dasher - graphical predictive text entry system
Contents
Application Styles
traditional
Dasher displays an editbox above the main window. Text entered via Dasher will appear in the
edit box allowing the text to be edited directly.
direct The edit box is not displayed. Dasher runs without focus and the text goes into whatever window
does have focus. This way you can use it more practically to run your desktop.
fullscreen
dasher expands to the entire screen.
Converting Training Files To Utf-8
Dasher requires that training files be in the UTF-8 format, whereas most text files are likely to be in
ISO-8859 format. This doesn't matter for plain text, but accented characters are encoded differently. In
order to convert them, use the iconv(1) program. For instance, if your training file is in ISO-8859-1
format (Western European), run iconv-fISO-8859-1-tUTF-8trainingfile>newtrainingfileDescription
Dasher is an information-efficient text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures.
Dasher is a competitive text-entry system wherever a full-size keyboard cannot be used.
Files
/usr/share/doc/dasher
Directory containing system-wide configuration files.
~/.dasher
Directory containing user specific configuration files.
Dasher will utilise files of the following form from both of these directories:
alphabet.ALPHABET.xml
The files defining the alphabets available to Dasher.
colour.SCHEME.xml
The files defining the colour schemes available to Dasher.
training_LANGUAGE*.txt
Files containing the training data used by Dasher. These are UTF-8 encoded text and should
contain a representative sample of the relevant language. User specific training files can be
used to augment system wide data.
Refer to the Dasher manual for more information regarding the format and editing of these files.
Name
dasher - graphical predictive text entry system
Options
dasher takes the following options:
-a, --appstyle=STYLE
Application style. STYLE can be any of traditional, direct, compose, or fullscreen. The default
is whatever was specified on the previous invocation of Dasher, or traditional when Dasher is
started for the first time.
-?, --help
Describe command line options.
--help-options
Describe the options available with --options.-o, --options [option=value[,option=value...]]
Override stored options. Options values are remembered for subsequent invocations of Dasher.
See Also
The Dasher project web page is ⟨http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/⟩
5.0.0~beta2 2008-02-28 dasher(1)
Synopsis
dasher [OPTIONS] [filename]
The Preferences Dialog
The preferences dialog is split into several panes.
Alphabet
Choose a different alphabet. Dasher will automatically retrain itself if the alphabet specified training
file is present.
Colour
Choose a different colour scheme.
Control
Alter various control options
One dimensional mode
Map the Y position of the mouse to a 2 dimensional position on the Dasher canvas (useful for
limited mobility users)
Eyetracker mode
Similar to one dimensional mode, but behaves normally except at the right-hand side of the canvas.
Designed for eyetracker users.
Usage
The main Dasher interface is a window with a blank background containing a column of letters on the right
hand side. Click the mouse button to start. When the pointer is to the right of the crosshair the
screen will zoom towards the point underneath the mouse pointer. To select a letter, move the mouse
pointer into it and watch how it zooms underneath the crosshair. A new column of letters will appear.
Staying within the box for the selected letter, move the pointer over one of these letters to select it
as the next letter. Moving the mouse pointer to the left of the crosshair, or outside of the box for
previously selected letters, allows you to change previously selected letters.
