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4.8 KiB
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112 lines
4.8 KiB
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
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<title>Another Typing Tutor LG #33</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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</H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<h1><font color="maroon">Another Typing Tutor</font></h1>
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<h4>By <a href="mailto: layers@marktwain.net">Larry Ayers</a></h4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<p>Last month I discussed Simon Baldwin's lesson-based typing tutor, Typist.
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In response to that article
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<a href="mailto: john@hannes.ndip.eskimo.net">John Chapman</a> sent me e-mail
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concerning another typing tutor commonly used on FreeBSD systems. With his
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permission, I'll quote from his message:<br>
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<blockquote>
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Dear Mr. Ayers:<br>
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<p>In the Linux Gazette you recently expressed your interest in learning the
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Dvorak keyboard, and I thought you might enjoy playing with the attached Tk
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program called kp (=Keyboard Practice). It seems to be standard issue with
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FreeBSD, but I've never seen it in any Linux distribution or archive.
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<p>It was written for Tk4.1, but works perfectly well with 4.2. I haven't
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tried it with 8.0, though, so you might have to hunt up an older version of
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Tk, if you don't already have one. To set it up, either untar it in
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/usr/local/lib, or put everything into ~/bin, or whatever you like best. Then
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edit the "executable" kp file so that the first line corresponds with your
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version of wish (I have the 4.2 version in /usr/bin/wish4.2 on my Debian
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system), and the "cd" line points to /usr/local/lib/kp, $HOME/bin, or wherever
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you decided to plant the .tcl files. Copy kp to /usr/local/bin (or leave it
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in $HOME/bin, if that's in your path), fire up X, invoke "kp", and off you go!
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<p>In the "options" menu you can switch between Dvorak and qwerty, and in the
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"file" menu you can insert any ascii text file you wish as a model for
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practice. The filter allows you to limit the text to words composed of
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specific letters; swipe your finger over the keys in the home row, for
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example, and the filter will pull out only those words made up of the letters
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in the home row. Quite cleverly done.
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<p>If you decide that you want to use the Dvorak layout for Real Work(TM),
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it's quite easy to have xmodmap load a Dvorak keymap for you, and switch back
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to qwerty when you're done. Emacs can load a Dvorak keymap for you, too. And
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some clever soul came up with the idea of aliasing "asdf" to "xmodmap
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.kbd.dvorak" and "aoeu" (the same four keys!) to "xmodmap .kbd.default", so
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that your whole family doesn't have to suffer :-) , but can switch back to a
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"normal" layout with one simple key pattern. Presumably you could use the
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same trick to reset the keymapping in console mode, too.
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</blockquote>
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<p>The "clever soul" referred to above is Don Reed (according to a later
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message from John Chapman). Don Reed wrote an HTML file explaining his
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approach to switching keyboard layouts on the fly; John sent me the file,
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which you can read <a href="./ayers_kbd.html">here</a>.
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<p>Keyboard Practice is a useful and well-designed Tcl-Tk program; its ability
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to use any text file as practice material is a nice touch. It was written by
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Satoshi Asami <asami@cs.berkeley.edu>.
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It's not just for practicing Dvorak typing; a menu-item lets a user switch to
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QUERTY as well. Since the archived files occupy just a little over twelve
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kilobytes, you can access them in this issue of LG
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<a href="./ayers_kp.tar.gz">here</a>. To try it out, just follow the instructions
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in the above quoted message from John Chapman.
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<p>John also suggested a reference to the
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Dvorak International Web-site, which
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(although not updated recently) has links to most Dvorak sites on the net.
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[Hyperlink removed 7-Dec-2001; the domain is now owned by another site. -Editor.]
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<p><hr><p>
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<hr>
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<!-- hhmts start -->
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Last modified: Mon 28 Sep 1998
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<!-- hhmts end -->
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Larry Ayers <BR>
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Published in Issue 33 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, October 1998</H5></center>
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