KP(1) KP Version 0.93 KP(1)
19 March 1994
NAME
kp - Keyboard Practicer for the X Window System
SYNOPSIS
kp [toolkitoption ...] [{-,+}{showkeytop,kt}] [{-,+}{shownextkey,nk}]
[{-,+}{ignorecases,ic}] [-dvorak] [-qwerty] [-physical {dvorak,qwerty}]
[-vendor {Sun,HP,DEC,PC,Kinesis}] [file]
DESCRIPTION
Kp is a program which runs under the X window system. It is intended
to be used to practice touch-typing.
This program is designed to make it easy for the user to get used to
keyboards. The program window consists of two panes---the practice
text and the virtual keyboard. The cursor moves on the practice text
as the user hits the key. The virtual keyboard usually shows which
key the user has just hit and what the user should type next.
The main difficulty of touch-typing is to ``forget'' about the physi-
cal keyboard---as long as you watch the keytops, you won't master
touch-typing. Using kp, the user can focus on the screen and forget
about the keytop symbols on the real keyboard.
In addition, kp has two useful features---virtual Dvorak support and
filtering. Dvorak is an alternative keyboard layout to the conven-
tional Qwerty, and there are enthusiastic supporters (the author being
one) all over the world. Kp lets you practice Dvorak while using
Qwerty on other windows. The virtual keyboard aids the user to
``feel'' the Dvorak keyboard, without having to look up her typing
textbook's back cover.
Kp allows you to ``filter'' the words in the practice text, i.e.,
select only words that contain certain letters. Thus, the user can
start from the keys she is most familiar with and incrementally extend
the keyset until she masters the full keyboard. This is particularly
useful for Dvorak keyboards, since the middle row contains the most
frequently used keys and the user can learn very quickly and easily by
starting from the middle row.
Kp has a user-friendly menu-oriented interface to change configura-
tions and select practice text files. A good practice text is your
favorite manual page (use the one in the cat? directories, not the
nroff source in man?), and kp will remove the underscores and doubles-
trikes for your convenience.
Kp tries to guess what your keyboard looks like by looking up the
keycode/keysym translation table. It currently knows about PC, HP,
Sun and DEC keyboards, Qwerty or Dvorak. When it doesn't understand
what keyboard it's looking at, it assumes a Sun keyboard. However, it
doesn't really need this information except for the layout of special
symbols. I'll probably drop this support in the next release (it's
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KP(1) KP Version 0.93 KP(1)
19 March 1994
not very likely that what people want to practice with kp are special
symbols).
In addition, there are some xmodmap files that you can use to remap
your keyboard to Dvorak in the xmodmaps/ subdirectory of the source
distribution. They come with Qwerty counterparts but they are not
very well tested (I don't use Qwerty!) so use them with care.
OPTIONS
In addition to specifying the practice file (which can be any ASCII
file) from the command line, and all standard X toolkit options, kp
supports the following command line options. If the option begins
with a `+' instead of a `-', think it as appending a ``do not'' in
front of the name of the option. (I know this is very strange consid-
ering the mathematical meanings of the two symbols but that's the way
they are in Unix.)
The options can also be set via the resource names given in
parentheses in the description of each option, and also can be changed
when the program is running via the Options menu.
-showkeytop/kt
(.showKeyTop) Show all the keytop symbols on the virtual key-
board. When turned off, only show the key most recently typed,
and the next key, if -shownextkey (see below) is specified.
-shownextkey/nk
(.showNextKey) Show the next key to type in reverse video.
-ignorecases/ic
(.ignoreCases) Do not care whether a letter is lowercase or up-
percase. When this option is turned on, the program will ignore
cases almost everywhere, not only when you type practice text---
it doesn't reverse the shift key when displaying the next key to
type, collect words with both uppercase and lowercase versions
for filtering, etc.
-dvorak/qwerty
(.keyboard) Selects the virtual keyboard. When specifying via
resources, "true" denotes Dvorak (no flames for this please).
-physical keyboardtype
(.physicalKeyboard) Overrides the keyboard type detection routine
of kp. Valid arguments are "dvorak" and "qwerty".
-vendor vendorname
(.vendor) Overrides the vendor detection routine of kp. Valid
arguments are "Sun", "HP", "DEC", "PC" and "Kinesis". Note that
Kinesis keyboards are never detected automatically, since there
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KP(1) KP Version 0.93 KP(1)
19 March 1994
is no way the software can distinguish between them and ordinary
PC keyboards.
MENUS
Most menu entries should be self-explanatory (that's what menus are
for). The only (possibly) item that is not clear is the Filter entry
of the Options menu. If you pull the menu further to the right and
select the Filter entry, kp will produce a dialog popup in which you
can type in characters that you want to proctice.
Kp will then display only the words that consist entirely from those
characters. (Note that case significance is an issue here; if you are
in ``case insensitive'' mode, both uppercase and lowercase versions of
the letter is used, but if you are in ``case sensitive'' mode, only
the characters that match exactly to your string are used.
Unfilter will negate the effects of the filter. Note that kp won't
forget the the characters of choice so that you can use them again.
ENVIRONMENT
Starting from ``DISPLAY'', kp understands standard X environment vari-
ables. It has no special variable for itself.
SEE ALSO
X(1).
AUTHOR
Satoshi Asami of the Computer Science Division, Department of Electri-
cal Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California,
Berkeley. He wrote this program for his term project in a user inter-
faces course.
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