[kde-edu]: KTouch -> making it better for KDE 4

[Andreas Nicolai]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to have your suggestions and ideas for the future KDE 4 version of KTouch. Right now the only pressing thing I'm working on (in my much too short sparetime) is the XML format of the keyboard files and the corresponding editor. Related to that I have a first question:

How would you expect KTouch to handle dead-keys or on some keyboards (e.g. for some kyrillic keyboard) swap keys that permanently overlay the current keyboard with a new keyboard layout?


But more interesting is the question of how we could make KTouch more fun to use, more sexy and exciting in the long run and most of all more useful in the teaching process. I've checked out several other touch typing programs and found some features that I would find useful:

- gaming sequences (like something is scrolling/falling over the screen and you have to type fast enough before too many words/characters have been missed)
- full text typing like in exams
- background monitoring of what you normally type in other programs, basically monitoring the sequence "backspace" and "a following character" which is assumed to be the mistyped character
- typing new texts from some source (e.g. newsticker) to provide some new stuff every now and then in addition to prepared lectures


I would think that of most interest to our target group (aka kids) would be some small gaming sequences with "I want to try that level again" effects. Actually I believe that would work with larger kids (age > 25) as well :-)

So, what do you think? What kind of games would you have in mind? And how could I get some graphics for them (I kinda suck at drawing)?


Thanks for your input already.

Bye, Andreas


-- 
Andreas Nicolai                   Andreas.Nicolai at gmx.net
Syracuse University               +01 (315) 443 1099
151 E.A.Link Hall
Syracuse NY 13244-1240