Plover Additions I plan on making

[Mike Neale]

Hey guys.

I've been doing some intensive steno practice recently and something occurred to me that I think would be an awesome feature in Plover. I call it "retrospective commands".

Word boundary issues... Don't they suck? I find they really interrupt my flow and I believe it's something that even veteran stenographers sometimes have issues with.

Some examples of what I mean:

User wants to write "feedback" but it's not in his dictionary so it comes out as "feed back". Now he has to press asterisk, write a "delete space" command and then write "back" again. This is 3 strokes to correct the problem.

User wants to write "perfect situation". PER = perfect, SWAIGS = situation. He writes PER/SWAIGS but it comes out as "persuasion". Now he has to press asterisk, write a "insert space" command and then write "situation" again. This is 3 strokes to correct the problem.

What I suggest is adding "retrospective commands" to Plover so once you see the problem in your writing, you can insert the space etc.. retrospectively like this:

User writes "feed" and "back" and sees it come out as "feed back", user strokes the command for "retrospectively delete space" and Plover removes a space from before the previous word. What the user sees is that they write the "magic stroke" and see "feed back" turn into "feedback" in an instant. 1 stroke to correct the problem.

Same with the other example. User writes a retrospective insert space command and Plover converts "persuasion" into "perfect situation" as if by magic :)  Again, only 1 stroke to correct the problem and the user doesn't fall behind.

I don't know if this is a normal feature in other steno software. I'm thinking it probably isn't.. but why not? I see no good reason not to include it.

I've also seen some users recently (was it Paula?) asking whether they can capitalize a word after they have written it. I think this feature would be extremely useful. The best suggestion to that question was to use Vim's features but what about us who are writing in a web browser, or writing an email in microsoft office, or just waxing in notepad.

I strongly feel this feature should be incorporated into Plover and so I intend to make the change. I think it will make it much easier to write some beautiful looking realtime.

I just wanted to post on here first to make sure there wasn't a really good reason for not doing it and also see if anyone has any other good ideas along similar lines while I'm at it.

I intend on making this work with the following commands:

Force capitalize

Force lowercase

Insert space

Delete space

The retrospective versions of these commands will have a new syntax so no dictionaries will break and all previous commands work, but people can start incorporating these retro ones into their dictionaries if they want to.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

-Mike-

[Glen Warner]

Hi, Mike!

I think your "persuasion" solution violates my "Too Much Work" edict, which basically goes, "Try to avoid doing too much work to accomplish something that can be done much easier in a different way."

In short, why not add an asterisk to your "SWAEU-GS" stroke, then define it so it would always translate as "persuasion?"

You might also break up the word differently.  In Phoenix, I would write it as PU-RS /WAEU-GZ (-GZ being our "tion" ending).

Just a thought or two ...

--gdw
 

[Mike Neale]

Hi Glen.

Thanks for your quick response.

I could change the strokes, but when I am writing "on the job", it would make most sense to me to have "persuasion" as "PER/SWAIGS". Similarly it would make most sense for me to have the other two as they currently are as well. Putting an asterisk in one of them to avoid this conflict would require me to remember that this conflict exists, which seems no different from having to remember to use the "insert space" command for this conflict as I would currently have to.

I really like the elegance of the "retrospective space" in this case and I would compare it to the "R-R" resolve conflict stroke in phoenix theory. I'm sure you've used it a few times and I bet it feels good to be able to spot a mistake and fix it in one stroke rather than delete what you wrote and re-write it differently.

I really think this feature would be beneficial to many people not just myself so even for that reason alone, I intend on making this change. Another string to Plover's bow :)

[Brent Nesbitt]

... Or you could just add a dictionary entry for PER/SWAIGS/S-P that translates "perfect situation"

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[Gabriel Holmes]

If your goal is just to type fast, I guess it could make sense, BUT from the standpoint of transcribing audio (live or recorded) -- like with contra and square dancing, better never than late. If something got messed up, tough. Listen to the next word rather than read what you just wrote. Let's not forget that this is a physical activity as much as a mental one.

[Mike Neale]

That would work but then I'd have to do that with every entry that I could have word boundary issues with. Also, it creates new conflicts in the situations where I want to actually type "persuasion" and put a space after it to separate it from something that comes afterwards.

Also, any other users and future users who want what I want would also have to edit their dictionary for potential conflicts. I definitely think the retro commands would be a really nice feature to have and I would incorporate it into my style of sten fu!

[Daniel Langlois]

I get the appeal of writing your way out of any situation. But, most captioners can write at speeds in excess of 260 words per minute. I'm not sure that experimenting with going back while writing is the thing, --it resembles a bad habit. 

Let's just focus on one of these issues. The word 'kickback' can either be one word or two words, so we cannot define it in our dictionary as one word, and must write it a different way for each way it could be used. Then, there's sometime/some time. touchdown/touch down. pickup/pick-up. pick up. Of course, there is the word 'to', and then 'too', '2', '2:00', 'II'. 

And, you're thinking that the errors can be cleared up on the fly, like a more convenient editing process, you wouldn't have to interrupt. However, you're looking at adding strokes.

I'm inclined to take a larger view -- what about this matter, in general, of CAT artificial intelligence? btw, does Eclipse have any desirable features re: its A/I?

Dan

[Mike Neale]

I think some steno software has automatic conflict resolution stuff in it but I've heard Mirabai say she never wants it in Plover and I would definitely agree with her. Better for the stenographer to be in control and have a clean realtime dictionary.

I think you and Gabe may be right. When writing at the top speeds it may not be possible to "self-audit" like I suggest and fix errors on the fly. I'm willing to give it a try though. I think when writing at more relaxed speeds (like writing emails) where i'm more interested in accuracy and formatting than speed, I think the fix-on-the-fly features could be really useful to save strokes and keep your train of thought going.

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[Ed]

MN> I've also seen some users recently (was it Paula?) asking whether they can  

capitalize a word after they have written it. I think this feature would be  

extremely useful. 

My wife & I agree with you.  That feature would be greatly appreciated!

MN> The best suggestion to that question was to use Vim's features but what  

about us who are writing in a web browser, or writing an email in microsoft  

office, or just waxing in notepad.

That's a very good point! 

Also, I personally believe that the processing is faster

 when Plover responds to the dictionary directly,

& noticeably slower when Plover sends out keystrokes 

 for the text editor or word processor to process.

If a new dictionary feature/function is added, 

 & someone does not like it... then they don't have to use it.

They can just leave if out of their dictionary... is that correct? 

If that is the situation...  then I really hope you do it! 

(Really looking forward to it!)

[Mike Neale]

Hi Ed.

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes that's correct that the new feature would only be "unlocked" if your dictionary contained a particular entry.

I have been working on this today and so far I've got the capitalizing and lowercasing working perfectly. I'm working on the "insert space" and "remove space" commands which are proving to be very tricky but I'm getting there.

[workpj]

Hi, Mike,

I've inserted some comments below.  Paula Joy

On Sunday, August 3, 2014 9:06:58 AM UTC-7, Mike Neale wrote:

Hey guys.

I've been doing some intensive steno practice recently and something occurred to me that I think would be an awesome feature in Plover. I call it "retrospective commands".

Word boundary issues... Don't they suck? I find they really interrupt my flow and I believe it's something that even veteran stenographers sometimes have issues with.

Some examples of what I mean:

User wants to write "feedback" but it's not in his dictionary so it comes out as "feed back". Now he has to press asterisk, write a "delete space" command and then write "back" again. This is 3 strokes to correct the problem.

I am just able to hit a stroke that I defined to join two words together.  Ex.  "feed," then my join command stroke, then "back" and it makes it one word: feedback.  I can go look and see what that command is and get back to you.  I think it carried over from my pre-Plover dictionary, but I could be wrong about that...
 

User wants to write "perfect situation". PER = perfect, SWAIGS = situation. He writes PER/SWAIGS but it comes out as "persuasion". Now he has to press asterisk, write a "insert space" command and then write "situation" again. This is 3 strokes to correct the problem.

I think "per" is being treated as a prefix in this case.  I write "perfect" as "POEUF" so it is not confused with a prefix.  I sometimes have a problem with -G not translating as "ing" suffix.... and translating instead as "go."  Though most of the time it does attach as a suffix, as intended.  When I have that problem,  I write out "go" with the long vowel, since I've defined it as that as a fallback. Again, it's a prefix/suffix issue with the dictionary getting confused in choices.  Not being too techie, I live with the rare occasions when this happens by using a workaround such as what I've explained, because I'm  not that savvy about playing around with the commands for suffixes and prefixes. 

What I suggest is adding "retrospective commands" to Plover so once you see the problem in your writing, you can insert the space etc.. retrospectively like this:

User writes "feed" and "back" and sees it come out as "feed back", user strokes the command for "retrospectively delete space" and Plover removes a space from before the previous word. What the user sees is that they write the "magic stroke" and see "feed back" turn into "feedback" in an instant. 1 stroke to correct the problem.

Same with the other example. User writes a retrospective insert space command and Plover converts "persuasion" into "perfect situation" as if by magic :)  Again, only 1 stroke to correct the problem and the user doesn't fall behind.

I don't know if this is a normal feature in other steno software. I'm thinking it probably isn't.. but why not? I see no good reason not to include it.

I am not dictionary "guru," like some of the users on this list, but I don't think there would be a problem in doing this, and I'd love to know your defines, once you create ones that work!  That's the hardest part, for me, is coming up with the right defines, especially when keyboard strokes are part of the define.  Sigh.  

I've also seen some users recently (was it Paula?) asking whether they can capitalize a word after they have written it. I think this feature would be extremely useful. The best suggestion to that question was to use Vim's features but what about us who are writing in a web browser, or writing an email in microsoft office, or just waxing in notepad.

Yep, I was asking about that.  I have the "cap next" command down so it works, but I haven't yet implemented a define for "cap previous," though some suggestions were offered for me to get around to trying out.  Since I'm not making a living writing perfect real-time, and doing transcription instead, I can fix it in Word easily, if needed, so some of this stuff is what I'd like to get better at over time but it's not imperative I learn it all immediately.  I was trained pre-real-time, on a theory called Herman Miller.  I've changed a LOT in the past 5 years, to get more and more success with writing real-time over time.  I got to observe a crackerjack CART reporter over at UC Davis and it really inspired me to plug away at undoing my old theory where needed and re-doing it to be RT friendly.  What a process!  GRRRRRR!
 

I strongly feel this feature should be incorporated into Plover and so I intend to make the change. I think it will make it much easier to write some beautiful looking realtime.

I just wanted to post on here first to make sure there wasn't a really good reason for not doing it and also see if anyone has any other good ideas along similar lines while I'm at it.

I intend on making this work with the following commands:

Force capitalize

Force lowercase

Insert space

Delete space

The retrospective versions of these commands will have a new syntax so no dictionaries will break and all previous commands work, but people can start incorporating these retro ones into their dictionaries if they want to.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

-Mike-

Mike, I am waiting in anticipation of your genius shared! 

Paula Joy

[Mike Neale]

Hi Paula.

Currently there is no dictionary definition to "cap previous". I'm changing Plover itself to implement this feature and then there will be a new dictionary command for cap previous. Currently the only way to do it with dictionary editing is to create a whole load of new entries which are similar to other entries but have an extra stroke on the end. This kind of heavy dictionary editing would not be a good idea so I decided to make Plover have built-in functionality to do this with only a single new dictionary entry.

I'm writing Mark K's theory and the "perfect situation" / "persuasion" conflict did happen to me recently, but the real fix for this is to either learn the brief for persuasion, or to be aware that this conflict exists and next time remember to use my "insert space" command between the strokes to keep the two words separate. The retrospective space functionality I'm adding is basically the second option but I will be able to add the space after the second word instead of having to do it between the two. Just an extra feature that I think will make life that bit easier when my dictionary catches me out.

[Mike Neale]

Ok guys, I've made these changes and they are working beautifully. It's really nice to be able to do your "insert space" stroke or your "delete space" stroke after the fact.

The retro capping works well too, that's really nice for example if I'm writing "I spoke to Mark" and I forget that the name Mark has an asterisk in it but the word mark doesn't. If I stroke the version without uppercase I can quickly correct it and carry on with only one stroke made rather than 3! So nice :D

I've also added a "cap all" entry which can be used when you want to write things like "I want THAT one". And of course, I've added a retro version of that too.

Existing Plover dictionary syntax is:

{-|} uppercase first letter

{>} lowercase first letter

{^ ^} insert space

{^^} remove space

And the dictionary syntax I'm using for mine is:

{<} uppercase all letters

{*-|} retrospectively uppercase first letter

{*>} retrospectively lowercase first letter

{*<} retrospectively uppercase all letters

{*?} retrospectively insert space

{*!} retrospectively remove space

I've been thinking about expanding the document on dictionary syntax or possibly writing a new one with lots more examples if that would be useful to people. I will include all of these in there with full examples so people can easily get a handle on dictionary syntax goodness.

[Mike Neale]

Please note that these changes aren't live yet. I need to send a request to Hesky to include them in the next Plover release. Don't try and download Plover and try these commands as they won't work yet! :D

[Tony Wright]

These are going to be very useful features. Thanks so much, Mike!

--Tony

--

[Mike Neale]

Thanks Tony.

I've just made another change along similar lines. Not sure if this one is as useful but I think it could suit certain styles of writing. I've just added another dictionary command {*} which will retrospectively toggle the asterisk in the previous stroke.

For example:

You want to write "sailing on the sea" but it comes out as "sailing on the see". The mistake you have made is that in your dictionary sea has an asterisk in it and you've typed the non-asterisk version. Instead of deleting it and retyping it, you can use the "toggle asterisk" command to go back and change it for you with one stroke.

This is a very similar concept to the Phoenix theory R-R conflict distinction stroke which I think is a very elegant feature of Phoenix theory but probably isn't very useful at the very high speeds. At moderate speeds though, I think this feature is a very good idea and certainly makes the theory more accessible to newbies who aren't super familiar with the various conflicts in their dictionaries yet.

So there you go, now you don't have to write Phoenix theory to enjoy having a conflict distinction stroke :)

I'm not completely sure but I would say this is a unique feature to Plover that none of the other CAT software packages have, so yay Plover! :D

[Workpaulajoy]

Mike, in my theory (Herman Miller, pre-realtime) and in other realtime theories I've seen, the asterisk undoes one previous stroke each time it is hit, and that is an indispensable command if I, say, mishear a couple words and want to undo what I have  just written and rewrite it correctly.  It is so ingrained in my habit that I don't really think I could easily undo it.

If I recall correctly stand head in CaseCAT also use the * key to perform that function.

In other theories, when a conflict between two sound-alike words arises, I've seen this solution:  if you want to select the first of the two words, you hit the 1 key on the number bar and and a designated letter key, simultaneously. If you want to select the second word, you hit the 2 on the number bar and a designated letter key simultaneously.

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[Brent Nesbitt]

I think he's talking about a new COMMAND {*} (right part of the dictionary entry), not a new definition the * stroke (left part of the dictionary entry).

It might be good to choose another symbol (or group of symbols) for clarity though.

[Mike Neale]

Yeah Brent is right. Sorry for the confusion.

I'm referring to a piece of dictionary syntax that Plover knows to look out for an do something when it sees it. The asterisk undo functionality has been left alone :)

I will create some documentation for these new commands as well as expanding on the existing commands as I think that will be useful.

[Mike Neale]

Hi guys.

If you want to try out these features I have compiled them into a windows exe which can be found here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-C1SlC4ThFbZDVMV2N3WUJOdWs

Please note that because this is not an official release of Plover, it can't be supported in the normal way. Any problems with it should be reported on this thread only.

This version also contains some of my other changes that are awaiting release like switchable space placement (spaces can be output before words or after words, you choose) and a built-in dictionary management interface.

If you spot any problems with any of these features give me a shout in this topic.

Enjoy!

Mike

[Steven Bhardwaj]

Is there any way to (retroactively or prior to typing) cause plover to output the raw steno in all caps etc?

Let's say I stroke, "PHAFPBT"

Normal plover output is "magnificent"

With this feature (which might already exist?) plover would output: "PHAFPBT".

-Steven

[Mike Neale]

Hi Steven.

If you create a completely empty dictionary and get Plover to use that then no translations would be defined, so everything would be output as raw steno strokes.

[Steven Bhardwaj]

Hi, Mike,

Thanks! That works, and will be just fine for my non time critical needs, mainly taking notes on new briefs, at this point. Thanks also for your work with the new commands!

Cheers,

Steven

Written with Plover, 38 words, 11 minutes, 3.5wpm.

[Paula Welter]

Oh!  I didn't realize the distinction there.  I hope that's the case -- likely so.  Thanks for pointing that out, Brent, as the likely scenario!

These changes will be AWESOME!!!!  Plover will take over the world!  LOL!

Paula Joy

[Gabriel Holmes]

On the subject of "cap previous" and "glue previous" -- as an Ergodox user, I've been seriously thinking about taking advantage of the extra keys for stuff like this. Actually, I envision a version of the Ergodox with a couple palm buttons, one for Caps and another for "no space." (similar to Velotype...)

On Sunday, August 3, 2014 12:06:58 PM UTC-4, Mike Neale wrote:

[robb]

I've been away from steno and Plover for a while and ecstatic about seeing Plover's progress.  I'm now using it as I wanted to a few years ago.  Thanks to Mirrabai, Josh and Hesky and everyone else who has contributed.

@Mike Neal
Wow! The features you've added are excellent, thankyou. 
I've just downloaded and tried your new version, joy, I can now delete all my early unused entries and see all sorts of other rubbish that I've defined :). 

Which brings me to the quesion.

I'm just wondering about Plover's main development as I've been going back through the posts of the last year or so that I've been away and noticed that the dictionary management (along with fantastically useful Steno tray app) were put into Plover several months ago but not released.  Is there any info on what's happening there?  I know you were involved in the dictionary management according to a post in April, and your post in this thread.

Also, could I make a suggestion for one more retrospective command.  Often people will say "twenty three thousand one hundred dollars" the "dollars" comes last but needs to be written first, eg. $23,100.  So would it be possible to add another retrospective command to add a dollar sign to the last stroked complete number?

And lastly :) any chance of an extra command in the dictionary editor to move defines between dictionaries.  I've started to use a working dictionary at the bottom of the list where new defines go so I can check before moving into the main dictionary.  A button to move them would be excellent.

Thanks again to the whole team.

Rob

[Mike Neale]

Hi Rob.

Thanks for the encouraging feedback! :)  I'm really glad you like the dictionary editor. Hopefully there will be a Plover release soon as I think there are definitely enough new features for it to be a Plover bonanza mega release :D

With regards to the "dollars" question. This has very recently been mentioned in another thread by Glen and I'll have a look into it.

The dictionary management feature you requested. Again I'll have to have a look into it. It may be possible but I just want to make sure it's not going to create any problems when it comes to saving the changes.

Thanks again and welcome back to the Plover community :)

[Glen Warner]

Hi, Mike.

I'm looking forward to that dictionary editor as well! I've gotten so used to the way it's done in digitalCAT that I don't think I'd be to comfy with another CAT software's method, where you have to have the entire program open in order to search through the dictionary.

On the other hand, I do like the little steno keyboard that Eclipse has when you need to add something to your dictionary; I don't remember if you can use your writer to make that addition or not (it's been a while since I've used it, as you might guess).

As for the Dictionary Maintenance program, I think the way it works is it makes a copy of your dictionaries while they're in use, and any changes you make to either the Dictionary Maintenance program directly or through the Add Translation stroke gets added to the one before it gets added to the other.

I'm pretty sure that's more confusing than helpful, so I'll try and add a screenshot ...

What you should see is the Dictionary Maintenance program running on my Mac under Wine with the Phoenix Theory dictionary open, and beneath that you should see the Dictionaries folder ... and that selected item is that "copy" I mentioned.

Like I said, the Dictionary Maintenance program does not need to have anything else running in order for one to use it, which is nice.

Well, it is to me, anyway!

Hope that helps a bit ...

--gdw

[Mike Neale]

Hi Glen.

Yeah I've noticed that digitalCAT's dictionary editor is a separate application. I suppose that makes sense when you're sitting down to do some dictionary work but I think most of the community would want it to be built into Plover to keep it as one single application. Also, you can then make modifications to your dictionary and continue without having to re-open Plover.

From the point of view of sitting down to do some dictionary work it does seem odd to have to open Plover in order to do that, but I think it's a trade-off worth making.

[Dennis Peterson]

Automatic resolution might not be best for professional stenography. But for people who just want the quickest path to really fast text entry...fiction writers, for example....maybe a little extra automation would be more desirable. Maybe something that could be switched on or off?

I've had some ideas along these lines myself...but before I attempt it with steno I'll try first with plain ol' spelling correction and see how well that works.

[Ed]

Hi Mike,

 

I just did a partial test of your "capitalize previous word" feature.

It seems to work perfectly with...
 hyphenated words,
 words that contain apostrophes,
 words followed by a comma,
 words followed by quotation marks",
 words followed by a closed parenthesis)
 finger-spelled words,
 words followed by an ellipsis...

 

 

Here I am in the middle of a test report
 & my wife has just made a feature request...
she says that Digital CAT's cap previous word command
  will work on multiple previous words.
For example if you just wrote the 4 words
"flying fish brewing company" & you then do the
(DC version of) the cap previous word command 4 times...
you will get: "Flying Fish Brewing Company".
Feature request now done, back to the test report.

 

 

I'm not sure about the following.  These may be intentional by design.
It's also possible that I have something wrong with some of my
dictionary entries, and someone else with a different dictionary will
get a different output.  So I'm just reporting these 5 test results,
but keep in mind that some of this could be due to my dictionary...

 

The cap previous word feature doesn't seem to act on words followed by
a period, or question mark, or exclamation mark, or a colon, or a semicolon.

 

If you have a word followed by a space & then a number, such as "studio 54",
and you want to cap "studio", it will not capitalize it.
(I guess it sees the 54 as the previous word.) 

 

If you have a word followed by a number, & you've deleted the space,
such as "room39", and you want to cap it as "Room39", it will not capitalize it.

 

The cap previous word feature doesn't seem to recognize words as existing
unless you just wrote them.  So positioning the cursor in front of any word,
other than what you just wrote,
and then doing the cap previous word command, will not capitalize it. 

 

If you have a 2 word brief like "with it", and you want to cap the word "it",
the cap previous command will cap the word "with".

 

 

Thanks for all your great work!
Ed

______________________________________________________

[Mike Neale]

Hi Ed.

Thanks for the test report! I appreciate you spending your time on this :)

I'm glad most of the test cases worked. Most of the ones you've stated as not working are by design. Due to limitations with the current way the steno engine works in Plover, there are some things retrospective commands can't do. The rule is that the retrospective command can only act on the word immediately previous.

So in the example of "Studio 54", it thinks of "54" as the last word as you suggested. This also accounts for the punctuation marks not working because they were your previous stroke. The retrospective command needs to be applied immediately after the stroke it will alter.

While I was testing your findings, however, I did find that "Room39" worked for me. I did the following:

wrote "room"

wrote my "delete space" command {^^}

wrote 3

wrote 9

wrote the "retrospective cap" command

If yours doesn't work, it may be worth checking your dictionary entry for the delete space command.

With multiple word strokes such as "with it", I made it cap the first word by design. It's hard to think of any examples where one would want to cap any word in a phrase but I figured it would make more sense to do the first word than the last word. If you disagree with this I'd be interested in seeing some example usage as my decision was driven by instinct rather than real cases.

With regards to your wife's request, I'm afraid currently it can't go back multiple words. I see this feature and many more complex dictionary features as possibilities in the future but I would really want to change the way the steno engine works at its core first in order to make these possible. I imagine digitalCAT and others have been built to accommodate retrospective commands and other formatting features that weren't originally envisioned for Plover.