Future of KTouch

[Andreas Nicolai]

Hi all,

as one of the former, and now inactive  KTouch developers I've collected  
many suggestions and improvements for KTouch in the past years.  Despite  
the outdated look of KTouch I have received many emails with positive  
feedback.

Here are some core ideas regarding the user interface:
- remove "Document-based-App" style and go to a user interface focused on  
Touch-Typing
- have three different modes of work (mostly requested by teachers):
   1. free line-based training (current KTouch functionality)
   2. floating text style training (user types longer text but is allowed  
to make mistakes which are, at the users option, highlighted during typing  
or only at the end)
   3. test (time limited, no cheating possible, statistics stored  
immediately on teacher's account)
- a start screen with three options:
   - continue with practice (session management)
   - start training with lecture xxx
   - start test yyy
- motivational features:
   - world-wide best-of list for lectures (using a certain keyboard layout,  
to let the Neo and Dvorak users show-off a bit)
   - personal rating (1-5 star) for level performance (needs special review  
of lectures to have fair comparisons)
- single-account, multi-user mode (family-PC with single account, works  
already, but was "hacked" in)
- multi-account, central-administration (statistics, lectures, etc.  
accessible by teacher, class-room PC mode)
- SVG-images for keys instead of plain rectangles
- use keymaps from OS instead of implementing own

 From the feedback I received I got the feeling that while KTouch does a  
good job for self-training purposes, it is not really suited for  
class-room use, yet.

Thus, the lectures need to be reviewed with respect to the two target  
groups (school classes, self training). Also, I have  been mailed several  
keyboard layouts in the past, many duplicates, some in old format.  
Lectures as well. They should probably be reviewed for completeness and  
correctness before being put into a release version (I have a major  
problem when I get a lecture file in some language I don't understand -  
how do I know it does not contain some political/religious or in any way  
offending content? We should probably contact the I18N team to read over  
the lecture files, briefly).

I'd appreciate if someone could take over active maintenance, since I  
don't have much time left for KTouch development myself.

In any way, I'm more than happy that Peter is picking up loose ends and  
I'm more than happy in answering questions related to the current  
implementation (which is far from optimal and up-to-date, since I was just  
a C++/Qt beginner myself when I wrote most of it).

Bye,
Andreas