[HN Gopher] Show HN: LiveTyper, a simple typing speed tester
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       Show HN: LiveTyper, a simple typing speed tester
        
       Phoenix/LiveView using Presence to show the other players online.
       My 2nd thing in a vague quest to make 12 things in 12 months.
        
       Author : amalgamated_inc
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2022-12-29 18:08 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (livetyper.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (livetyper.com)
        
       | empressplay wrote:
       | Typing backspace in Vivaldi causes it to revert to the previous
       | webpage, but Chrome has no problem in that regard. Cool site :)
        
         | amalgamated_inc wrote:
         | Thanks! Sorry about the Vivaldi experience :(
        
       | deafpolygon wrote:
       | That's fun. 122wpm, but it feels like the text was trying to keep
       | up, and it kept throwing me off a little bit. I can average ~140
       | on text like these, normally.
        
         | amalgamated_inc wrote:
         | Haha I'm in the same boat. I think it's the slight lag because
         | this is server-side rendered with LiveView. I'm just trying to
         | keep going when the occasional little hiccup occurs and I'm
         | confident I didn't mistype. Takes getting used to, though, for
         | sure.
        
       | splittydev wrote:
       | Pretty cool, but there's a lot of lag when typing fast. I keep
       | typing from memory, but I don't see typos in real time. Got up to
       | 150 WPM and the text didn't scroll fast enough to see what to
       | type next. I'm guessing the lag comes from the networking part,
       | is there any chance you could provide a single-player version, or
       | fix the lag on the multiplayer one?
        
         | amalgamated_inc wrote:
         | I've been checking the server logs, and it claims to always
         | reply within a few milliseconds. It might just be lag somewhere
         | between the server and the users' browsers. Seems to be mostly
         | ok for me and then suddenly go super creep mode for a few
         | seconds.
         | 
         | Due to the nature of LiveView, I don't think I can eliminate
         | the lag entirely, sorry. It's not just the other players, your
         | own stuff goes to the server and back every keystroke too.
        
       | manchmalscott wrote:
       | It just completely locks up for me right now, might have to try
       | later. Front page of HN and whatnot.
        
         | lelandfe wrote:
         | Ditto. It keeps trying to make a WebSocket connection, failing,
         | and then retrying forever. Looks like there's no error
         | handling.
        
       | catapart wrote:
       | Just a little feedback: the typing does not keep up with me (and
       | I only type around 80wpm), and lags so far behind that I can get
       | around 15-20 characters in before it registers that a mistake was
       | made 15 characters ago.
       | 
       | I'm running it on Firefox, on Windows 10.
       | 
       | Based on other responses, I'm assuming this doesn't happen for
       | everyone, so if it's just me, feel free to ignore. Just putting
       | it out there in case you'd like to investigate.
        
         | amalgamated_inc wrote:
         | 15 characters ago feels excessive, I get maybe 1-2 at
         | 120-140wpm. Do you know what your ping to the US east coast is?
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | catapart wrote:
           | Yeah, it definitely feels sluggish, so I assumed it was
           | bugging out. It started pretty snappy and then slowed way
           | down.
           | 
           | Ping tester says somewhere between 50 and 75ms to Amazon's
           | Virginia center.
        
             | amalgamated_inc wrote:
             | I think it ran out of memory and the BEAM crashed and
             | restarted. Gave it a bit more memory, hoping it'll hold out
             | haha
        
               | catapart wrote:
               | Ha ha! Nice.
               | 
               | Yeah, I saw on another comment that you're apparently
               | running this with SSR, which is pretty crazy, to me! I'm
               | surprised it's as snappy as it is, honestly, but the lag
               | makes a lot of sense, now.
               | 
               | Also shocked that you'd want to incur that much bandwidth
               | cost - assuming you're being charged for it. Something
               | like this should be able to run in the client
               | effortlessly, so I would think even experimenting with
               | SSR, you'd want to do most of the processing client side
               | and then just dribble in the server re-renders, for more
               | batched processing.
               | 
               | In any case, good job! Definitely does the thing you set
               | out to do with it, and is a clear demonstration of SSRs
               | capabilities (and current weaknesses).
        
           | weeksie wrote:
           | I'm in NY and this was happening for me. I'd be 10-15
           | characters down and get a stream of red. One thing that was
           | sort of annoying is that because it's using a custom text box
           | (or something) when I control-w to kill the previous word for
           | an error, nothing happens. I tried option-delete as well but
           | no luck.
        
             | amalgamated_inc wrote:
             | You can do ctrl-backspace or meta-backspace. I tried ctrl-w
             | but that actually closes the window in Firefox :D
        
         | ipython wrote:
         | Same, I just clocked 199 wpm and at times I actually had to
         | wait for the screen to catch up before I could continue typing
         | (Firefox on macOS)
        
           | amalgamated_inc wrote:
           | Holey moley, 199?! Did you run out of text?
        
             | ipython wrote:
             | _shrug_ it 's what it showed me when I finished. I think it
             | overestimated my speed near the end as it seemed to respond
             | slower as I got further along in the text. Cool demo tho! I
             | should show it to my kids, they'll have a kick out of it.
        
       | mixedmath wrote:
       | That's pleasant. At one point it was approximately one half-
       | screen away in lag (at 125 wpm or so). But this gave an
       | additional impression of zooming.
        
       | rbaudibert wrote:
       | I can just press <space> and it counts my keypresses. It doesn't
       | look like it's actually validating I'm typing the correct thing.
       | 
       | Edit: hold on, that was me being dumb. The actual bug is that if
       | I press "Caps lock" (because I type capitalized letters by
       | quickly typing Caps lock + Letter + Caps lock) it incorrectly
       | counts it as a keypress.
        
         | amalgamated_inc wrote:
         | Maybe the UI could be clearer; if the text has a red
         | background, that means it's wrong and you need to backspace.
         | Correct text will have a blue background.
         | 
         | Sorry about the caps lock, will add! Currently only checking
         | for the shift key itself. Good catch, thank you.
        
           | amalgamated_inc wrote:
           | Ok, caps should work now! Please let me know if you're still
           | having issues.
        
       | Jorengarenar wrote:
       | I'm not sure if it's the site problem, but seems like I can just
       | smash keyboard and it registers it as correct?
       | 
       | Edit: rather server overload - everything was for a while counted
       | for me as a typo (without a typo counter); now I see red meant
       | all the time incorrect.
        
         | amalgamated_inc wrote:
         | Are you sure it's registering as correct? If you hit the wrong
         | keys it should highlight them with red background and show
         | "Typos" in the top right corner.
        
           | Jorengarenar wrote:
           | Schrodinger typing - it was both registered as typo and not
           | counted as one.
        
             | amalgamated_inc wrote:
             | Weird! Can you reproduce it? If so, could you let me know
             | how?
        
               | Jorengarenar wrote:
               | Looks like the counting just not starting if you make a
               | typo on the very first letter.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-29 23:01 UTC)