>From Sam Hart on Tuesday, 2005-05-31 at 08:33:53 -0500: > On Mon, 2005-05-30 at 08:35 +0200, Finn-Arne Johansen wrote: > > Petter Reinholdtsen wrote: > > > [Andreas Tille] > > > > > >> 3. Are there alternatives for this program which are actively > > >> maintained? > > > > > > > > > I'm aware of ktouch for practicing touch typing, but have never tried > > > tipptrainer so I do not know if it is an alternative or not. > > > > There is also tuxtype, which is not on the Sarge PreRelease cd's, but > > that works fine. > > There was some work a while back to make tuxtype so that it was suitable > for touch typing, but I haven't checked on it lately to see how far > Jesse got with it (I know, I'm a bad tux4kids guy).
Astri Kleppe had a suggestion that I really liked -- I even posted it on the Tux Typing forum last summer, but I never got any response. The suggestion is to turn it into something more than just a typing program, namely a translation program. The falling letters say "dog", and I (living in Norway) type "hund", "chien" in France, etc. It does not seem like this would be too difficult to implement, and the many people learning English all over the world would benefit. Tux Math has just reappeared in Debian with improvements to make it more configurable. I think it would be fantastic if someone would do the same with Tux Typing. Clearly there is room both for an action program like Tux Typing and a more sober program along the lines of KTouch, which functions better on thin clients. Many of the Norwegian schools use a program called Drillpro (Windows), not really a typing program, but a spelling program. One of the features of this program is that a word appears on the screen, then disappears, then you spell the word, and your guess appears on the screen, but only insofar as you guess correctly. The program is not especially sophisticated technically, but it has a certain psychological sophistication -- wrong spellings are not permitted. I am still waiting for some sort of super-program to emerge that will include all of these elements. I presented Tux Typing and Tux Math to one of the teachers, and she complained that she wanted to make her own lists. Maybe KTouch, KVoctrain, and KWordquiz should be together? Maybe we should start collecting lists of vocabulary/translation and post them in some common forum? Conrad -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
