Software of the Month Club 1996 October/Software of the Month Club 1996 October.iso/pc/dos/biz/practype/practype.hlp

Text File | 1996-04-28 | 10.6 KB | 261 lines

INTRODUCTION

Mice are handy.  But even with a mouse, computing is
easier if you know how to type.  Imagine being able to
copy text into your computer with nearly 100% accuracy
without looking at your keyboard or monitor.  Wouldn't
that make data entry easier, even if you typed slowly?

This is not a capability that you learn.  Your fingers
learn it, while you suffer the indignities of the
learning process.  They learn it with practice.  PRACTYPE
will make that easy for you.

There are some things that you can do to make it easy for
your fingers to learn typing, as well as to make your
typing tasks easy. These are explained in Typing entry in
the Help pulldown menu.  The Options and Practice entrys
in the Help menu describe the use of the PRACTYPE program.
For the most part, however, PRACTYPE is self-explanatory.

PRACTYPE provides for the use of your mouse.  However, you
should disconnect your mouse, when using PRACTYPE, because
this is a keyboard practice program.  No one needs
practice with a mouse.  We suggest that you run PRACTYPE
without the mouse to learn how to find the cursor and page
positioning keys without looking.  Incidentally, you
should learn also how to find the tab, enter, backspace,
home, end, insert, and delete keys, without looking.


TYPING BASICS

There are only a few typing basics.  The first is posture.
Sit erect, near the front of your chair, with your feet
flat on the floor.  Your forearms should be nearly
horizontal, with your elbows bent 90 degrees, when your
fingers are on the keyboard.

The second is hand position.  Curve your fingers so that
you type on their tips.  Place your left index finger
above the "f" key and your right index finger above the
"j" key.  This is the "home" typing position.  Many
keyboards have bumps on these keys so you can find "home"
without looking.  Type, MOVING YOUR HANDS FROM "HOME" AS
LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, by reaching with your fingers.  (You
don't want to have to search for "home" by feeling for
the bumps or looking.)

From the Home position your left fingers can type "a",
"s", "d", and "f" by simply pressing down.  Similarly,
your right fingers can type "j", "k", "l", and ";".
Also, either thumb can type a space by simply pressing
down.  A space appears as a ░ on the practice screen.
The Keys entry in the Help pulldown menu describes how to
type other keys.

Finally, your typing should occur at a very constant
rhythm, as if you were typing to music.  See the Speed
entry in the Help pulldown menu.


KEYS

The "home" hand position is reached by placing your hands
with the fingers curved and the tips of the index fingers
above the "f" and "j" keys.  From this position your left
fingers can type "a", "s", "d", and "f" by simply
pressing down.  Similarly, your right fingers can type
"j", "k", "l", and ";".  Also, either thumb can type a
space by simply pressing down.  A space is shown as ░ on
the screen.

To type any other key you reach with your fingers, MOVING
YOUR HANDS AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE (you don't want to forget
where "home" is).  The keys reached by each hand are shown
below.  Keys reached by the little fingers on many
keyboards are shown in red, and those reached by the index
fingers are shown in magenta.

   Row     Left Hand     Right Hand

  Number   ~s741~q 2 3 ~s754 5~     6 7~q 8 9 ~s740 - =~q
  Upper    ~s74q~q w e ~s75r t~     y u~q i o ~s74p [ ]~q
  Home     ~s74a~q s d ~s75f g~     h j~q k l ~s74; '~q
  Lower    ~s74z~q x c ~s75v b~     n m~q , . ~s74/~q


SPEED

You may control typing speed in your practice sessions in
two ways.  The simpler is by selecting the character
speed.  You do this by choosing the desired entry in the
Speed pulldown menu.

The more difficult speed control requires practice.
Higher speed occurs when you press the keys soon after
the character enters the Character Display Line.  Slower
speed occurs when you allow the character to move further
to the left along the line.

In each practice session it is important that you try to
press the keys when the characters are at the same place
on the Character Display Line.  This produces a constant
typing rhythm that, in turn, allows you to focus on typing
problems, rather than speed, and thus gradually improve
both accuracy and speed.

It is important, too, that you keep your speed low enough
that your accuracy is high.  Don't work on speed - work on
accuracy and rhythm!  Speed will develop naturally.


PRACTICE OPTIONS

PRACTYPE allows you to practice on any of several portions
of the keyboard and over a wide range of speeds.
Beginning typists should start with the Home Keys and the
Beginning Speed.  As your accuracy and rhythm improve,
PRACTYPE will suggest increasing speed and trying new
keys.

More advanced typists may start with whatever keys and
speed that they can handle accurately with a constant
rhythm.  PRACTYPE will suggest changes as warranted.

Practice sessions are specified by making key and speed
selections from pulldown menus.  It is good practice to
accomplish this without looking.  Highlight the options
with the cursor keys, place your hands in the Home
position, and then press the Enter key by reaching with
your right-hand little finger.  Practice begins by
selecting Practice from the Menu pulldown menu.  Keep your
hands in the Home position and, when you are ready, press
any key to start the practice session.


PRACTICE SCREEN

The Practice Screen appears when you select Practice from
the Menu pulldown menu.  Initially the screen contains
four important areas: a Character Display Line, a Message
Window, a results window called "Hits and Misses", and a
Scoring window.  A Recommendation Window appears at the
end of the practice session.  It is described in the
Scoring entry in the Help pulldown window.

The Character Display Line shows which keys to type.  It
is at the top of the practice screen.  The character to be
typed moves from right to left along the line.  Type this
character before it reaches the end of the line.

Each character appears to the right of the Character
Display line before it enters the line.  This is done to
shorten your reaction time, and thereby increase your
typing speed.  Do not watch the space where the next
character appears.  Doing so causes confusion and creates
errors.  Watch the Character Display Line instead and
observe the next character with peripheral vision.  If you
can't see the next character with peripheral vision,
ignore it.

The Hits and Misses Window is immediately below the
Character Display Line.  It displays your typing accuracy
and timing.  At the bottom of this area is a line
containing the names of keys used in this session.  Above
each key name is a display of your performance in typing
that key.  A smiley face appears when you type that key
correctly.  If you mistyped that key, the character you
typed is displayed.

The height of the key above the key name line is a measure
of the time it took you to type the key after it first
appeared.  If your typing rhythm is very good, all of the
characters appear on one or two horizontal rows.

The Message Window is at the bottom of the screen.  It
provides directions for controlling the practice session
and finding information about PRACTYPE.


PERFORMANCE

Your typing accuracy, speed, and rhythm error appear in
the Scoring Window at the end of each session.  The
Practice Basics section of the PRACTYPE document describes
the calculation of these scores.   Keys for which there
was no response appear at the very top of the Hits and
Misses window.

Accuracy and rhythm are improved by selecting problem keys
and by carefully adjusting typing speed.  Select problem
keys by using the Problem Keys entry in the Keys pulldown
menu.  The Speed entry in the Help pulldown window
describes techniques for adjusting typing speed.  Base
speed changes and problem key selections on the
performance you usually achieve, rather than the results
of a single session, because performance values usually
vary significantly from session to session.  The log
capability, if enabled, allows review of your progress
for this purpose.  See the Log entry in the Help pulldown
window for details.

The Recommendations window, which appears at the end of
the practice session, suggests ways to improve your
keyboarding performance.  Scoring results are compared
with predefined limits to develop the suggestions in this
window.  These limits vary with the number of characters
shown on the bottom line of the Hits and Misses Window.


LOG

This facility allows you to keep a running record of your
keyboarding performance so that you can review your
progress or look for chronic problems.  To record your
performance you must open a log file.

The first step in developing your log facility is to name
a new log file.  Name new files by using the New entry in
the Log menu.  The name must contain one through eight
characters, which may be any of the following:

          a through z
          A through Z
          0 through 9
          ~#$&_-{}

Do not include a DOS file-name extension (a period
followed by one, two, or three of the above characters).
The log name capitalization displayed by PRACTYPE will
depend on your system.

A newly named log file is open and ready for use.  To open
a previously named log file, choose the Open entry in the
Log menu, and select the file by highlighting its name and
pressing Enter.  The name of the currently open log will
appear later in the upper right-hand corner of the
Practice Screen.  You may examine it by using the View
entry in the Log menu.

Only one file may be open at any time.  To change files or
to stop recording performance data, close the currently
open file using the Close entry in the Log menu.

You may delete any existing closed log file.  Choose the
Delete entry in the Log menu, and select the file by
highlighting its name and pressing Enter.

PRACTYPE can find up to 32 log files.  If you have more
than 32 in your practype directory only the first 32 will
be displayed.  To use other files delete some displayed
files, rename them with a different extension, or move
them to another directory.

A PRACTYPE log file can hold the results of 64 practice
sessions.  If your file is full you must start a new file
or remove some entries from your existing file using an
ASCII text editor.