#DailyBloggingChallenge (02/10)

After using #8pen for about two days, I came across some conclusions:

• If one makes the center circle a bit bigger one is less prone in over rotating the key selection plus on learns to go further out from the center to choose the correct letter.
• Initially always ended the word/phrase in the center, which would then automatically make a SPACE there after. This became quite painful when writing a password, since after the substring a SPACE happened and one would need to delete it before continuing. So if one had lots of these substrings where one frequently needed to jump between letters and numbers/special characters the process became painstakingly annoying. Simple solution: just end outside of the circle.
• Instead of doing a full circle to get The capitalized letter, it is much easier to hit the SHIFT-
• The letters located on the third ring are the hardest to navigate to.
• Still trying to figure out how to add emojis.
• Still inconclusive if I am missing the auto suggest feature of words.
• Navigating is a bit flimsy and haven’t figured out how I accidentally trigger it.
• Sometimes I wish I had a visual confirmation that a key or functions was activated like on the other pages of the keyboard.

The theory claims once you are familiar with the layout, you won’t need the keys anymore. Once this state happens, one technically could keep one’s phone in one’s pocket and swipe away the next new novel or short story.

I am just imagining, you are swiping away in your pocket and onlookers think you are masturbating in public…

#DailyBloggingChallenge (001/10)

In the past I have been quite fruitful with daily challenges. Successfully achieved the 50 day #StatisticsChallenge and slowly creeping up on 365 day mark of the #MappingChallenge (@barefootstache) with less than a month to go. Thus, I will attempt the daily blogging challenge.

The requirements will be quite simple for the begining and might expand through time:

• It must use hashtag (XX/YY) format. This has two benefits:
  1. One can follow the hashtag thereby potentialy creating its own atom/rss feed.
  2. One can filter out these posts if unwanted.
• It must be post ready before slumber. This puts the focus on writing rather than publishing and gives a grace period if no internet connection.
• If written on mobile, it must be written with the #8pen keyboard.
• It must be at least one paragraph or three sentences long.

This challenge was sparked after reading the article

https://www.yieldcode.blog/post/why-engineers-should-write/

written by @skwee357.

I miss #8pen sooo much :'(

I've learned about a #quikwriting, an alternative text input method using a stylus/finger focusing on continuous flow:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quikwriting

For Android, there was a now no longer maintained keyboard called #8pen.
Now, it has an open source, spiritual successor called #8vim: https://github.com/flide/8Vim

I was wondering if anyone has ever tried using 8vim/8pen or a similar (quikwriting like) input method. If so, how was it? Is the learning curve steep? Did it increase your input rate? Would you say it's worth learning to enter text on a touchscreen?