're introducing 'e' next. The exercise would be something like this:
ded ede dde eed eded dede deeded edded ...
This gets them familiar with precisely the right motor recruitment pattern. The point of this exercise isn't to achieve the absolute maximum speed. It is to exercise the movement pattern of moving a certain finger from the home row to the key and back. Obviously you need to make sure they're keeping their hands on the home row and not typing d and e with two different fingers to go faster on this particular exercise. But that shouldn't be hard to do in your instructions. You can start to dissuade this in your next exercises by bringing in the home row letters typed with the adjacent fingers.
fesd sefd sdfesd fdsefd ...
I think this kind of exercise pattern should be used to introduce all the keys. Once the student has established these motor patterns in the process of learning where each key is, then you can go on to English text. Of course you can put English into these exercises when possible, but not to the detriment of the main point which is motor movement patterns.
If you already know how to touch-type and are learning a new keyboard layout, then obviously you already know the motor recruitment patterns and the approach used by this web app is great.
This is, in all seriousness, my recommendation for learning to touch type:
Step 1: Switch your layout to Dvorak (or any other sensible layout).
Step 2: Learn to use it.
There's no step 3. Touch typing is only hard because QWERTY is a terrible and stupid layout that encourages you to wander from the home row because too many common keys aren't on the home row.
If you solve that problem directly, there's no "learn to 'actually' touch type" step. In any sensible layout (of which Dvorak is merely one of many, really), you don't have to force yourself to touch type... it's just what your fingers will do on their own.
If your goal is to learn to type correctly, based on what I see of people fighting for years, I seriously think that "Learn Dvorak" is a faster, more effective way to get there than "Learn QWERTY + spend the rest of your life trying to force your brain to do something it quite rationally does not believe is optimal".
People can get emotional about this, so bear in mind whether or not QWERTY is the only "practical" layout to learn because it's the only pervasive one is separate from the question of whether it encourages your hands to wander from the home row. (Which is all-but-proved by the very fact we're having this discussion.)
I am also extremely aware of the expense of learning Dvorak or another layout, having done it myself. I still say it's easier that trying to force QWERTY touch typing, if you want to learn to touch type at all. If you're happy with wandering QWERTY syndrome... and I really have no great arguments about why that's bad... then carry on.
Side note: After typing exclusively on dvorak for ~10 years now I actually think that it's not the best layout to maximize potential typing speed. (I've never gotten as fast with dvorak as I used to be with qwerty.) Dvorak focuses too much on single key locations and alternating hands. I think to get the maximum speed a layout needs to focus a lot more on runs, making sure the most common n-grams are typeable with out-to-in or in-to-out runs of adjacent fingers in the same hand. I've thought about working on this, but quite a bit of work would be needed to develop a new and more accurate cost model and find a layout that optimizes it--I've got too many other competing interests. But I'd love to see it done.
In practice, the combined strategy of Dvorak+QWERTY command keys, application-specific layout settings, and a rarely-used keybind to swap manually makes this manageable on a day-to-day basis, but it's definitely not ideal. Blame the dumb legacy technology driving keyboards, if you're mad.
I prefer Emacs to Vim though, perhaps that's less affected since shortcut keys are influenced by meaning rather than position? (e.g., Ctrl+N, P, F, B for moving nextline, previousline, forward, backward).
Actually, I guess most of the keystrokes are placed by meaning, not position.
Switching back to qwerty in vim is pretty rough for me though. Enough of the mnemonics that I use on a regular basis get translated to muscle memory in my head that it's tough. I used to be able to switch back and forth easily when I was at a job that had me on qwerty keyboards regularly. But now that I'm not I've lost a lot of it.
The thing that keeps me from switching is I learned to touch type long before having access to keyboards that could be reconfigured.
While that may be less common now, I suspect lots of people still become proficient keyboarders long before learning how to change keyboard layouts, and at that point switching is a cost rather than a benefit.
A property plenty easy to achieve on any keyboard layout, with a little ingenuity (and possibly a butter knife).
I learned Colemak earlier this year. After I reached my old qwerty speed I re-learned how to type in Qwerty. As such I can now type in both layouts at my original speed. Typing in qwerty is really not bad; good enough that I don't really recommend others to change layouts or learn another one. I am also convinced an opinion stating that qwerty is terrible coming from someone who still can't type in it well and naturally is somewhat biased.
TLDR: build frequent wordlists and lists of n-grams for practicing. Here's mine with lists for English, Unix Commands, and PHP code: https://github.com/gibrown/learn-colemak
I have the exact opposite observation, except for this one. So many typing tutors start with fjfj ffj fjj and on
Nothing is more distracting when trying to learn touch typing than ads flashing all around.
I initially learned on TypingWeb.com (I think that is right) and keybr.com beats it in many ways. The extra book marklet to turn any web page into a lesson is the 1st, the 2nd is the ability to upload your own text.
A 3rd I would like is to give the URL of a Github repo and select a tag then you would be able to type every single file of the repo. It would keep track of your progress for that tag. You could even compete with others for typing say the entire Drupal 7.32 release etc.
I had bought a domain of doing something like this a while ago but only becuase nobody else had done it. keybr.com seems like it has what it takes to do this and I am going to just see if I can get the owner/maintainer to do it instead!
Doing that slows me down to a snail's pace, but its also something I find myself doing all the time as I work out code with others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y&feature=youtu.be...
1) Buy a sliding under desk keyboard tray
2) Leave it under the desk while you type. Don't slide it out
3) a few weeks/months of pain
4) perfect touch typing
You will be shocked how often you were unconsciously looking down at the keyboard as you typed
Rinse, repeat.
But will it be perfect fingering?
Conveniently, in the settings there is a way to set a source. Recently I have been using articles (via url) as the source ~2 times a week. This has helped me improve speed and accuracy (there were a handful of real words which I consistently mis-typed) without fake word headaches!
The key feature is that it targets your weak keys and key combinations and forces you to practice those repeatedly.
I wonder if they just don't fit as well into their pseudoword generation scheme. There's an option to enable punctuation, but nothing for symbols or numbers. Not going after the full keyboard seems like a missed opportunity.
1) The app should offer guidance on which finger should be used to reach each key. Initially learners are more open to developing wrong habits and using particular fingers (they feel more comfortable with) to reach keys.
2) There should be a better flow for communicating progress. What is my overall progress? Am I assessed for all the keys? what are my strengths / weaknesses? what should I work on? etc.
3) I think there should be a language support. Typing words in a language become automatic as you do them more often, for example the stop words that come up very often in English are usually typed really fast by people, because they have memorized the sequence by having typed them thousands of times.
Is that a possibility, or would the algorithms and systems in place not work with those languages?
It starts by teaching you the keys under your index fingers. Then additional keys for your middle fingers, so on and so forth. It shows you which key is supposed to be typed with which finger. Of course you have to make sure that you use your fingers correctly.
I was already typing with five to seven fingers, but training with the program for about two weeks, everyday 30 minutes, greatly improved my typing, now I use 7-10 fingers. Although I still use my index in middle fingers to often.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9578463
Since I wrote that comment I discovered that the GNU typing program called gtypist appears to use an approach close to the one I describe there. You might try that one.
The other thing I wonder is if that style of word display like speed readers use where each word shows up by itself in the middle might be more effective. There were definitely times that I felt like my line scanning was delaying somehow.
I built this addon for people who want to improve their typing while reading the websites they usually do.
It lets you select some text (like the inspect element selector) and do a typing test starting at that point on the page.
It might be worth generating words in a natural language structure. I don't know about others but I tend to read a little ahead of what I'm typing. Pick up the words rather than the letters. When the words are fairly rare, (lots of these words are, at least for me,) and don't seem to follow a linguistic structure, this reduces to reading letter by letter fairly quickly and then searching the string for the next letter.
Like, normally my brain would be going 'This is a thing and my fingers are just filling in in the background. They're not suffering from my conscious attention.'
And at the moment it's going 'o-r-g-o-t' ... 'e-u-g-e' ... 'g-e-r'
I find it really good for practice. The not-quite-correctly-spelled words actually force me out of comfort zone and that is exactly what I need for practice.
Since English is not my native language I also use Type Racer but find that Keybr forces me to focus on typing correctly and fast better than other websites by giving me a typing score along with the speed measurement.
The statistics and the dark theme are also really nice features since I use this for hours.
Pair with Das Keyboard for ultimate in masochistic fun:
Also, thank you for your link. When I need another keyboard, I'll consider the compact version. The tenkeys are really just a dead weight (literally, given how heavy Das Keyboard is :D) for me. Good that it has media keys too, I could never live without them (especially volume obviously; sadly GNOME has a bug that makes play/next/prev useless after a few suspend-wake cycles).
And I type 140-160 WPM. Cherry switches and the sensitivity behind them slow me down as I must be a lot more precise with my keystrokes to prevent accidental keystrokes (and thus more typos, more time wasting pressing ctrl+backspace)
Why is there not just a sample text and a simple text box that you type the entire sample into? Then your product can be diffed against the source and an accuracy rating calculated? This actually matches the normal typing experience.
"Cannot read records from database Because: A mutation operation was attempted on a database that did not allow mutations."
and nothing loads past that.
Firefox 38.0.1 on Windows 7
Did anyone else notice this going through the automated ramp up?
I've also noticed that I have varying shift key usage. Sometimes using the same hand as the shifted key. What I'd like to know is if I would be a better typist with more consistent patterns.
Both of course have their limitations in terms of appropriate words or chunks however.
I might learn how to touch-type but I'm afraid I'll lose my eyesight in the process.
ö is mapped to ü
ä is correct
ü is mapped to ß
ß is mapped to -
^ is mapped to ö
# is mapped to <
Touch typing is as much about not looking at the output as it is not looking at the keyboard.
In my defence, the site didn't load at first.
I'll be in the corner.
And my method of touch typing shows that. My left pinky is ready for the special keys, unused for much of the typing, usually curled toward ctrl. My left hand resting position is on ASD, ready to press W at any time. My left thumb will always be resting on spacebar.
I find the proscribed touch-typing method of using all the fingers I found painful after a few minutes.
I've met exactly one hunt and peck programmer, and I mean like agonizingly slow hunt and peck. Suddenly his lack of productivity made sense to me.
I'm a dev and cannot touch type. 2/3 of the team here can't touch type properly either it seems.
Seems I should quit my job then?
In a test I just took I averaged 86 words per minute, that's using just my index, middle and third fingers and occasionally looking down at the keyboard.
I don't position my fingers along the home row, because doing so just leads me to type at a snails pace and consistently make mistakes.
I've tried to practice it and I just don't improve. Luckily programming aptitude has fuck all to do with how fast you can type.
I can touch type for stretches because I learned the location of the keys organically -- but I've never had (good) formal lessons and have to type a lot of punctuation which is two rows above my fingers -- so I move my hands a lot[1], don't make use of the fixed position on the home row at all, and I end up looking down way more than I probably should (usually at the starting point).
I do about 30-40 wpm on the website above[2] :) Which is way slower than someone I would call a true touch typist, but not slow enough to impede anything but raw transcription.
[1] I have no real evidence, but I think this tendency to move my hand instead of reaching with my finger has let me avoid the repetitive strain syndromes associated with typing, as well. (It could be just that I take minibreaks every 30 seconds to look down :-) :-P)
[2] If I try to do it the classic way.. it's 10 :-P
I can barely break 15 words per minute on this thing without making mistakes after 30 minutes versus 86 wpm using my normal style, which involves me using my index and middle fingers and occasionally looking at the keyboard.
Shame, as I wouldn;t mind actually learning to touch type properly considering I'm a dev.