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Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

openstenoproject.org

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Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#51

Post by xkfm »

This is fun to play around with. But, I really dislike the constant dictionary modification (per person) and different schools of theories. You end up having to toggle plover on and off every time you have to type a word that's not in your dictionary (and decide to add it or not, according to your theory so you remember how to type it). This is going to happen to you very frequently depending on the context you're typing in. It's why court reporters spend time before and after court modifying their dictionary and cleaning up their dictations.

Also, depending on where you learned English, you're going to have a lot of "is that word really pronounced like that" situations when you go to type a word the first few times.

To sum up my frustrations, want to type about 'foo' detailed subject? You're going to have to spend time adding words to your dictionary, or toggle plover off to type faster. Basically, you can type about 97% of a sentence using Plover, but you'll have to turn it off or slow down a lot to type that last 3%.

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#52

Post by dmos62 »

xkfm wrote: post #51

This is fun to play around with. But, I really dislike the constant dictionary modification (per person) and different schools of theories. You end up having to toggle plover on and off every time you have to type a word that's not in your dictionary (and decide to add it or not, according to your theory so you remember how to type it). This is going to happen to you very frequently depending on the context you're ty…

I've not used the tech, but maybe you could reduce some languages to something lower-level than words, but higher-level than letters. Like syllables. A dictionary of syllables might not be useful, if it's a 2-3 letter syllable that's looked-up via a 2 key chord. Dunno, that might be too simple. But I'd say there's a lot of space here for something better than regular stenography or QWERTY.

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#53

Post by anyfactor »

noduerme wrote: post #23

I was always curious about this. My dad was a lawyer. I basically learned to touch type by transcribing legal dictations. From about 11 years old I used to earn my allowance by typing up depositions that had been recorded in his office. My mom had an electric typewriter and a tape machine with a foot pedal attachment that let you play or rewind the tape with your right foot. They'd pay me $2 an hour to sit and type t…

That is exactly what want do with my future children and brothers' children! Get them started earning money early by having them do something worthwhile.

But how was your experience? How did your parents manage to have you work for them? Did your siblings worked for parents too?

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#54

Post by emaro »

t-3 wrote: post #26
bodge5000 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose the same reason why qwerty still reigns supreme despite being a purposefully inefficient layout, people know it. On a similar note I was talking to someone recently about touch screen phone keyboards, and how compressing a qwerty keyboard onto a (relative to the size of actual keyboards) tiny screen with very little haptic feedback seemed like an awful idea that was used early on because it was easy to unde…

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that my muscle memory for "real" QWERTY keyboards works on touch keyboards as well. I know people who can "touch type" (as in, without looking) on touchscreens as well. I doubt anyone would be able to become so adept if the layouts were different.

I can recommend the typewise keyboard. The keys are hexagonal and you use gestures to delete, restore and uppercase letters. Therefore you have bigger keys for the same amount of screen space. It's not QWERTY, but the keys are in the region of their QWERTY location (i.e. not something totally different like dvorak). I needed some time to get used to it, but I really like it and don't want to go back.

Edit: rephrasing for clairity

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#55

Post by foobarbaz33 »

jore wrote: post #3

can stenography be used to write code? or is it only for text based on speech?

Usually the "busy work" of repeated idioms in code are best handled by snippets. Most IDEs, Emacs, and Vim have really advanced support for snippet expansion.

The actual custom typing in code is pretty small in comparison. A few var names that auto complete assists with anyway.

I'm sure there is some gains to be had with using steno on code. But I'd bet there's less a return on code than with English prose.

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#56

Post by _flux »

kremlin wrote: post #17
jore wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks, it also does not look fast to me and does not seem to improve the process the way it does for speech. Additionally I guess there is a steep learning curve so it is definitely not for everybody

considering typing time isn't even close to the most time consuming part of programming, I don't think this will be relevant to programmers apart from the programmers who want to do it for fun

I don't believe that is true.

While nobody can deny the fact that most of the time in programming indeed is not spent writing, how about this: you type slower than you can think.

So, when you get an idea, it's nice to be able to transfer the idea to the source code, so you can then move on the next idea or next part of the same one. You don't want to be held back by an inferior input method or a language with a lot of ceremonial about doing simple stuff. This happens in short bursts, even if the total time is quite short.

Sometime it happens so that one thinks faster than one can speak. This usually leads you to get mixed up in words.

A fast way to enter ideas is an important part of developing ergnomics.

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#57

Post by marttt »

yitchelle wrote: post #46

I am wondering if other professions that uses keyboard contact a lot are using this? especially wondering about novelists.

No keyboards, but -- Astrid Lindgren, the legendary Swedish children's writer, wrote her manuscripts using the Melin shorthand system. One can browse a bunch of her notebooks online, side by side with a Swedish transcription [1, 2].

Quoting one of the linked sources: "These manuscripts have long been seen as the key to new advances in research on Astrid Lindgren. The explanation for why no one has taken on the task is that Lindgren wrote in shorthand, given the well-established view that her stenography was almost impossible to decode. When we started examining the material to see whether using digital methods to interpret it was feasible, we saw that manual reading, too, was relatively simple if you know shorthand."

I got curious and found a comprehensive paper about using computational tools (handwriting and image analysis) to transcribe Lindgren's manuscripts [2]. Interesting stuff.

Oh, and I think Astrid Lindgren actually also worked as a shorthand typist during a period in her life.

1: https://www.uppsalauniversitet.se/en/news/article/?id=14082&...

2: https://omeka.ub.uu.se/scripto/s/al-koden/7/7/item

3: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2816/short5.pdf

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#58

Post by woodrowbarlow »

jhgb wrote: post #43
dmos62 wrote: post #40

I'm new to steno. This article in their wiki is great: https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Stenography-... It's essentially a chord-based, dictionary-based, short-hand typing. You write by looking up entries in a custom dictionary (a dictionary of syllables for example) by pressing combinations of keys. The stenographer's keyboard has few keys, compared to a QWERTY. You can define your dictionary however…

> I'm new to steno. This article in their wiki is great: https://github.com/openstenoproject/plover/wiki/Stenography-... I don't get why that page doesn't call it stenotypy (as in, on a machine) instead of stenography (as in Pitman, Gregg, Teeline, etc.). Also, I take it that "CAT software" does not refer to computer-aided translation here?

the video on the landing page makes this claim:

> steno is not typing. typing is when you get one character of output per one press of the keyboard; whereas in steno you press multiple keys at once to make a steno outline which must then go through a translation process to produce readable text. this is why court reporters call the process writing and not typing.

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#59

Post by prionassembly »

mumblemumble wrote: post #48
prionassembly wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever come across something unsavory in those depositions?

Short answer: Yes. Medium answer: The whole point of many depositions is to dig up unsavory information. Long answer: Divulging information from depositions that haven't been placed into the public record is a serious breach of ethics, and may get someone into legal hot water. Even asking is considered pretty uncool.

I understand the negative reactions now.

I was not really interested in the confidential content of depositions, but rather on whether they were inadequate for a child/teen to be transcribing. Boolean-valued question.

Re: Open Steno Project – Freeing stenography

#60

Post by bsanr »

fnord77 wrote: post #4

> Stenographers stroke chords instead of typing keys, resulting in less movement and better ergonomics than typing. over the years I've seen various chord-style keyboard schemes. I've wondered why none have caught on - seems more logical than hitting individual keys.

Cheap keyboards can't "do" steno. They're unable to register simultaneous keystrokes.
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