Tracky Mouse could benefit from bundling a text input method like Dasher.
I have some ideas for improvements to Dasher, some of which would be great to get in Dasher, but I'm considering making my own version as an experiment.
A separate application, as Dasher is, would work fine for the desktop version (even for making it launchable from a Tracky Mouse toolbar similar to eViacam's toolbar). However for the web library version, it'd be nice to have an integrated text entry system, which would need to be web-based.
Feedback for Dasher
- It desperately needs undo/redo. It's easy to delete everything by simply leaning to the left (sort of equivalent to backspace in Dasher) or by selecting text to copy and then leaning to the right - typing one character, erasing the selection.
- Small punctuation like commas could be enlarged for clarity; this would help me a lot as I can barely see them (with the "large" (default) font size option)
- I often find myself having to stop and think about the alphabet order. Part of that is because of the nature of the program, and it's a learning curve, but part of it is because letters aren't all shown! You have to figure out generally where to look and then zoom in before the letter you're looking is made visible. It would help a lot if all letters were shown, just smaller, instead of popping in at full size (and potentially overlapping other letters).
- In general, overlap of letters could be avoided more dynamically, allowing for larger text without overlaps. Like, the sizes of boxes could be adjusted up to some limit, from their likelihood-based size, to avoid overlaps.
- (and/or overlapping text could actually be shown in a clearer way if needed, using opacity)
- I'd like to be able to use a secondary input to speed up; in other words, a "dash" control, like a video game, and like the name of the software. This could be a binary input like a mouse button or a closed eye or open mouth, or it could be analog, like a foot pedal or "how open your mouth is".
- Highlighting the letters of the current level of the hierarchy could help (I haven't checked if that's supported by the color customization)
- A gesture to temporarily flatten the alphabet (!), perhaps even dynamically, with an analog input like a pedal or mouth openness, could help a lot. Learning the relative order of the alphabet for any given two letters - one shown very large because it's considered likely, and one that you actually want to type - is a lot harder than learning the absolute order of the alphabet. This new control would allow you to use your spatial intuition of the absolute alphabet order at any time, skipping stopping and thinking about "Is R before P? LMNOPQR.. no, it's after."
- Iconifying groups of symbols, such as uppercase alphabet as "ABCD" or 🔠, digits as "1234" or 🔢, when displaying them small, could help to quickly identify them, beyond the color-coding. Transitioning the symbols chosen as representatives into their positions in the natural layout would be a nice touch.
- The default font should be one that maximally distinguishes characters, such as Atkinson Hyperlegible
- (I'm actually enjoying a really wide western style font in huge text mode; that's working for me...)
- It would be nice if the font size was variable beyond just three sizes.
- The suggestions (weights) feeling off is often a good indication that you've typo'd something; however it would be nice if I could see what I've just written in my periphery, to the left of center (I understand that this would conflict with the design a bit, of representing the hierarchy, but just having it as a low opacity but big text overlay would be helpful).
Ideas for a new Dasher-like text entry system
The essential idea is a cloth as a metaphor for the hyperbolic space of alphabetic continuations.
Unfolding in 3D.
Dasher is essentially built around a fractal of nested alphabets. To the right of each letter is another, smaller alphabet.
Tracing a rightwards path through nested alphabets builds a sentence.
Moving up or down moves less in relation to "outer" alphabets when you're further "in"/right, but if you move far enough you'll still switch outer letters, because it's all part of a continuous hyperbolic space.
Conceptually, there are an infinite number of infinitely small alphabets to the right, but these can't be rendered in full. Dasher has letters pop in at the right.
But what if letters unfolded, initially appearing as wrinkles in the cloth?
- There would be a texture to compressed areas of the alphabet, as of bunched up cloth.
- It might be hard to read letters that are rotated in 3D, but the actual text could be rendered separately from the cloth if needed for clarity. At any rate it would solve the pop-in problem (though not in the simplest way, certainly!)
- It might open the possibility to more spatial layouts... like, we could allocate more angles to text entry than to backtracking. That wouldn't require 3D, but it's separately an interesting an idea, which would mesh well. Like, currently it's 180 degrees for moving into the hierarchy, and 180 degrees for moving outward, but what if we bend it? It might just feel weird, but it might give you more control! I don't know!
Other prior art
- Dasher Web version. This appears to be an official project but it weirdly only updates the movement vector periodically, and the text layout seems wrong (or more primitive), so this seems barely usable? compared to the native version which is pretty intuitive.
- HyperRogue is a game that encodes the most knowledge about hyperbolic space of any software that I know of.
- Diverge, a project of mine with a weirdly terrible demo; an experiment in branching text editing.
- Serpentype, an unpublished project of mine, a curved text input. IDK if that'd be helpful; probably more helpful for enhancing Diverge than making a Dasher-like system.
Naming
- Fabrext (sounds like a laundry detergent - which would probably be spelled "FabrEx")
- Textfab (weirdly generic)
- Wordfab (weirdly generic but also too specific)
- Tracky Type (AI suggested; on-brand) ⭐
- Tracky Text (AI suggested; on-brand; not as clear)
- Typerbolic (adjective form isn't ideal but I like this otherwise) ⭐
- Typerbole (noun form, but pronunciation would be unclear)
- Typerbolica (noun form inspired by game Hyperbolica, clearer pronunciation but a bit weird)
- Could play off "Dasher" being a reindeer name
- Could go off of textile terms, like weave, loom, weft, warp, or textile
- Weft/warp are good because they're a little obscure; warp implies speed
- Textwarp ⭐
- Warper ⭐
- Weftword (or is it Weftward? possibly confusing, might not be worth the pun)
- Loomk (because you "look" to type... yeah that's a weird diphthong, m'kay? what of it?)
- Textile includes the word "text"! but is a bit too common of a word by itself and a bit long to portmanteau
- Dasher (steal the name - there's enough versions of the software that it's basically a software category at this point, right? haha..)
Tracky Mouse could benefit from bundling a text input method like Dasher.
I have some ideas for improvements to Dasher, some of which would be great to get in Dasher, but I'm considering making my own version as an experiment.
A separate application, as Dasher is, would work fine for the desktop version (even for making it launchable from a Tracky Mouse toolbar similar to eViacam's toolbar). However for the web library version, it'd be nice to have an integrated text entry system, which would need to be web-based.
Feedback for Dasher
Ideas for a new Dasher-like text entry system
The essential idea is a cloth as a metaphor for the hyperbolic space of alphabetic continuations.
Unfolding in 3D.
Dasher is essentially built around a fractal of nested alphabets. To the right of each letter is another, smaller alphabet.
Tracing a rightwards path through nested alphabets builds a sentence.
Moving up or down moves less in relation to "outer" alphabets when you're further "in"/right, but if you move far enough you'll still switch outer letters, because it's all part of a continuous hyperbolic space.
Conceptually, there are an infinite number of infinitely small alphabets to the right, but these can't be rendered in full. Dasher has letters pop in at the right.
But what if letters unfolded, initially appearing as wrinkles in the cloth?
Other prior art
Naming