morinted / art_of_chording

The source repository for the free online stenography textbook, Art of Chording.

Art of Chording

This is the source of the Art of Chording textbook. It is built on VuePress.

Setup

• npm install: get dependencies.
• npm start: dev mode.
• npm run prettier: format all files.
• npm run lint: check vue linting.
• npm run build: build the website for publishing.

art_of_chording's Issues

Unintroduced OE in "Vowels ay and oy"

Sentence 3 of the outline exercises for "Vowels ay and oy" requires the OE chord in "sold", which is not introduced until 2 chapters later.

Stroke suggestions for Plover's dictionary

PWA/RA/KU/TKA → barracuda
N-R nowhere
N-B nobody
ensure JIF J*IF GIF and G*IF are defined logically

m.md: is PH-BG a typo?

PH-BG doesn't seem to be a brief and Plover converts it to "Mc".

The first exercise from m.md[0] reads:

EU HR HED TO -T PH-BG TP-PL

or

I will head to the Mc.

I wasn't quite sure if was supposed to be intentional as the sentence didn't make sense to me. Perhaps "Mc" is a shorthand for McDonald's, for example? If so, it's a bit hard to tell but it would explain why it has been like this since the initial commit with no corrections. It also doesn't help it's not obvious that "mk" will convert to "Mc".

[0] - https://github.com/morinted/art_of_chording/blob/af63f90cb0aa66e804df227ccab05b32243c8ba5/docs/sounds/m.md#1-translate

Example ordering for ay/oy

I was working my way through some example words on the ay/oy page and hit an unexpected compound. If you stenotype all the words in the list in order, then air & make - which happen to be next to each other - combine to make aramaic! Which was kind of fun, but slighty tangential to the matter at hand... Maybe it's worth considering re-ordering the list?

Some examples on the "how spelling works" page don't work

https://www.artofchording.com/introduction/how-steno-works.html

e.g. OGS ocean, PHOGS motion, PWA/RA/KU/TKA barracuda, KOFRT comfort

Missing/incorrect briefs in "Both sides N"

• "nowhere" is claimed to have the brief TPH-R, which maps to "nor"
• "anything" is used in outline sentence 5 but is not included in the brief list

Better "The Dictionary Format" Page

There are a number of meta commands that are simply undocumented. Would you accept contributions of I wanted to explain the dictionary format and everything you can do with it?

Missing "aw"/"ow"

I'm not sure I see where the vowels AU ("aw") and OU ("ow") are introduced, though they are used in examples throughout (e.g., thought, fall, walk, etc.)

"Suggest a change" links are dead

The links are set as if "master" is the main branch, while it should be "main".

There is not longer a brief for nowhere in the main plover dictonary.

In the both sides N page there is a brief for nowhere listed as TPH-R which is now "nor". Nowhere by default is now a two stroke word: TPHO/WR, or as a single stroke: TPHO*ER.

Left side D, B, and L practice suggestion

I wanted to practice the briefs for the Hidden Sounds Lesson "Left side D, B, and L" and I came up with this sentence which I found fun and helpful.

What did you do about it?
WHA TK U TKO PW T H-F

Move or as in force caveat to the aw page?

This "gotcha" comes in the middle of the "oh" as in "ohm" section, which seems out of place. Surely if I was looking for how to spell force I'd go to the aw page? This came up in the discord when I was confused by an alternate stroke for course.

Example for left-side Q uses unintroduced -RB

In the lesson which introduces the left-side Q with KW-, one of the examples given is "squash" (SKWARB). However, the -RB ending will only be introduced some ten lessons later.

This might be intentional — but if it is not, it might be a small thing to improve to avoid potential confusion for newbies like me 🙂

---

_{Though I can totally see the reason for having it there as to engage people's brain cells to figure out what -RB means on their own as a "if you spot this, good on you — have a cookie" kind of thing}

Question: steno for programmers

Hey,

I came across Art of Chording and I've been really interested in the subject. I have one lingering question though: as a programmer, I was wondering how one would enter things such as identifer names with different forms of casing (eg snake_case, lowerCamelCase, special characters, etc). And also I don't know how familiar you are with vim or other modal editors, but I was also wondering if in your experience it affects coding speed positively?

I'd be so grateful if you could reply summarily to these questions, I've been hesitant to order a steno keyboard for those reasons :/ If I may add, I might be interested in contributing through patreon or otherwise for a section on programming in Art of Chording.

Thanks!

Hardware?

Please add a hint as to where one can get some inexpensive hardware?

Header blocks content in print views.

The page layout includes a header at the top of each page containing the title, a search box, and a GitHub link. However, the banner blocks text in printed output.

Here's an example showing the problem in all of its glory:

Note that the top of the image is clipped, hiding the number row under the header.

Chording: you would not do x, but no hint given on what one _would_ do.

https://www.artofchording.com/layout/chorded-keyboard.html

If you wanted to write "AKT", you would not use these keys. The order is fixed.

How would you write AKT? Saying 'no, not like this', without accompanying or instead of 'do this instead' leaves me hanging.

Missing right side "k"

I think right side "k" (-BG) is missing from the chapter on hidden sounds. It's used in the "find outlines" exercise number 2 of the section on "left side D, B, and L" ("Will you pick the raft and the deck?") as well as number 1 of section "both sides CH and TH" ("You crawl and crouch before you walk."), and probably elsewhere.

Feature Request: provide printable view or other formats

Readers may want to export the book to other devices and readers. For example, I'd like to export the book as a PDF and send it to a Kindle. This feature could be enabled with a "printer-friendly view" option would show the book with contents first and no sidebar or header. Or alternatively, a pre-created PDF could be made and linked in.

f_q.md: A few notes

1. SKWARB (squash) mentioned in https://www.artofchording.com/sounds/f_q.html#left-side-q uses -RB, which is covered in a later section (https://www.artofchording.com/sounds/sh.html). I couldn't tell if this was intentional but it did confuse me as a beginner.
   • The 8th exercise in https://www.artofchording.com/sounds/f_q.html#_1-translate also mentions SKWARBD.
2. The 1st exercise translates to "If you help me out I will help you back.", and I think a comma might be appreciated in the middle.

Edit: The first issue I addressed is just a duplicate of #85, sorry.

Suggestion: Change fingering numbers

As a pianist, I would love it if Plover's leading textbook, The Art of Chording, used the inside-to-outside fingering convention used on the piano, with 1 corresponding to the thumb, and 5 corresponding to the pinky.
(Top Row, Bottom Row)

Is there a finger numbering convention used in steno that is the opposite of piano playing, or was the current convention chosen arbitrarily a number of years ago and was never changed?

I'd love to contribute and submit a proper pull request, but I have seldom used git and/or GitHub.

Thank you!

Book as epub or PDF

Dear Ted,

Thanks for this awesome introduction to Steno with Plover!

It would be great if one could download the complete book as an epub or PDF. E.g., for reading it on an ebook reader on a long journey...

I could help with that, providing that you share the text, e.g. in txt/ HTML/ markdown or another source format.

Best, Robert

There is no capitalize and return briefs in the Top Row > brief page

https://www.artofchording.com/layout/top-row.html#how-to-practice
The lesson told us to stroke -T PUP SAT TP-PL, which outputs "the pup sat.", however the page expects the output "The pup sat.", this is because capitalize brief were never introduced.

Also it's useful to introduce New Line briefs for this page: https://www.artofchording.com/layout/top-row.html#practice
so the output is seperated into new lines.

Lastly, what's -T PAL H H T TP-PL supposed to output? (Number 4, Lesson 1: Translate.)

Unintroduced `your` in "Both Sides V"

Exercise 15 in "Both Sides V" has the sentence

I covet your oven. I want to have it and when I do I will warm my rat with it.

but a stroke for "your" isn't introduced until "Left side Y and Z."