[HN Gopher] Typr - TUI typing test with a word selection algorit...
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Typr - TUI typing test with a word selection algorithm inspired by
keybr
Author : Sakura-sx
Score : 96 points
Date : 2025-06-23 08:27 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| I have been a user of keybr.com for a long time, and I didn't
| really like things like for example only practicing one word at a
| time or the algorithm trying to force you to type each character
| at the same speed, that's why I made my own. It has an algorithm
| that selects words randomly with weights based on how long you
| take to type each letter, you accuracy with each letter and how
| common the letter is in English (you should type more-common
| letters faster!).
| vanous wrote:
| Nice effort!
|
| All these tools teach typing and looking at the typed text. Only
| few programs make physical separation between the source and the
| typed text or do hide the text currently typed. Try it... yet
| another level... :)
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| Thank you!
| procaryote wrote:
| One issue with tools like these is that it's pretty artificial.
| You rarely need to type nonsense series of lowercase only words
| without punctuation at a consistent character speed.
|
| I did a similar little tool at some point where I just used some
| books from the gutenberg project and normalised it a bit so there
| were no weird typographic quotes etc.
|
| It both forces me to become good at the punctuation, and it's
| more interesting as I will accidentally start reading that book.
| Rygian wrote:
| I self taught touch typing by copying chapters of It. Eyes
| focused on the book, keyboard hidden under the desk, and only
| looking at the screen at each paragraph end. Worked great.
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| More characters soon, thanks for the suggestion!
| ubercow13 wrote:
| I like this one https://typeonline.uk/speed-test/word
| alabhyajindal wrote:
| I love this! Reminded me of TypeLit.io [1]. I would love
| something similar for programming: typing out snippets of
| code, that make sense, to improve typing speed involving
| special characters and symbols. Maybe selecting code snippets
| from popular open-source projects and presenting them to the
| user is a good start!
|
| 1. https://www.typelit.io/
| tough wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this existed (typing out code) can't
| remember the name now
| alabhyajindal wrote:
| https://typing.io ? I like it but feels outdated, and has
| many little QOL issues.
| tough wrote:
| yep was this one ty, would be cool as TUI
| mylesp wrote:
| monkeytype.com has this option, along with many many
| more.
| alabhyajindal wrote:
| Yes but the issue is those code snippets are generated
| artificially and are not coherent. Same issue as
| artificially generated prose.
| absolute_unit22 wrote:
| Thank you! :)
|
| Yes!! I have this on my todo list (along with many other
| features I've always wanted) actually!
| absolute_unit22 wrote:
| I couldn't agree more on this honestly.
|
| https://www.typequicker.com kinda focuses on this sentiment. AI
| generated natural text that targets user weak points.
|
| The more you type, the better the targeted exercises are.
|
| The whole app essentially focuses on natural text (except for
| drills)
| darrenf wrote:
| I could only get through a few rounds of this -- it messed
| with my brain much more than my fingers. Proper nouns without
| capitals, flipping between -ize and -ise, and the outright
| bad grammar were all reasons I typed slower than I normally
| would.
|
| > _geohumanities, sometimes written geohumanities or the
| geohumanities is a term has been used with varied meanings to
| describe areas of academic study_
| absoluteunit1 wrote:
| Oh thanks for mentioning this.
|
| Which practice mode did you use?
|
| Capitalization, text length, and topics can be adjusted.
|
| (Just click on the topics buttons or whichever mode you're
| using for additional setting).
| darrenf wrote:
| I'm not sure what mode at all - I just clicked "start",
| and after each exercise I just clicked "continue". I
| didn't adjust any settings, just dived straight in!
| absolute_unit22 wrote:
| Gotcha - thanks for mentioning this though.
|
| I've been meaning to make some changes to the default
| text in the practice mode so this bumps it up on my todo
| list.
|
| Thank you!
| tough wrote:
| i liked one that let you type codebases, great way to learn
| syntax alongside typing
|
| someone else shared on other comment typing.io pretty sure it
| was this
| agumonkey wrote:
| I was thinking of using typing drills as hidden spaced
| repetition for books just yesterday. Not for learning a topic
| per se but for a kind of memory rehab. I wish there was some
| kind of slow audio speech mode to spell each sentence once, so
| that you can avoid memorizing your finger position while doing
| exercises.
| Velorivox wrote:
| Shouldn't this be a "Show HN"?
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| You are right, I didn't know what it was when posting.
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| Thank you for the stars, just went from 1 to 27 stars! :3
| arvindparekh wrote:
| Nice effort!
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| Thanks!!!
| seblon wrote:
| Several years ago (around 2015), I also developed a typing
| learning web application. It was inspired by another application
| that had originally been developed for Windows 95 - with that
| app, I learned how to type. So in 2015, I decided to implement a
| web-based version of it.
|
| http://touchtyper.net/en
|
| However, I just checked out keybr.com and have to say - it's a
| much better system for learning to type! As of today, I now
| realize I have a _huge_ problem with the letter "q" - I had
| never noticed that before! ^^
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| keybr's algorithm is flawed, getting 1 extra WPM on "q" does
| way less progress than getting 1 extra WPM on "e", it's better
| than most of the things but also I wouldn't have made typr if
| it was perfect.
| seblon wrote:
| Btw, I also checked out your app, my feedback after 5
| minutes: there was at least one case, where a word was
| splitted instead of clean word wrapping for line break, when
| the terminal is small.
|
| And one idea: do a audio bell on error, even for tui, this
| should just be the special "bell control char" written to
| stdout.
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| Thanks for the idea, added to roadmap!
| akaij wrote:
| Looks nice! Reminds me of a similar program (a bbs door, really)
| named 'yogurt' by @sedatk -- I remember using it to improve my
| fast-typing around 2002-2003. This brings back memories :)
|
| "Time it needs time to win back your love again"
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| Thanks!
| jerezzprime wrote:
| Does anyone have any suggestions for typing practice programs
| that involve coding symbols? I recently got a new mechanical
| keyboard and I want to practice the new layout when I'm not also
| trying to think and solve programming problems.
| Jenk wrote:
| Monkeytype.com has many "code" dictionaries to choose from.
| Sakura-sx wrote:
| I advice either monkeytype or keybr, both have a setting for
| code
| bheadmaster wrote:
| Honestly, I'd recommend using the good ol' gtypist.
|
| It uses mostly real (or contrived) segments of text, which
| appear as if they were taken out of newspapers or personal
| letters. It has both beginner and advanced sets of text, and a
| whole community of custom texts that you can use. I've
| personally learned touch typing from scratch by using this
| program alone.
| nmca wrote:
| This is great! I have daydreamed about how to do a more complex
| algo: instead of character speed and frequency you could do bi-
| character speed/frequency/error rate and probably improve over
| keybr further.
| absoluteunit1 wrote:
| This is actually "kind of" what
| https://www.typequicker.com/practice does in the SmartPracrice
| mode.
|
| Try one practice session - see the stats we measure for each
| text. Each character, every mistype, every millisecond for
| bigram/trigram, speed and accuracy per hand/fingers, etc.
|
| This is aggregated and we identify weak points over time this
| way. Then using those weak points we create natural practice
| text
|
| Spent wayyyy too much time diving deep into building out this
| algorithm lol. But it works fairly well
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(page generated 2025-06-27 23:01 UTC)