Appendix

The following are excerpts from the KeyStrokes manual, lightly edited in some places, which I am including here to give you in more detailed presentation of how the program works.

The KeyStrokes Prediction menu

The Prediction menu offers seven commands. Choose “Word prediction” if you want to turn on or off automatic word prediction. Choose “Learning” if you wan to turn on or off automatic word learning as you type. Choose “Settings…” if you want to set the word prediction settings. Choose “New Dictionary…” if you want to create a new dictionary for another language or other topic. Choose “Dictionary options…” if you want to set the options of the currently active dictionary (marked with a check mark at the lower part of this menu) or if you want to import/export or have KeyStrokes learn words from a file. Choose “Learn phrase…” if you want to add a phrase and abbreviation to the currently active dictionary (marked with a check mark at the lower part of this menu). Choose any of the dictionaries listed at the lower part of the menu to activate another dictionary. The Font menu The Font menu allows you to choose a font for the on-screen keyboard window.

Using modifier keys:

If you use one of the modifier keys such as shift, caps lock, option, control, and command (clover-key) the on-screen keyboard will display the keys in their modified state showing, for example, capitals if shift has been selected. all of the modifier keys will revert back to their normal state after you have clicked on the key you want to type. The exception is caps lock, which stays on, just as with a regular keyboard, until you click on it again to turn it off.

If you activate the option key some keys will be outlined in black (see picture above). These are so-called dead-keys that work in combination with another key. When you click a dead-key no key is typed until you click on the key you would want to combine it with, after which the combined key is typed. So to type ‘Ÿ’ you would click on the OPT key, then on the ‘¬’ key and finally on the ‘u’ key.

Prediction Settings:

To access the Prediction Settings dialog choose “Settings…” from the Prediction menu. This dialog has several options.

If Synchronize the setting of prediction and learning is turned on/off word prediction will be turned on/off when you turn on/off word learning and vice versa. When Try to synchronize keyboard layout, font, and dictionary is turned on KeyStrokes will try to correctly synchronize The keyboard layout, font and dictionary if you change one of these. This is especially important if you work with more than one language.

Warn on mismatch between keyboard layout/font and dictionary warns you if these do not seem to match. Unlike the previous check box this puts you in full control. The following three options: Always append space upon word completion, Smart append space after punctuation, and Smart delete appended space upon punctuation should all be turned on if you want to reduce your typing task and let KeyStrokes intelligently guess when a space should be typed and when not, or when an automatically typed space should be removed because of the next character you type. Having these three options turned on can save you a lot of time, but if you are not satisfied with the automatic behavior you should experiment a little which of these options you would like to turn off.

The Word prediction field width menu allows you to determine the width of the prediction area in the on-screen keyboard window. If you set a small field width the window will be smaller but the words will be more abbreviated showing you less of the predicted words. The Suggest only words with at least X characters menu allows you to control whether KeyStrokes will also suggest short words or give preference to large words (for which you can obviously gain more KeyStrokes if you do not need to type the whole word). The Suggest only words that still require at least X characters has a similar effect except that in this case the limit becomes dynamic. If the first option is set to 5 characters the word ‘live’ will never be suggested, thus giving way to longer words. If the second option is set to 2 clicks ‘live’ will be suggested if you have already typed ‘li’, but no longer if you have reached ‘liv’, thus giving way to longer words such as ‘livestock’.

New Dictionary:

To access the New Dictionary dialog choose “New dictionary…” from the Prediction menu. You use this dialog to create a new dictionary for another language or another topical area (say one for stories about cars and one for love letters).

Dictionary Options

To access the Dictionary Options dialog choose “Dictionary options…” from the Prediction menu. This sets the options for the active dictionary. The Sort and compare according to menu allows you to set the language of the dictionary. This is important because each language has different rules when it comes to sorting, such as whether ‘Ž’ should come at the end of the alphabet or just after ‘e’.

The Learn words from TEXT file… button allows you select a text- only file from which KeyStrokes will learn words to add to the active dictionary. KeyStrokes will not only add words it encounters, but also stores information on the frequency of their use to improve prediction. By having KeyStrokes learn files that you wrote previously it can get accustomed to your personal vocabulary. Almost any word processor allows you to save files in text-only or TEXT format so that KeyStrokes can learn from them. Do not forget to spell check your texts before learning because KeyStrokes does not know the difference between correctly spelled words and misspelled words in your language. The Export dictionary… button allows you to export the active dictionary to a text file that you can open in your favorite text editor or word processor. You can then correct spelling, add or delete words and phrases. Be careful though not to mess up the file because it should have a fixed structure to be able to later import it again through the Import dictionary… button.

A dictionary import/export file should contain one line per word or phrase. Each line starts with a number indicating the frequency of the word/phrase, followed by a tab and the word itself or the abbreviation in case of a phrase. This is followed by a tab and a return if a simple word is concerned, and by a tab, a phrase and return if a phrase is concerned. The word prediction statistics show how many words were learned through typing, how many through learning from a file or importing from a dictionary, and how many words the dictionary currently contains. Note that only the latter figure decreases if words or phrases are deleted. The clicks reduction for predicted words statistic shows you how many clicks you spared yourself on correctly predicted words as a percentage of the total clicks required to type those words as a whole. The efficiency gain shows you how many clicks word prediction has saved you as a percentage of the total amount of clicks (i.e. not just those of predicted words). The Reset measurements button allows you to zero the last two statistics so that they start counting all over again. Learn Phrases To access the Learn Phrases dialog choose “Learn phrases…” from the Prediction menu. Phrases are added to the active dictionary.

In the first field you type an abbreviation and in the second field the phrase. During word prediction the phrase will be displayed if the abbreviation is typed. Use the Add button to add a phrase without closing the dialog. Use the Cancel button to close the dialog without adding another phrase and use the OK button to close the dialog and at the same time add the present abbreviation and phrase.

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MacInterface 2.0 CD-ROM Shows New Mac Users The Ropes

Charles W. Moore

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