AutoHotkey Community

[ezuk]

I've made an attempt at designing a new kind of on-screen keyboard, for people learning to touch type.

These were my base assumptions:

1) An on-screen keyboard is not easy to look at. It is a complex visual element. Finding the key you're looking for takes time.

2) Most of the time, you don't need the whole keyboard.

3) The most common use of an on-screen keyboard, when learning to touch type using a new layout, is correcting typos.

4) (And this one is not really correct: ) Most typos are 'finger slips', which happen when the user hits an adjacent key by mistake.

5) When learning a new layout, you get to a point where you have a rough idea of where the key you're looking for is located, but you're not quite sure.

I stand firm behind 1-3. 4 is probably wrong, which is why this keyboard is only a proof-of-concept (along with some other reasons, see below).

Basically what it does: Finds out what was the last character you deleted (presumably to correct a typo), and shows you what characters are adjacent to it on the keyboard.



Click here for larger image.

Current major problems in the script:

1) The method used for getting the last key deleted is really stupid. I copy it to the clipboard, and it's really unreliable. Fortunately, the script is modular and this function can (and should be) easily replaced without changing anything else. I tried an in-memory keylogger routine as an alternative, but it had its own issues.

2) With frequent use, the script can be irritating. There should be a delay before showing the OSD, but I'm not sure how to implement it ("Sleep" or "A_TimeIdlePhysical" does not really cut it).

3) There's more, but honestly, I am sure others would be quick to point them out and I'm really tired (stayed up late coding this).

Bottom line: Tell me if you like the idea, and if you feel like making it better (both in idea and in implementation)