Stenography journey, entry 3

[estirose]

My Stenokeyboards Polyglot arrived yesterday and I set it up.

The first impression that I have is that it's a pretty solid keyboard. I've tried both QWERTY and Stenography/stenotype modes with a Linux computer and a Windows computer. Keys work well and are comfortable to press but not the quietest keyboard out there. I'll make notes below on each.

In general, because of the way it's split for regular QWERTY (QWERT YUIOP, etc) it's a bit wacky to type on for that. It's usable in a pinch (this is your only keyboard and you need to type things without Plover), but not something I could type for a long time on. It would work well for gaming, though, as it's NKRO by default. I personally will be flashing my firmware to switch up two keys (shift and space) but otherwise I'm good.

Windows: Easy connection to Plover without having to do any extra steps to get the Steno part of the keyboard to work. Keys proved to be a bit sensitive in QWERTY input but I think I may have fixed it.

Linux: More of an issue getting the keyboard to work with Plover but QWERTY input is a bit smoother. For me or anybody else who runs into the problem of getting this or similar GeminiPR keyboards to work on Linux (note: I run an Ubuntu variant with KDE, but these commands should work regardless of distro):

1. Plug in the keyboard and open Plover. Select "GeminiPR" in the Plover config. If the keyboard does not show up and/or you get an error message, try the next step.

2. Type in the following command. This requires sudo, so you also need to type in your password where requested:
sudo usermod -a -G dialout username
(substitute your linux username) then reboot! Don't miss this step or you'll be like me, staring at your Plover install and wondering what went wrong.

3. Hopefully this works for you, but if it doesn't or if you want to make sure you're adding yourself to the right group:
a) Run Plover temporarily with sudo. Note down what the path is. (Mine was /dev/serial/by-id/(name of keyboard))
b) Go into the directory that you noted in a). there will be a symblink/alias to the actual tty that your device is using.
c) Go into the /dev/ directory and find the device that your device does a symblink/alias to. See what group it belongs to. This is the group that you need to be a member of. (In my case, the group for the tty was dialup.)
d) Once you find the group, type "sudo usermod -a -G 'name of group' username", where 'name of group' is the group (please omit the single quotes - it should look like the command in step 2 above) and username is your linux username. Type your password, and most importantly, remember to reboot after!

Android: The version I have of Dottrel, which is essentially Plover for Android, does not know how to talk to GeminiPR machines. It looks like I can compile a version that does do serial. Getting my phone to recognize it as a QWERTY keyboard is also a bit weird - the moment it switches to Steno my phone shrugs and doesn't recognize its input anymore even if I switch it back.

Steam Deck: This should work (since the Deck is Linux-based), depending on whether the usermod command works on SteamOS (due to the OS lockdown, this is not a given). Unfortunately my Deck is getting repaired so I won't be able to test until I get it back. Plover is an appimage so at least there's no problems there.

Other: Not much learning today due to getting the thing to work! Still working on the stickers for the keys that I planned to put in - I'm doing less that I originally planned because I realized that I mostly needed them for less intuitive keypresses - for example, the keys for navigation, modifier keys such as control, and various symbols.

Comments

[red_hotline]

!! I was machine court reporting school for 2 and a half years before switching to voice writing. let me know if you want finger drills/ word list practice material. I'll chuck em in a Google drive folder.

[estirose]

I'm good, but thanks! Between Stenojig, Typeytype, and some self-learning online stuff I'm well-covered for training material.

Good to meet you though, I don't run into a lot of people familiar with stenography! Tell me about voice writing, I'm curious.

[red_hotline]

it's good to meet you too! I got a little excited when the tag "steno" popped up in latest things.

Voicing writing involves the user repeating whatever is being said by speaker(s) into a specialized microphone that muffles your voice. A speech to text program will produce the text for you, but it takes lots of time dictating to the program for it to be highly accurate. When making an official transcript, for example, you also record backup audio from the room like a machine writer does. That way you can cross reference the computer text, your spoken record, and what was caught on microphones around the room. it's a little less…steno-y but we do use briefs / formatting commands. I learned Magnum steno theory so…. I'm quite happy to take a vacation from planet briefs-out-the-nose. 😅

[estirose]

Oh, really nice! I'm quite in love with chording (despite the fact that a week in I'm currently typing at less than 10wpm on the easiest stuff LOL) but that sounds awesome.

I've been kind of exposed to at least briefs from reading ahead in my book, Plover (the theory I use) is descended from StenEd so I'm sure some of the briefs were inherited from there. Haven't poked into formatting, though I did run across somebody's dictionary entries for Plover theory that allow for courtroom-style formatting.