Plover now supports treal

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Hesky Fisher

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Apr 28, 2013, 1:11:26 AM4/28/13
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Hi Everyone,

If you have a Treal from word technologies and you've been wanting to use it with plover then you're in luck. I've just added treal support to plover and if you could test it I'd appreciate your help.


Treal support also works on Mac. Let me know if you want to try it and I'll make a build for you. It might even work on linux so if you are adventurous and willing to give it a try then let's talk.

Instructions (if you're not familiar with plover):
- Run plover, wait for the main window to open
- Click on "configure"
- In the drop down list choose "treal"
- Click "save"
- Plover will tell you to restart.
- close plover
- run it again (make sure the treal is plugged in)
- Click the large red P to turn it green
- At this point plover is active and whatever you type on the treal will go to the active window so you may want to open a text editor

One known issue right now is that once you set the machine to "treal", if you open plover without the treal plugged in then it will give an error and exit. I am working on fixing that.

Please let me know how it goes.

Hesky

Hesky Fisher

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Apr 28, 2013, 1:50:40 AM4/28/13
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bob purinton

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Apr 28, 2013, 12:05:15 PM4/28/13
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Kudos and gratitude for Hesky Fisher!  He's made another valuable contribution  --  the Treal writer now works  with Plover a.   Hooray!!!

Gabriel Holmes

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Apr 30, 2013, 11:12:19 PM4/30/13
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Have you done a Linux build yet?


On Sunday, April 28, 2013 1:11:26 AM UTC-4, Hesky Fisher wrote:

Hesky Fisher

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May 1, 2013, 7:50:56 PM5/1/13
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Hi Gabriel,

I have not yet tested this on linux. I'll let you know once I've tried it. 

Hesky


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Gabriel Holmes

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May 7, 2013, 7:12:17 AM5/7/13
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Gosh, how do I even go about getting a Treal at all?

The contact numbers on their website don't seem to work -- is Word Technologies still a going concern?



On Sunday, April 28, 2013 1:11:26 AM UTC-4, Hesky Fisher wrote:

Tony Wright

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May 7, 2013, 10:00:59 AM5/7/13
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Oh, that's not good. I have been wanting to try out a Treal. One thing to try would be contacting the Total Eclipse people and seeing if they know anything. It seems to me that there is or once was a connection between the guy who makes the Treal and the Total Eclipse people. I could be wrong about that.

--Tony


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Hesky Fisher

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May 7, 2013, 12:17:42 PM5/7/13
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I used the email address and got a response right away.

Gabriel Holmes

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Jul 26, 2013, 8:45:51 PM7/26/13
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I've finally been able to correspond with the Treal people.

Say, did you get it working with Linux yet? Can Plover take advantage of all the extra keys on the Treal, when Plover is set to "Treal?"

Hesky Fisher

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Jul 27, 2013, 1:07:58 PM7/27/13
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Hi Gabriel,

I haven't had a chance to try using the treal on linux. It may work but it's untested so I wouldn't count on it. Are you planning on getting a treal?

Plover, in general, ignores extra keys on various steno machines. We could change this in the future if there is a real need.

Hesky

Mirabai Knight

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Jul 27, 2013, 2:12:26 PM7/27/13
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I still maintain that extra keys are a chump's game. The whole point of steno is being able to invoke every possible command without moving your hands from home position.

Zack Brown

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Jul 27, 2013, 4:22:19 PM7/27/13
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I suspect this is going to turn out to be an "everybody wins" situation - the hard-core steno people will get their steno keyboard that works with regular computers; and the "we just love chords" people will get to use the entire qwerty keyboard as a chording system. I imagine there'll be tons of people with all kinds of new ideas, using plover in ways no one could have dreamed. It'll be crazy! But I'm sure at the very least, old-time steno will always be strongly supported.

On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Mirabai Knight <askel...@gmail.com> wrote:

I still maintain that extra keys are a chump's game. The whole point of steno is being able to invoke every possible command without moving your hands from home position.

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Gabriel Holmes

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Jul 29, 2013, 11:05:28 PM7/29/13
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Yes, it looks like I am....

Sam Jones

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Mar 19, 2015, 5:21:00 PM3/19/15
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So, whats the score on the Treal.  

I need a keyboard (I cant use plover on my laptop it just not working for obvious limitations)  

I run Ubuntu (I have plover installed THANK YOU!!!)  
Anyone here used Treal on Linux? 

How do you find it? 
The S- key is split yeah?   How about the additional Keys?  do they function in Plover or are they redundant? 

If anyone has a Treal can they get in contact?  I wanna know more about this 'board but cant find much information online...

Mirabai Knight

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Mar 19, 2015, 5:22:22 PM3/19/15
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The Treal is honestly a little pricey for what it offers, in my
opinion. You can certainly use it, but have you considered the
Stenoboard? It's way cheaper and probably on par in terms of
usefulness.

http://stenoboard.com
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Sam Jones

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Mar 19, 2015, 7:37:50 PM3/19/15
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Hi Mirabai. :)
Thanks for Plover and the OSP (literally the most amazing thing ever to have been invented since the internet!) 

I considered the stenoboard a bit actually, along with other machines like the lightspeed and gemini (like you use), I REALLY (like really!!!) want a stenosaurus, I just don't know when they are coming out.  :(

I am training to be a BSL (British Sign Language) interpreter and the thought of being able to be a captioner too just brings a whole other dimension to the job. (this would be IMPOSSIBLE without your work, a British Palantype machine costs in excess of £1,700 without any software!) so I don't mind paying a little more for something that will last and isn't going to break easily, with a stenoboard my worry is I would take it apart and I'd end up with a whole lotta mess! ;) 

I just hope I can get something that works with Plover in my Linux PC to start using it, get used to the layout and get to grips with the theory.  

Hesky Fisher

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Mar 19, 2015, 10:51:43 PM3/19/15
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I have still never been able to test the Treal on a linux machine. Has anybody else tried it?

Sam Jones

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Mar 21, 2015, 11:49:25 AM3/21/15
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Hey Hesky
I'm buying a treal and I'm running Linux, so I'll give it a go. I'm happy to test it. If you just let me know what I need to do to confirm it works well with plover.

Sam

Roslyn Sim

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Mar 22, 2015, 6:57:15 AM3/22/15
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I'm a court reporting student in Australia, and they've only provided me with a manual (paper) stenograph reporter machine to learn on. I'm building a dictionary using Plover while I'm going, and thinking about getting a computer-compatible machine to aid my practice and use whenever I type. Do you think the treal would be a good choice, or for similar outlay would I be better off buying a used stenograph machine? Would the treal be okay for later professional use? If I am employed in the courts, they provide diamantes to use, but I may be employed from home as a captioner or CART provider (or transcriptionist while I'm studying), and given the cost of machines, I'm likely to need to keep using any machine I buy now for some time.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me,
Ros

Emanuele Caruso

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Mar 22, 2015, 12:14:55 PM3/22/15
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Hi Mirabai. :)
Thanks for Plover and the OSP (literally the most amazing thing ever to have been invented since the internet!) 

I considered the stenoboard a bit actually, along with other machines like the lightspeed and gemini (like you use), I REALLY (like really!!!) want a stenosaurus, I just don't know when they are coming out.  :(

I am training to be a BSL (British Sign Language) interpreter and the thought of being able to be a captioner too just brings a whole other dimension to the job. (this would be IMPOSSIBLE without your work, a British Palantype machine costs in excess of £1,700 without any software!) so I don't mind paying a little more for something that will last and isn't going to break easily, with a stenoboard my worry is I would take it apart and I'd end up with a whole lotta mess! ;) 

I just hope I can get something that works with Plover in my Linux PC to start using it, get used to the layout and get to grips with the theory.  

Hi Sam,
please note that the Stenoboard plastic parts are very sturdy, except maybe the plastic keys, because the plastic walls are very, very thick, so it feels very rigid. But still, to break the keys, you really have to use a pretty big force. In addition, I am soon going to add the option to buy plastic keys only on utopen.com at a very low price, just in case you really treat the Stenoboard so badly to break some of the keys. And even if the Utopen shop suddenly disappers from the face of Earth, you still have the convenient option to download the 3D model of the keys from github and have them printed almost for free from a friend with a 3D printer, or print it yourself in a hackerspace or one of the many public libraries which now offer 3D printing to all citizens.
If you have other concerns feel free to let me know or to contact me at in...@utopen.com. In any case, I wish you happy stenotyping! ;)

Emanuele Caruso
stenoboard.com

Sam Jones

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Mar 22, 2015, 12:57:55 PM3/22/15
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Hi Ros. 

Im not a professional by any means but I would say this, the Treal looks to be a nice system to work on, and the fact that it connects to Plover is awesome, so you can use it to email friends, update statuses on facebook and just use it in a word document to practice steno.  I find my steno machine lovely to use but it will only communicate with set software so I cant use it as a regular keyboard. 

The cost of the treal seems to be very reasonable (considering a British Palantype keyboard costs over £1,500). It also has removable keys so if you wanted to take off the additional keys, you can. 

I will be buying this machine as a "learning aid" because my steno machine wont connect to my PC so I cant use it daily.  

Hope that helps?

Roslyn Sim

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Mar 22, 2015, 4:07:16 PM3/22/15
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Hi Emanuele

Do the stenoboard keys make a click or other noise when you write? If I want to use stenoboard with professional CAT software (like Eclipse) down the track, will it work, or is it only compatible with Plover?

Thanks so much for your cool invention,
Ros 

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Roslyn Sim

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Mar 22, 2015, 7:28:53 PM3/22/15
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Thanks Sam - a video will be fantastic :-)

Ros

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On 23 Mar 2015, at 9:06 am, Sam Jones <ooiam...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sup Ros. :) 

Does it make noise? I have no idea, I have been told it does (I don't own the machine yet, I will be ordering it soon).  This is and isn't a concern for me for the following 2 reasons :

1) I'm learning Steno. So I won't be using it in any public setting for quite some time. Even for use as a student/training machine you have to think of the pros and cons.  Its much cheaper than a regular steno machine and so I am not so bothered if its noisier than my Stenotype machine (that does not connect to my PC). 
2) The steno system used in the UK (mostly, but not always) is Palantype.  Thats a system that uses keys similar to those on a regular keyboard (See Velotype and Palantype machines) they are VERY noisy.  I don't think the Treal will be anywhere as noisy as that. 

To answer your question about software, yes it does work with Eclipse, in fact eclipse recognises that you are using a Treal and will recognise the extra keys on the machine. (Plover as far as I am aware does not)  So if you get to your goal speed, and you go pro, you could use this machine with other software. 

I am going to buy this machine (I have done a whole butt load of research) in the next coming weeks so if you could wait a little while I could post a video for you to have a look at the machine and find out how noisy she is?? hehe 

Sam

Emanuele Caruso

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Mar 23, 2015, 10:30:08 AM3/23/15
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Hi Ros,
stenoboard switches make a sound slightly quieter than that of a mouse click.

Stenoboard does work with CAT software like Eclipse.

Emanuele Caruso
stenoboard.com

Roslyn Sim

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Mar 24, 2015, 5:22:29 AM3/24/15
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Thanks Emanuele :-)

I'm excited to get a stenoboard now - we'll order one next pay period. Which plastic parts do you recommend? Does one get dirty more easily etc.?

Ros

Emanuele Caruso

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Mar 27, 2015, 8:57:31 AM3/27/15
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Thanks Emanuele :-)

I'm excited to get a stenoboard now - we'll order one next pay period. Which plastic parts do you recommend? Does one get dirty more easily etc.?

Ros

You are welcome!

If you think you will be using it in public places, I suggest the High Quality plastic parts, otherwise, or if you don't care, Medium Quality parts are just fine.

The white plastic parts make dust almost impossible to see, while the black parts are of course more resistant to grease, dirty hands, etc... I would suggest white for home usage and black if you take your stenoboard around with you.

Emanuele Caruso
stenoboard.com

Roslyn Sim

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Apr 1, 2015, 6:54:02 AM4/1/15
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I have just ordered a StenoBoard :-). Can't wait for it to arrive! I chose the faster shipping option, but because I both chose assembled parts and live so far away from Italy (Australia), I'll be patient :-).

I have been loving StenoTutor for practicing steno, but have been making do with pieces of icy pole stick (popsicle stick) hot glued onto my keys instead of a real machine, so I'm sure my fingers will love the upgrade...

I chose the black kit with medium quality plastic parts and preassembled PCBs. Would anyone like me to make a video or two showing what comes in the StenoBoard kit, how we go about assembling it, and what it's like to write on? Would posting a video like that publicly be okay, Emanuele?

Thanks,
Ros

Robert Fontaine

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Apr 1, 2015, 7:00:49 AM4/1/15
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Stenoboard video ... Yes please :)   A review would be fantastic.   It might give me the motivation to stop waffling.


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Emanuele Caruso

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Apr 1, 2015, 11:52:34 PM4/1/15
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Thank you Ros for ordering!!

All videos about Stenoboard are welcome, and I'd love to see videos like those you propose here! ;)

Emanuele Caruso
stenoboard.com

Roslyn Sim

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May 5, 2015, 5:30:11 AM5/5/15
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Hi Emanuele and Robert

I received my Stenoboard 1.1 Kit yesterday and assembled it last night. As promised, I attempted to make a video of the assembly process and post it to YouTube: https://youtu.be/S2FS-ovEW58 Please don't expect wonderful videography (or any editing, I'm afraid), but I hope my contribution is helpful.

I have been practicing with Stenoboard instead of my nkro gaming keyboard today. The key spacing is, of course, much better. I am finding that it will take me a little while to get used to the different way the keys work - unlike my manual stenograph machine or the nkro keyboard, these keys have very little travel. I believe the switches are actually the ones they use as mouse buttons. At first, I found myself pushing very hard when I wrote a word with many keys to ensure that all of them registered. As the day has progressed, I am relaxing into it more, although I'm still having issues getting AO or EU to both register on occasion. I will use it for a while before replying again with a more experienced opinion :-).

Thanks,
Ros

Mirabai Knight

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May 5, 2015, 2:32:57 PM5/5/15
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This is awesome. I noticed the video is unlisted. Do you mind me
sharing the link on the Plover blog, or would you rather that I
didn't?
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Roslyn Sim

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May 5, 2015, 4:56:40 PM5/5/15
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Go ahead :-). I hope it helps people see that the kit with preassembled PCBs isn't too tricky at all.

Ros

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