Incredible! I feel like there’s so much room for improvement for mainstream input methods. Amazing this existed in 2007 — too bad I can’t use it on my iPhone.
The text below this line was completely written with daSher ! where is the period . Oh, there it is down at the bottom of the box .
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Played with it for about 10 min, and I timed myself. 5 minutes to type the above. :P
I think it could be really fun if it learns my patterns and I learn it. I found that turning the speed up helped me get paths better, but as you can see the S was fighting me, and sometimes getting "back" felt tough, but it's the same with a keyboard I am just more used to it.
Dasher is actually pretty easy to use. I installed it on my computer awhile ago but never really got around to using it. It's certainly a lot slower touch typing though.
tl;dr demonstrates a software tool for typing by navigating through a probability weighted letter cloud. The 'standard' navigation involves mousing up / down to get toward letters and forward / back for speed and backspace. 'Standard' because they determined this can be useful for people for whom a querty keyboard is a challenge (disabled or non latin alphabet). Jump to 6:43 to see it in action.
This feels like a possible tool for getting through text adventures easier. I find that I am not good at guessing the right words for something very free form, like Emily Short's _Galatea_. With Dasher embedded, I could navigate through the language model weighted by the verbs she built the game around, with less artifice / spoilers than choosing from the full list of words.
I was going to suggest maybe using this to augment my phone's swipe keyboard, such that - when it doesn't guess the word and it doesn't show up in the three suggested alternatives, I could touch the side and flow through all the alternatives it thought of. But, like the author, I can see that mode switch is worse than pure swipe or dasher.
loved that demo back then but it seems swiping mobile keyboards ate up most of the non-disabled target audience. a bit off topic but its weird how sentimental i get seeing that google tech talks intro. its like a flashback to a past where google still was only the good guy and i still naively thought open source and open rest apis would inevitably lead to an open, connected and free digital world.
12 comments
[ 0.42 ms ] story [ 74.3 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpOxbesRNBc&t=1920s
current version of Dasher in the browser: https://dasherv6demo.netlify.app
Dasher: Information-efficient text entry (2007) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27724932 - July 2021 (1 comment)
Dasher: information-efficient text entry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=807997 - Sept 2009 (1 comment)
A keyboard without keys - Dasher - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132630 - March 2008 (4 comments)
Dasher: information-efficient text entry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16521 - April 2007 (2 comments)
There's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software).
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The text below this line was completely written with daSher ! where is the period . Oh, there it is down at the bottom of the box .
----
Played with it for about 10 min, and I timed myself. 5 minutes to type the above. :P
I think it could be really fun if it learns my patterns and I learn it. I found that turning the speed up helped me get paths better, but as you can see the S was fighting me, and sometimes getting "back" felt tough, but it's the same with a keyboard I am just more used to it.
This comment entirely written with Dasher.
This feels like a possible tool for getting through text adventures easier. I find that I am not good at guessing the right words for something very free form, like Emily Short's _Galatea_. With Dasher embedded, I could navigate through the language model weighted by the verbs she built the game around, with less artifice / spoilers than choosing from the full list of words.
I was going to suggest maybe using this to augment my phone's swipe keyboard, such that - when it doesn't guess the word and it doesn't show up in the three suggested alternatives, I could touch the side and flow through all the alternatives it thought of. But, like the author, I can see that mode switch is worse than pure swipe or dasher.
Also on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/dasher.android/