Inept typist seeks neat solution

[csearle]

Hi, I'm interested in a suggestion to combat an issue I'm having.

Several years ago, not sure when, I noticed that I was typing the letters the as teh. It is very irritating. I've tried to slow down my typing speed, but I keep just reverting to my normal rate and this typo is not going away it would seem.

I have no great typing style, it tends to be thumb, index finger, and middle finger of both hands, which is quicker than just poking about with two index fingers but not very flash. It has served me well for thirty years or so.

Various computer applications have auto-correct, but it seems I'm too stupid and/or inpatient to set them up. It is also not an elegant solution as the problem lies with me rather than any particular application. What I really would like is something to intercept the keystrokes, maybe a special keyboard driver, and perform custom substitutions regardless of which application will be fielding the keyboard input.

I did Google around at some point and I think I hit upon some truly huge packages that seemed as if they might be able to do what I want, but I am no great fan of loading up my computer (W7home on hp desktop) with huge applications, when something tiny and sleek ought to be able to do the trick.

I thought if there wasn't anything available I might be able to write a kind of add-on to the existing keyboard driver but am not sure how to go about this and would prefer to just use something that already exists. I tend to use C++Builder for programming as I am somewhat stuck in the past.

Any help would be gratefully received.

Thanks,
Chris

[Meatyfool]

I believe there may be some keyloggers out there on places like softpaedia, major geeks. From memory, mind - I haven't looked.

They monitor the keystrokes as you require, and have a payload which (nefariously) then sends those keystrokes to someone somewhere. Just change the payload!

Possible, don't know, but you didn't ask that!

Meatyfool..

[AleisterCrowley]

I find I do;
the as teh
regards as regrads
finance as finace
Not much help, but you are not alone!

[AllYourBase]

You don't say what applications you're using. In MS Word autocorrect from teh to the is there by default - there shouldn't be any set up required at all.

[TedSwippet]

I have no great typing style, it tends to be thumb, index finger, and middle finger of both hands, which is quicker than just poking about with two index fingers but not very flash. It has served me well for thirty years or so.

Have you tried learning to touch-type correctly? You will already know the keyboard layout by now, so it probably won't be as hard as you think.

I spent 15 years of a 30-year IT career being unable to touch-type. What finally kicked me into it was reading an article by a recruiter who said that he would not employ anyone who could not touch-type, no matter how good their other skills, as he regarded them as 'disabled' at the keyboard. By then in my mid-40s, I really didn't need any more impediments to changing jobs.

There is a slowdown at first, but it took me only around two weeks or so with a tutor program to become as fast as before, and much faster thereafter. The key (sorry, pun!) at the start is to force yourself, as soon as you can remember the finger-to-letter mapping, to touch-type everything from there on out and without looking at the keyboard, even though it initially feels much less comfortable than the 'old way'.

Of course, I still make many mistakes -- the erase key is one of the more worn ones on my keyboard. But at this point I find touch-typing so natural that it is as easy as writing longhand, and faster. Also more legible; my handwriting has visibly deteriorated (through disuse, mostly!) as my typing improved. Perhaps one other 'negative' to it; I am much more 'wordy' in emails and board postings than I was (and than I should be!).

Maybe give it a go? I resisted for decades, but really wish now that I had not, and am just happy that I did not resist for even longer.

[mc2fool]

Various computer applications have auto-correct, but it seems I'm too stupid and/or inpatient to set them up. It is also not an elegant solution as the problem lies with me rather than any particular application. What I really would like is something to intercept the keystrokes, maybe a special keyboard driver, and perform custom substitutions regardless of which application will be fielding the keyboard input.
:
I thought if there wasn't anything available I might be able to write a kind of add-on to the existing keyboard driver but am not sure how to go about this and would prefer to just use something that already exists. I tend to use C++Builder for programming as I am somewhat stuck in the past.

I am quite bemused at you, on the one hand, saying you are "too stupid and/or inpatient" to set up auto-correct in the applications you use and, on the other hand, you being a C++ coder and considering hacking the keyboard driver!

I most definitely would not recommend the latter, having the keyboard driver doing auto substitutions universally sounds like a really bad idea ... what happens when you want to look at http://teh.net/ or read up and search for Teh tarik or similar...?

It does remind me though of a prank played by one of the software engineers in a team I was in several decades ago ... we were all working on a computer with a multi user OS (as was the norm at the time) and this bright spark decided one night to hack the keyboard driver to occasionally swap around pairs of letters in the type-ahead buffer (i.e. after they were received but before they were echoed). So, everything worked fine if you typed slowly but if you went apace you'd get frequent typos of the "teh" for "the" kind.

'Twas only when someone at lunch commented about seeming to be particularly fumble fingered that day and several of us said, "uh, me too" that the culprit collapsed laughing and let on what he'd done. After the initial "what?!?!" we all had a good laugh, playfully roughed him up, and agreed it was a good'un ...

[csearle]

Thank you for your replies. Sorry it has been a day or two to respond.

To Meatyfool, thank you I'll look into it. To AC. We are I suspect of that age. To AllYourBase it is not just MS word but all applications, half of which I've written myself. MS Word isn't correcting my typos even though I've ensured it should do it, hence my desperation.

To Ted, this is an alternate solution that I'd toyed with but had given up upon. I might try again given your experience.

To m2fool. I tried to set up autocorrect in my more used applications and failed abjectly. The user experience was good up to the point where I tried it out and it simply failed to autocorrect!. I can type today teh in MS word and that is exactly how it comes out. It seems to me the hurdle of coaxing MS Word to do the obvious is smaller than re-writing the keyboard driver.

If my hypothetical driver causes unwanted side-effects then at least I could modify the coding to correct it.

C.

[GoSeigen]

Thank you for your replies. Sorry it has been a day or two to respond.

To Meatyfool, thank you I'll look into it. To AC. We are I suspect of that age. To AllYourBase it is not just MS word but all applications, half of which I've written myself. MS Word isn't correcting my typos even though I've ensured it should do it, hence my desperation.

To Ted, this is an alternate solution that I'd toyed with but had given up upon. I might try again given your experience.

To m2fool. I tried to set up autocorrect in my more used applications and failed abjectly. The user experience was good up to the point where I tried it out and it simply failed to autocorrect!. I can type today teh in MS word and that is exactly how it comes out. It seems to me the hurdle of coaxing MS Word to do the obvious is smaller than re-writing the keyboard driver.

If my hypothetical driver causes unwanted side-effects then at least I could modify the coding to correct it.

C.

Mac OS allows you to direct the OS to correct this sort of typo universally in any app via a setting in the OS text preferences. The correction of "teh" to "the" is one of the few set up right now in my version.

I'd be amazed if Windows itself did not have a similar feature. If it doesn't then why not write your own version as you contemplated, but offer it to other users too? You might make a bit of money out of it!

As in Mac OS, you could have a GUI with check boxes enabling/disabling your code entirely and also enabling/disabling individual user-entered substitutions. Then it's easy to switch off a substitution temporarily when it is interfering.

GS

[Itsallaguess]

I tried to set up autocorrect in my more used applications and failed abjectly.

The user experience was good up to the point where I tried it out and it simply failed to autocorrect!.

I can type today teh in MS word and that is exactly how it comes out.

It seems to me the hurdle of coaxing MS Word to do the obvious is smaller than re-writing the keyboard driver.

Have a read through this Chris, and check to make sure everything is set correctly in your Office/Word installation -

Word Spell Check Woes -

https://www.timeatlas.com/word-spell-check-not-working/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Slarti]

MS Word isn't correcting my typos even though I've ensured it should do it, hence my desperation.

Turn autocorrect off, close Word. Restart Word and turn autocorrect back on. (File>Options>Advanced>Proofing)

Possibly also check that teh isn't in Custom dictionaries

Slarti

[scotia]

That's interesting - I have found that I also now have problems with the order of certain combinations of keys - usually involving the order of letters in "that". I suspect its a problem of old age. Maybe there's a budding academic out there who would like to write a paper on why "the" and "that" are such a problem for us oldies.

[mc2fool]

Hmmm ... on a bit of googling I've found (to my surprise) that Windows 10 already has a system wide spell checker. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/25843-turn-off-spell-checking-windows-10-a.html

However, I also find that it's already turned on (Settings - Devices - Typing) on both of my W10 systems (pro desktop, home laptop) but doesn't seem to work anywhere. Anyone else?

[gryffron]

Maybe there's a budding academic out there who would like to write a paper on why "the" and "that" are such a problem

I believe it is because your hands race each other. Your brain is sending the command "press 'h'" to your right hand, and "press 'e'" to your left. And the hands race each other and get the order worng. (Ha, see, I just did it there).

Gryff

[scotia]

I believe it is because your hands race each other. Your brain is sending the command "press 'h'" to your right hand, and "press 'e'" to your left. And the hands race each other and get the order worng. (Ha, see, I just did it there).

That sounds plausible. Maybe I should tie one hand behind my back.

[NomoneyNohoney]

Scanned the thread and no-one seems to have mentioned my solution... autohotkey.

This is a program of immense capabilities, but one of its simplest activities is autocorrecting common mispellings.
Following a reinstall of my pc I overlooked it, but anyway, here's what you need:
http://download.cnet.com/AutoHotkey/300 ... 79446.html
https://www.autohotkey.com/

There is available a free script for spelling corrections, which worked fine (seeing as I am a habitual "teh" writer!) and there's a whole world of extra possibilities to discover. Don't be deterred by its depth: just find how to install the spelling correction script, make the program run at startup, and job done.

[NomoneyNohoney]

FYI the autocorrect script is mentioned on autohotkey's website in the section about hotstrings:-

"AutoCorrect

The following script uses hotstrings to correct about 4700 common English misspellings on-the-fly. It also includes a Win+H hotkey to make it easy to add more misspellings:

Download: AutoCorrect.ahk (127 KB)

Author: Jim Biancolo and Wikipedia's Lists of Common Misspellings
Remarks"

[csearle]

Thanks again. I'll be back in front of my computer again tonight as I've been away in Cornwall visiting my ancient, wizened, 95 year old mother and so unable to apply myself to my problem. I'll report back in due course. Cheers, Chris

[Itsallaguess]

I'll report back in due course.

If none of the suggestions work, I'd just carefully prise the 'E' and 'H' keys off the keyboard and swap them round.....



Itsallaguess

[csearle]

AutoCorrect...

AutoCorrect installed and very intuitive. Immediately added the and there hotstrings and it has working perfectly - oops it has corrected them in this sentence already. Absolutely perfect, thank you so much. I haven't yet sought out the AutoCorrect.ahk script but will do so now.

Incidentally I have got the auto-correct to work in Word too but it was so simple that I am too embarrassed to mention what I did wrong.

But I needed this AutoCorrect thing as I don't really use Word that much. I need it more for The Lemon Fool and for typing into my own various electrical certification programs.

So I would like to thank you all for your suggestions and may well try learning the touch typing anyway.

Regards,
Chris