Lee

[lee griggs]

Hello, I thought it was about time I introduced myself.

I am the proud of owner of two dvorak touchstreams.

Ive been modifying my gestures and am always on the lookout for the perfect gesture.

They are pretty much centred around windows/photoshop and maya.
I have posted the xml file at the bottom of my website (in tiny writing):

www.griggsgraphics.com

sorry that I cant get a direct link to work

anyway, I would be very interested if anyone else is willing to show me their gestures and please feel free to ask me about any of the changes I have made.

I am particularly pleased with autoclick on 2 finger pointing release and
assigning alt a + numbers which correspond to my windows favourites and double up as number typing.

Five finger tap on right side also has a number of useful functions (that dont conflict with eachother usually).

Also sorting files by size, modified and between thumbnails and details feels great. My colleagues at work have no idea what I am doing when I am navigating windows without mousing !

I still have so many empty gestures to fill up and yet Ive been changing them on and off for over 2 years!

I love these keyboards and look forward to seeing what else I can get out of them!

cheers,
lee

[ivanw]

A quick tour through your gestures.xml with MygestureEdiror, brought me back to some strange feeling I had already about this keyboard. What I can say about it is that it looks like you have something between your hands that can be just seen as an approximation of a keyboard-mouse combination but you can't help thinking that you are missing the point.

There is so much to explore through customization that what I did on my own seems to be just scratching the surface. Looking at your gestures just confirms that, as long as they bring quite different possibilities.

All this is great but, after more than six busy training monthes, I can't enjoy these gestures because of my lack of the muscle memory allowing you to touch-type on this keyboard. I still have to use the standard one when I need my brain back so I can think about programing. Hopefully this is a temporary issue as long as, after more than 20 years of hunt and pecking, I am now near 60 wpm while training.

I am also very interested by what curious TS users like you have to report about this emerging interaction means. I know that we are among dedicated people here. Freaks don't play around things that demand this much effort to get involved.

BTW, my customizations zip archive is accessible from this thread.

[lee griggs]

Freaks don't play around things that demand this much effort to get involved.

oh so true !

I am also very interested by what curious TS users like you have to report about this emerging interaction means.

I dream of an operating system designed purely around gestures. Imagine that.....mmmmmm

interesting gestures Ivan ! I had no idea ctrl/shit insert was an alternative for copy/paste !!

[lee griggs]

btw Ivan, I cant seem to get the 'Hold PunctPad On' gesture to work. I assign it to a chord hold, but it doesnt do anything. Do you know where I am going wrong or could you look at my gestures?

sorry to be a pain in the 'Q'

[ivanw]

Based on the contents of your gesture.xml file, I can't say what could be the exact reason why 'Hold PunctPad On' wont work. All I can figure out is that this could be related to the options you've selected. As I did not play with most of them, I can't say whether they may interfere. My first guess would be to toggle the layoutContext to us101. This plays with Alt, Cmd, Win and Meta keys...
In MygestureEditor: Feature Selector -> typing -> Enhanced Modifier Chords

Here are the differences between yours and mine.
Your options:
<pre><UserOptions
driverContext = " win dvorak"
layoutContext = " international102"
thumb_can_click = "true"
game_mode_switchable = "true"
enable_varspeed_typematic = "false"
toggle_numlock_internally = "true"
european_50Hz_filter = "true"
enable_pinky_gamebutton = "true"
index_triggers_button = "3"
pinky_triggers_button = "2"
>
<EnabledRighthandGestures list=" scroll_mouse three_buttons clipboard_op text_styles file_op window_op
pengrip_op tap_range_chord
photoshop_views programmer_op weird_chords search_edit" />
<EnabledLefthandGestures list=" clipboard_op text_styles text_nav
pengrip_op tap_range_chord
photoshop_views programmer_op weird_chords" />
<EnabledBimanualGestures list=" maya_views
text_styles hand_nav
pengrip_op tap_range_chord programmer_op
weird_chords" />
</UserOptions></pre>
My options:
<pre><UserOptions
driverContext = " win qwerty"
layoutContext = " us101"
enable_spelling_model = "false"
enable_spelling_replacement = "false"
enable_punctuation_pad = "true"
european_50Hz_filter = "true"
>
<EnabledRighthandGestures list="scroll_mouse three_buttons clipboard_op text_styles file_op
window_op desktop_nav text_nav tap_range_chord programmer_op
weird_chords search_edit" />
<EnabledLefthandGestures list="three_buttons
clipboard_op text_styles desktop_nav text_nav
tap_range_chord programmer_op weird_chords" />
<EnabledBimanualGestures list=" hand_nav tap_range_chord programmer_op" />
</UserOptions></pre>

[edit]made pre-formated layout less width-greedy[/edit]

[Msquared]

All this is great but, after more than six busy training monthes, I can't enjoy these gestures because of my lack of the muscle memory allowing you to touch-type on this keyboard. I still have to use the standard one when I need my brain back so I can think about programing. Hopefully this is a temporary issue as long as, after more than 20 years of hunt and pecking, I am now near 60 wpm while training.

When I started using my TS back in Sep last year, I decided that was the time to give up hunt'n'peck and learn the correct fingers for touch typing. The layout is subtly different anyway, as there's no inter-row-slant, so it'll already be a bit of a learning curve.

The effort has paid off. I'm now typing almost as fast on my TS as I do with pseudo-hunt'n'peck on a regular mechanical keyboard. The lack of delay to reach the mouse, and the gestures, I think make up for the slightly lower typing speed.

I still use the same style of typing on a mechanical keyboard as I always did (which is like touch typing but not using the right fingers), because the layout is different enough that otherwise I might confuse which device I'm using and end up slowing down again. Oh well... It's a fair tradeoff... Perhaps one day I might try to pick up touch typing properly on a mechanical kb, but for now I'm happy with my typing speed on both mechanical and TS keyboards...

[ivanw]

Well, Msquared, it looks like posting here any more would seem to be off topic . As I am currently in the middle of something related to what you said with my new TypeMatrix, I will reply in Shawn_Milo's review thread

BTW: Lee, even the second to best ergonomic keyboard ranks far behind the TouchStream. The right decision would be to never get any close to some Fingerworks product... Yea, too late, you can't use any so-called keyboard and pretend it is an alternative to the TS, that's all!