intellicomplete: abandonware, but it saves a lot of keystrokes! - General

urlwolf
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04-Sep-2008 19:47:02#1 intellicomplete: abandonware, but it saves a lot of keystrokes!

Hi,

I've been using this software:

http://www.flashpeak.com/icomp/

For about a year, and I can't believe people don't use it more! In fact, the authors abandoned it, so it may not sell well.

I'm posting it here since we colemak users seem to care a lot about typing. It may not speed up your typing, but at the end of the day it may save a hell of a lot of keystrokes.

It's a bit inconvenient to use at first, mostly because the suggestions follow the insertion point. But once you get used to it, you may save 70% of the keystrokes for long words. No savings for short words though.

What do you think?

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urlwolf
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06-Sep-2008 12:03:32#2 Re: intellicomplete: abandonware, but it saves a lot of keystrokes!

Maybe I should post my review of it here:
http://www.academicproductivity.com/200 … completer/

Some sites (majorgeeks, if I remember correctly) still carry the download.

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DreymaR
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06-Sep-2008 13:19:05#3 Re: intellicomplete: abandonware, but it saves a lot of keystrokes!

Thanks for sharing!

I use autocompletion only for programming. There, it's completely wonderful since I write languages that I'm not 100% familiar with. Getting the suggestion box with a listing of parameters and optional parameters (in SciTE or other advanced editors) has saved me a lot of frustrating mucking about in help files many times. Of course, getting the help page for a command by having your cursor on it and pressing F1 isn't bad either.

I also love autocompletion for slow writing devices like mobile phones. There it'd be grueling to key in everything the hard way.

For my everyday typing needs I haven't gone to the step of using autocompletion though. The reasons are several I think:

- I don't use a Kinesis board either. Maybe I'd enjoy such a board a lot, but I'm afraid it'd annoy me having to switch around to all the "normal" keyboards I meet on my workplace. So for reasons of compliance I'm a bit restrictive. Now, I can't be all that much concerned with compliance if I choose to type in a layout that I have to carry around with me on my USB stick, can I? Heh, maybe but it's in the balance. I'm actually in the process of making my Norwegian Colemak almost equal to the US Colemak so I could use the standard Colemak install in X11 with only very minor modifications (or none if I type in English exclusively).

- I'm afraid it'd become a crutch, and then whenever it wasn't around I'd feel stunted. I don't think I'd be able to use it both in Windows, Unix and Linux? And maybe not in all programs either? So there'd be times of the day I couldn't use it.

- I'd rather learn to type even faster than today, because I like skill and perfection. And then I'm afraid it'd get in the way, both of the training process and maybe of the fast typing flow as well? How many WPM is such an aid ideal for, I wonder? My intuition says that it's greater the slower you type beforehand.

- I'm already in the process of learning several things that make me an alien in the eyes of my coworkers. If I were to do more now, they might have me put away. ;)

*** Learn Colemak in 2–5 steps with Tarmak! ***
*** Check out my Big Bag of Keyboard Tricks for Win/Linux/TMK... ***

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urlwolf
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06-Sep-2008 14:42:34#4 Re: intellicomplete: abandonware, but it saves a lot of keystrokes!

Well, to tell you the truth, I have never run any stats on how many keystrokes you save or how much faster you write.
Maybe it's not that much what you save. Sometimes it really feel great, since it learns from the freqs of the words you type it predicts very accurately, much better than any other phone completer I have tried.

You are correct that there's no such a thing for linux/OSX. I'm spending most of my writing time on windows (vmWare) because of intellicomplete; it really feels so much faster.

On the other hand, the few milliseconds that it takes to read the 4 options and decide which number to press may be longer than what it takes to type the entire word if you are a really fast typer. It feels like less work though, and at the end of the day you may have saved your hands a few 100s meters (if you type all day long!).

I've met two kind of people when it comes to autocompleters: (1) Wonders why it doesn't come with all OSs in the world out of the box (2) find they type fast enough, no need for speed (this must be the majority, as the guys making intellicomplete went out of business with it :) .

Of all people, I thought colemak people would be type (1).

As for being an alien, it takes only 1 min to install and it works on any (win) computer. People are not scared by it when they type in your computer; it's not like colemak itself :)

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