KTouch

[Anne-Marie Mahfouf]

On 05/03/2012 12:25 PM, Sebastian Gottfried wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> in the last couple of months I did some work on KTouch. Because the
> changes
> are quite big by now, I published my results on github for now:
>
>    http://github.com/sebasgo/ktouch
>
> This repository is a fork of the official KTouch and my commits merge cleanly
> with the current HEAD of it's master branch of it. In the long run I really
> would like to see my changes to be incorporated into the official repository.
>
> What has begun with an experiment with QML in the context of KTouch has
> now
> culminated in a complete rewrite of KTouch. Because the old code didn't
> separate logic and UI code cleanly, it was very difficult to partially extend
> the application with new QML UI features.
>
> I've canceled this experiment very quickly and instead I've started with
> creating new entity classes for the objects KTouch is dealing with and then
> I've constructed a completely new GUI on top of these classes with QML.
>
> At this point I've a more-or-less working application again. It shares no code
> with the old application but reuses its data. My code brings a lot of changes
> and new features to KTouch, here is a quick summary:
>
> 1. New GUI
>
>   * screen shot: http://github.com/sebasgo/ktouch/wiki
>   * completely done in QML
>   * uses the new QML Plasma Components for common widgets to ensure a
>     consistent look and feel
>   * application is split into three screens:
>      * home screen: profile management + course and lesson selection
>      * training screen: that's the main attraction
>      * summary screen: here the user can review his performance after finishing
>        a lesson
>
> 2. Keyboard Layout Auto-detection
>
>   * so no need to configure this manually
>   * courses are matched to detected layout to present the user a sensible
>     choice
>
> 3. Lesson Unlocking and Extended Training Statistics
>
>   * two kind of profiles: one for beginners, one for advanced users
>   * for beginner profiles new lessons are only unlocked after mastering the
>     previous lessons by reaching specific accuracy and speed thresholds
>   * users of advanced profiles may access all lessons immediately
>   * training stats are now stored in SQLite database
>   * unfortunately incompatible with the old stats, because they are now
> tracked
>     per lesson, not per training session
>
> 4. New File Formats for Courses and Keyboard Layouts
>
>   * course format is pretty much unchanged in comparison to the old training
>     file format, but has some extensions
>   * keyboard layout format changed much more, but the new format is much
> easier
>     to understand
>   * for both there is a script under /extras to convert from the old format to
>     the new one automating what can be automated
>
> 5. Missing Features / TODO
>
>   * only very few keyboard layouts and courses are converted two the new
>     format, therefore I recommend to try out the application with a German or
>     UK keyboard layout
>   * score screen is pretty much a TODO
>   * no keyboard layout and course editor
>   * RTL support
>   * restricted portability, because keyboard layout detection depends on X
>
> There is still a lot of work left to do before this version of KTouch is in a
> releasable state. My main question if there is interest to integrate my
> version of KTouch back into the KDE development infrastructure and the KDE
> Edu
> project.
>
> As far as I know the KTouch project is currently practically unmaintained. I'm
> obviously willing to complete and maintain my version of KTouch and I really
> would like see it become part of the KDE Edu project.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sebastian Gottfried
>
Hi Sebastian, hi all,

Sebastian's code has been moved to the current KTouch code
https://projects.kde.org/projects/kde/kdeedu/ktouch
as a branch called next  (a repository in playground with the same 
KTouch name would have brought problems).
so you
git clone kde:ktouch
then you
git checkout next

I tried the French keyboard with the French lesson and it's very nice to 
use (although I would desperately need time to learn typing!).

Best regards,

Anne-Marie