Comments on: Are there any open-source typing tests?

Question: Are there any open-source typing tests?

Jairus — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 12:02:01 -0800

Are there any polished open-source typing tests, either for Windows, or as a web app?

By: weston

weston — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 12:46:54 -0800

There are a number of typing tutors listed on freshmeat.net, which presumably contain facilities for testing. Most of them seem to be X11/K/Gnome/Terminal apps, so there would be some hacking necessary to get them to work on Windows or the web.

I wrote a basic web typing test a few years ago. It's not too hard if you've got a good diff algorithm already written for you. I did it in Perl, using Algorithm::Diff from CPAN.

By: mdevore

mdevore — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 12:50:25 -0800

Not open-source, but free and web/online is TypingTest.com which seems to work pretty well based on a couple of tries. It is a Java application, so you need your browser to have Java support turned on. Is access to source a requirement, or is 'free' the important part?

If you need open-source programs with native Windows support, SourceForge has TypeFaster Typing Tutor which includes typing statistics and lessons, though not specifically geared to tests. It's beta status, updated within the past year, and has a current 88% activity percentile for SourceForge projects -- which is mediocre as active SF projects go, but given its limited appeal, not so bad. There's also the popular and mature Tux Typing on SourceForge, but it appears very child- and game-oriented. A polished interface, but probably not in the manner you wish.

By: Jairus

Jairus — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:04:37 -0800

TypingTest.com isn't too shabby, but the most important part of the featureset I'm looking for is the ability to use your own source text, which it doesn't seem to allow. I could hack something together using diff, but I'd spend more time calculating the appropriate stats than I'd like

It looks like the TypingTest.com people offer an enterprise version with the ability to customize the test text, but it appears to be closed-source, and $990 USD.

By: Sharcho

Sharcho — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:44:13 -0800

Seconding TypeFaster.
Check out also Power Typing typing test

By: mdevore

mdevore — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 22:39:32 -0800

If you key off the custom word list feature and drop the open-source/free req, then Typing Tester should work. Not expensive for a personal copy, but you have to request a quote for network licensing, and frankly the software has a minimalist, early 1990's look based on the screenshots. A free downloadable demo is available if you have any interest.

As a second non-free choice, TypeMaster Pro looks slicker and is cheaper than Typing Tester, and also has statistics, network licensing and a downloadable demo. The education version implies you can use your own word list, although the exact phrase is "customizable typing tests" which I suppose could be interpreted to mean something else.

No personal experience with either, including the demos.