Two finger input methods (PyGTK demos)

[Lars Hallberg]

Josef Wolf skrev:
> On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 03:53:17AM +0200, Lars Hallberg wrote:
>> Pretty simple, You have 12 key (3x4 array) and ether tap a key or press 
>> it and drag to any of the other 11 keys - 12 functions. It's extendible 
>> - If You add a column of keys You got 15 keys with 15 functions. 
>> Actually plan on letting the user (and possibly apps) customize the 
>> keyboard in part - that may include adding extra columns :-)
> 
> Ah, OK.  But don't this have the drawback that it is not possible to
> show the positions second-level characters in advance?  So you have
> to guess which key to press to find out whether the character you
> look for is on the second level of the key you pressed.

Yes, kind of.

You can show the most common (letters, numbers).

You can try to group them logically and show a mnemonic hint at what 
characters are there (ie ,. -> punctuation)

You can cancel a key press by dragging outside the keyboard to assist in 
searching.

But in the end is all about learning. To be really fast You need to 
learn the secondary key position so You can start the 'stroke' at once. 
In practice it don't appear to be as much of a problem as it sounds :-) 
You learn what You use often fast and the rest is rare enough to not be 
too troubling.

The key layout is not yet in any way optimal, and only in 'numlock' version.

To ease learning I believe the difference between numlock and not should 
be minimal... Like swap the number and the most used letter on each 
key... Stuff away 1 and 2 on 1, and pulling up the two most used letters 
left to those positions.