Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
blog.mattgauger.com
Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
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Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#2I've always wondered about the usability of a chording keyboard with a smart phone's edge (or an xPad) and four areas under the fingers.
(Four buttons is quite few combinations. You probably need the thumb too, with two-three alternative buttons for it.)
It would be easy to have a learning mode which give feedback about possible combinations, since it is on a screen.
My only (hobby) programming for mobile has been on iOS, where the system keyboard isn't easily replaced. There seems to be things like this in the Android store? Anyone know why this didn't work well enough to be popular?
Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#3I've always wondered about the usability of a chording keyboard with a smart phone's edge (or an xPad) and four areas under the fingers. (Four buttons is quite few combinations. You probably need the thumb too, with two-three alternative buttons for it.) It would be easy to have a learning mode which give feedback about possible combinations, since it is on a screen. My only (hobby) programming for mobile has been on…
You might be interested in this[1] which was posted to HN some time ago. iOS is a no-go for this sort of thing for now at least, but I'm unfamiliar with Android. For hardware modules I think the thumbs work very well as a modal control, but on a small touch screen I don't know how it would work.
Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#4Chording keyboard may get popular in the future.
Wearable Computing researchers usually use a chording keyboard for typing. You could see how this work with Emacs in real life by Thad Starner (a technical lead on Google's Project Glass) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V2i_7oX8mw
Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#5Can't find anything on Google, but I saw a docco at least ten years ago of a marine biologist who made one of these for taking notes underwater.
It had four waterproof buttons, and by pressing various combos he could type one-handed underwater while holding scientific instruments or a camera.
I thought at the time it would be awesome for wearable computers.
Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#6Can't find anything on Google, but I saw a docco at least ten years ago of a marine biologist who made one of these for taking notes underwater. It had four waterproof buttons, and by pressing various combos he could type one-handed underwater while holding scientific instruments or a camera. I thought at the time it would be awesome for wearable computers.
Chording keyboards are very common with wearables. The Twiddler being a common example:
http://www.handykey.com/
Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#7Chord keyboards are pretty cool, historically. I suspect that the reason for their demise was the notion of "keyboard shortcuts" (Ctrl key, alt key, etc) taking over most of their functionality.
Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#8Awesome project thanks for sharing.
A few months ago I started on a project to make a 'grip' style chording keyboard [0] also based on the teensy, sadly the project has stalled for a bit (graduated and got a full-time).
I have the keys wired [1] but haven't figure out a nice way to mount them yet, and the firmware isn't finished.
[0] http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43132 [1] http://i.imgur.com/zQiYmQC.jpg
EDIT: I always found it a bit sad that I was unable to find much documentation on how Engelbart's original chording keyboard worked, does anyone know of a source where I can read how the keys are chorded?
Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#9Orthogonally, i've always wanted a decent pair of foot pedals just to cover Shift, Control, Option and Alt or run key macros. It might be possible to coopt one of the new USB guitar pedals that also control DAW (Logic, ProTools), shd investigate something like:
Re: Building a Chording Keyboard: Progress So Far
#10I have wanted to make an infrared-based chording keyboard. Using an infrared camera, monitor the velocity of the five brightest points and consider a fingertip contracting to be keypress. Throw a small infrared LED into the front of a smartphone and a forward facing infrared camera and voila, smartphone chording keyboard, without taking up any screenspace.