[sw-l] New Version of Keyboarding Software

[Bill Reese]

Interesting program Sandy!

The relational figure in the background provides a very useful tool.  I
liked the way the Enter key jumped to the next keyin position (or
whatever you call it).

I tested the arrow keys for moving the active symbol and found something
a little buggy.  When I press the Tab key while there is an active
symbol, using the arrow keys moves the background and the active
symbol.  However, the active symbol moves at a different rate and the
two lose their orientation.

I also noticed that when I press CTRL-Enter, I can enter a second set of
hands and that pressing CTRL-Enter after that switches between the two
sets.  Interesting feature.

When selecting a keyin position after a symbol had been placed there, I
found it hard to know when that keyin position was selected again if the
symbol completely covered the keyin position.  Perhaps the keyin
position backgrounds could be slightly over-sized to help with this.  Or
even that the symbol linked to this position (once you have entered
them) could be given a color, such as red.  This would be useful as just
selecting the keyin position does not select what's on that position, it
selects the symbol that started there for that CTRL-Enter selection set.

Bill

Sandy Fleming wrote:

>Hi List,
>
>The new version of the SWposter demonstration software I promised is now
>available online at http://bsltext.org/software/
>
>The main improvment is the 36-key keyboard. There is an option on the menu
>to allow you to choose between keyboards, and the 36-key one is the default.
>In fact the 36-key keyboard is so much easier to learn that I was thinking
>of ditching the 26-key version right away. However, if you want to try both,
>they are both there.
>
>Tutorial 1 consists of a brief introduction using the 26-key keyboard,
>Tutorial 2 gives a comprehensive course on finding the handshape you want on
>the 36-key keyboard. This has been possible for the 36-key keyboard because
>I was able to find a much more logical structure, given the extra freedom of
>the larger keyboard. If you did Tutorial 1 last week you'll probably want to
>go straight to Tutorial 2 now.
>
>The only posssible problem I can see with the 36-key keyboard is that
>typists might object to having to type so much in the top row of keys. What
>do you think?
>
>I also added a "Standard Colours" feature, but since only handshapes are
>available so far, that's not terribly exciting  :)
>
>As I said, this is just demonstration software so that everyone can have a
>say in keyboard design before I take it further.
>
>If you don't want to download the software at the present time you can still
>give feedback by reading through Tutorial 2 and seeing what you think of the
>method: http://bsltext.org/software/tutorial2.asp
>
>Thanks for looking at it!
>
>Sandy
>
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