Android-style predictive text for physical keyboards
March 26, 2011 9:36 AM
Can I somehow harness Android-style predictive text for my actual, hardware QWERTY keyboard?
The predictive text functionality in Android 2.3 "Gingerbread," running on my touchscreen phone, is remarkably useful. Apparently, the technology comes from a startup called BlindType (video demo), which Google recently acquired.
What I hope for is to type on a physical QWERTY keyboard (Windows, Mac, or even Linux might be fine) and have a touchscreen-style predictive text system react to my input. It would, as the touchscreen systems do, automatically correct obvious typos when I press the spacebar. It might, as touchscreen systems do, automatically complete the rest of a world when, after I've typed the beginning of a word, it has high confidence about which word I intend. (I could accept an auto-completion suggestion, as on Android, by hitting the spacebar.) And it would, as touchscreen systems do, provide several candidate completions on screen as I'm typing, and let me pick them. (Presumably, since I can't provide input by touching an LCD screen, this would have to rely on other input, such as use of the keyboard's number keys.)
Does anything like this exist? If not, how hard could it be to create? Could one repurpose or repackage an Android emulator to achieve this?
(Previous question filter: I looked around and found this question from six years ago. The programs referenced there, even in their current and updated versions, seem well behind the curve of predictive text innovation, which is rocketing along thanks to iPhone-style smartphones that lack QWERTY keyboards.)
The predictive text functionality in Android 2.3 "Gingerbread," running on my touchscreen phone, is remarkably useful. Apparently, the technology comes from a startup called BlindType (video demo), which Google recently acquired.
What I hope for is to type on a physical QWERTY keyboard (Windows, Mac, or even Linux might be fine) and have a touchscreen-style predictive text system react to my input. It would, as the touchscreen systems do, automatically correct obvious typos when I press the spacebar. It might, as touchscreen systems do, automatically complete the rest of a world when, after I've typed the beginning of a word, it has high confidence about which word I intend. (I could accept an auto-completion suggestion, as on Android, by hitting the spacebar.) And it would, as touchscreen systems do, provide several candidate completions on screen as I'm typing, and let me pick them. (Presumably, since I can't provide input by touching an LCD screen, this would have to rely on other input, such as use of the keyboard's number keys.)
Does anything like this exist? If not, how hard could it be to create? Could one repurpose or repackage an Android emulator to achieve this?
(Previous question filter: I looked around and found this question from six years ago. The programs referenced there, even in their current and updated versions, seem well behind the curve of predictive text innovation, which is rocketing along thanks to iPhone-style smartphones that lack QWERTY keyboards.)
I've used programs that provided predictive/learning text input for tty programs, but none of them would be adaptable to GUI input. Many IDEs do predictive completion of keywords and variable/type names. So, sure, it's possible, but I don't know of any actual implementations that aren't built in to a particular program (except the tty ones I mentioned).
posted by hattifattener at 10:52 AM on March 26, 2011
posted by hattifattener at 10:52 AM on March 26, 2011
Some support USB keyboards
If you could find one now, maybe you could type on that and email the text to your pc or something.
posted by Not Supplied at 1:03 PM on March 26, 2011
If you could find one now, maybe you could type on that and email the text to your pc or something.
posted by Not Supplied at 1:03 PM on March 26, 2011
If you use emacs, oonh, M-/ is a command you need to know.
posted by ijoshua at 10:40 AM on March 27, 2011
posted by ijoshua at 10:40 AM on March 27, 2011
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posted by aniola at 10:17 AM on March 26, 2011