Plover 4.0.0.dev12

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Installation Guide

Read the Installation Guide to see which file you need to download.

Features

User Interface

• Show detailed information about each available serial port in the machine configuration dialog. (#1510)
• Add support for styling the Qt GUI: automatically load and apply a custom stylesheet from plover.qss (in the configuration directory) when present. (#1514)
• Capture and log Qt messages. (#1534)
• Change the paper tape / suggestions widget selection mode to "extended" (allow selecting multiple items, support shift/control), and allow copying the current selection to clipboard using the standard copy shortcut. (#1539)

Linux

• Use /dev/serial/by-id/xxxx links for each available serial port in the machine configuration dialog. (#1510)

Bugfixes

Core

• Fix possible exception when calling Engine.clear_translator_state(undo=True). (#1547)

User Interface

• Fix "add translation" dialog "Ok" button not being enabled when the strokes field is automatically populated from the latest untranslate. (#1527)
• Fix {PLOVER:ADD_TRANSLATION} implementation when using the headless GUI (-g none). (#1546)

Linux

• Fix fallback to Qt if the D-Bus log handler cannot be initialized. (#1545)

Windows

• Fix some key combinations being sent incorrectly. (#1274)

API

Breaking Changes

• Drop support for Python 3.6. (#1538)

Plover 4.0.0.dev12

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Installation Guide

Read the Installation Guide to see which file you need to download.

Features

No significant changes.

Bugfixes

No significant changes.

API

No significant changes.

Plover 4.0.0.dev11

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Installation Guide

Read the Installation Guide to see which file you need to download.

Features

Core

• Switch to plover_stroke for better steno handling: faster and stricter. (#1362, #1417, #1452)
• New faster and improved RTF/CRE parser. (#1364, #1365)
• Correctly handle formatting currency with thousands separator(s): 23,000.15{:retro_currency:$c} => $23,000.15. (#1391)
• Improve “English stenotype” system compatibility with RTF/CRE spec: support arbitrary placement of the number sign when parsing steno (e.g. 18#, #18, and 1#8 are all valid and equivalent). (#1491)
• Improve translation stage: cut down on unnecessary / duplicate dictionary lookups. (#1513)

User Interface

• Improve accessibility:
  • Disable tab-key navigation in tables, so focusing a table does not lock global tab-key navigation to it.
  • Remove some container widgets, tweak focus rules to avoid extra unnecessary steps when using tab-key navigation (like selecting the dictionaries widget outer frame).
  • In form layouts, link each widget to its label (like each option in the configuration dialog).
  • Set the accessible name / description of focusable widgets.
  • Use lists for the dictionaries widget, suggestions widget, and the paper tape. (#1308, #1332, #1434, #1451)
• Show a message when hiding to tray. (#1333)
• Improved steno handling:
  • validate inputs in the "add translation" dialog and dictionary editor
  • sort on steno order in the dictionary editor, and signal invalid steno entries (#1362, #1501)

Linux

• Improve D-Bus logger implementation. (#1496)
• Add WM_CLASS property to windows (WM_CLASS(STRING) = "plover", "Plover"). (#1498)

Bugfixes

Core

• New reworked RTF/CRE support:
  • correctly handle multi-lines mappings
  • detect syntax errors (with recovery)
  • use \n\n for new paragraphs (instead of non-undoable {#Return}{#Returns})
  • similarly, use \t and \n for \tab and \line
  • correctly escape {}\ on save
  • use custom ignored groups for Plover macros and metas
  • use groups to improve round-tripping affixes (so there's no ambiguity when parsing back, e.g. {^in^}fix -> {\cxds in \cxds}fix instead of \cxds in\cxds fix) (#1364, #1365)
• Fixed a memory leak on reloading externally modified dictionaries. (#1375)
• Do not discard existing filters on dictionaries reload. (#1388)
• Fix engine's running state: make sure the translator' state is empty when enabling output for the first time. (#1504)
• Fix exit handlers not getting always executed. (#1507)
• Fix StenoDictionaryCollection.longest_key implementation: ignore disabled dictionaries! (#1512)

Dictionaries

• Fix KHR*PB stroke to not be misinterpreted as a command. (#1463)

User Interface

• Speedup dictionary editor startup (avoid duplicate sort). (#1351)
• Updated Spanish translation. (#1420)
• Updated French translation. (#1422)
• Speedup suggestions widget implementation: should noticeably improve performance when there's a large scrollback. (#1481)

Windows

• Drop launch option from installer's final page: avoid possible issues (e.g. permission errors with the controller's pipe) because Plover was run as admin. (#1495)
• Fix notifications behavior: no persistent duplicated icons (one for each notification). (#1507, #1508)

API

Breaking Changes

• The custom test command implementation provided by plover_build_utils.setup.Test has been removed:
  • support for it on setuptools' side has been deprecated since version 41.5.0
  • the custom handling of arguments conflicts with the use of some pytest options (e.g. -m MARKEXPR)
  • the workaround for pytest cache handling is not necessary anymore (#1332)
• The steno helpers (Stroke class, normalize_stroke, …) now raise a ValueError exception in case of invalid steno. (#1362, #1501)
• The support for StenoDictionary and StenoDictionaryCollection longest key callbacks is gone, use the longest_key properties instead. (#1375)

Plover 4.0.0.dev10

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Installation Guide

Read the Installation Guide to see which file you need to download.

Features

Core

• Change behavior when launching Plover and an existing instance is already running: send a focus command to the existing instance (to show, raise, and focus the main window). Additionally, a new plover_send_command executable/script can be used to send other commands. (#1284)
• Add FreeBSD/OpenBSD support. (#1306)

Linux

• The oldest Ubuntu LTS release supported by the AppImage is now Ubuntu Bionic (18.04). (#1329)

Bugfixes

Core

• Fix 2 corner cases when handling dictionaries:
  • If the class implementation is marked as read-only, then loading from a writable file should still result in a read-only dictionary.
  • Don't allow clear on a read-only dictionary. (#1302)
• Don't try to start missing extensions. (#1313)

User Interface

• Correctly restore a window if it was minimized: fix the focus command, and activating a tool window. (#1314)

API

Breaking Changes

• The Engine constructor now takes an additional parameter: the controller. (#1284)

New

• Add some new helpers to plover_build_utils.testing:
  • dictionary_test: torture tests for dictionary implementations.
  • make_dict: create a temporary dictionary.
  • parametrize: parametrize helper for tracking test data source line numbers. (#1302)

Plover 4.0.0.dev9

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Installation Guide

Read the Installation Guide to see which file you need to download.

Features

Core

• A new SET_CONFIG command can be used to change the configuration with a stroke, e.g.:

  "O*EP": "{PLOVER:SET_CONFIG:'translation_frame_opacity':100}",
  "TR*PB": "{PLOVER:SET_CONFIG:'translation_frame_opacity':0}",
  

  to change the opacity of the "Add Translation" dialog on the fly. (#989)

• Speed up loading dictionaries. (#1022)
• Be more restrictive with macro names: only accept valid identifier, so for example == is not handled like a macro anymore. (#1025)
• Ignore case when processing builtin commands / metas. (#1069)
• Add user friendly names for built-in metas, e.g.: {:retro_case:cap_first_word}, {:retro_currency:$c}, {:attach:attach^}, etc... (#1069)
• Improve orthography rules. (#1092, #1212)
• The configuration is now automatically saved on change, rather than on exit. (#1123)
• Add prefix strokes (syntax /STROKE) that will only translate if they are at the beginning of a word. Word endings can be specified with {:word_end} or {$}. (#1157)
• Add support for conditional formatting (based on the text following a translation): {=REGEXP/TRANSLATION_IF_FOLLOWING_TEXT_MATCH/TRANSLATION_IF_NOT} or {:if_next_matches:REGEXP/TRANSLATION_IF_FOLLOWING_TEXT_MATCH/TRANSLATION_IF_NOT}. (#1158)

User Interface

• Add menu entry for opening the configuration directory ("File" => "Open config folder"). (#981)
• Automatically focus the input field and pre-select the previous input when the lookup window is activated. (#1009)
• Improve the configuration dialog for serial machines: automatically scan available ports and default to the first one. (#1036)
• The "Add translation" stroke lookup now returns entries for all enabled dictionaries and is debounced to improve performance. (#1084)
• Added translation into Spanish. (#1165)
• A new command, {PLOVER:SUGGESTIONS}, is available to open the suggestions window with a steno stroke. (#1184)
• Add support for saving dictionaries:
  • save a copy of each selected dictionary
  • merge the selected dictionaries into a new one
  • both operations support converting to another format (#1244)
• Added translation into Dutch. (#1264)
• Added Italian translation. (#1268)

Linux

• The distribution Python is now built with optimization. (#1068)
• Expand the list of supported key names in key combos to include non-US specific keys (like ISO_Level3_Shift). (#1082)
• The default configuration directory on Linux is now ~/.config/plover (~/.local/share/plover is still supported for backward compatibility). (#1123)

macOS

• The minimum version supported by the macOS bundle is now 10.13 (High Sierra). (#1156)

Windows

• The distribution is now 64bits. (#1023)

Bugfixes

Core

• Fix retrospective insert space macro when the previous translation involved suffix keys. (#995)
• Fix updating a dictionary mapping: ensure reverse lookups data stays consistent. (#1022)
• Fix keymap validation: properly fallback to default keymap when invalid. (#1065)
• Fix lookups by translation: do not ignore lower priority dictionaries when a match is found in a higher priority one. (#1066)
• Fix wordlist support for system plugins: try loading from the system dictionaries root (and not Plover assets directory). (#1116)
• Configuration save operations are now atomic. (#1123)
• Fix forced lowercasing of all engine command arguments. (#1139)
• Fix implicit hyphen handling with numbers only strokes on some theories (e.g. Melani). (#1159)
• Fix unbounded memory use in the lookup functions used by the Suggestions window. (#1188)

Dictionaries

• Fix a number of invalid entries in the main dictionary. (#1038)
• Tweak orthographic rules so "reduce/{^ability}" result in "reducibility" instead of "reducability". (#1096)

User Interface

• Fix a possible crash on close when opening a read-only dictionary in the editor. (#897)
• Fix possible crash when changing machine parameters in the configuration dialog. (#1041)
• Fix internationalization of machine types in the configuration dialog. (#1061)
• Fix tools shortcuts. (#1062)
• Fix crashes due to GUI exceptions reaching the event loop. (#1135)
• Fix an exception caused by an incorrect assertion that would prevent enabling and disabling extension plugins if they weren't on the first row. (#1171)
• Fix changes to the list of enabled extension plugins not being saved to the configuration file. (#1230)
• Fix missing translations. (#1248)

Linux

• Fix output capitalization issue. (#1153)
• Fix a race condition that may freeze Plover while toggling with keyboard input machine. (#1163)

macOS

• Fix an issue where permissions had to be granted to "env" on macOS Catalina 10.15. (#1152)
• Mac notifications no longer have "Plover" as their title. (#1271)

Windows

• Fix Unicode characters output. (#991)
• Fix installer's icon. (#1027)

API

Breaking Changes

• StenoDictionaryCollection.casereverse_lookup now returns a set (instead of a list). (#1066)
• The API for providing i18n support as been changed: see doc/i18n.md for more information. (#1258)

New

• plover_build_utils.setup now provides a new babel_options helper for configuring Babel for i18n support. (#1258)

Installation Guide

Read the Installation Guide to see which file you need to download.

Plover weekly-v4.0.0.dev8+66.g685bd33

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Changes

• Windows: fix C++ Redistributable DLL error (#957)
• Windows: fix emoji output (#942)
• Mac: fix portable mode (#932)
• Main Dictionary updates:
  1. use AOE instead of E for prefix "e" (#951)
  2. update from issue 400 (#960)
• Fix issues when output is set to "Spaces After" (#965)
• Tooltips added for dictionary status icons (#962)

Plover v4.0.0.dev8+8.ge062cda6

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Changes

• disable serial flow control settings when not applicable (this was known to cause weird issues when changed from default)
• the paper tape now has improved support for non-Latin keys
• the log files encoding is now always set to UTF-8 (so Unicode in translations is properly handled)
• configuration changes by plugins are now fully validated before being applied
• improve support for installing plugins from source
• when running from a distribution, Plover can be started with --no-user-plugins to disable user plugins: the distribution default embedded plugins will still be available, so the plugins manager can be used to update/remove a problematic plugin
• [Linux] fix crash when using a Microsoft keyboard
• [Linux] fix crash when the window manager does not support the NETWM protocol (with commands like {PLOVER:ADD_TRANSLATION})

Installation Guide

Download below this post.

Plover v4.0.0.dev6+5.ga5641165

This is a patch-fix for weekly-v4.0.0.dev6, as that release's Suggestions tool caused Plover to crash

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Features

• New plugin types:

  • Macros

    Macros will allow for custom functionality at the stroke level. Existing features such as repeat last stroke, toggle asterisk, and asterisk (undo) have been reimplemented as macros.

    With this release, you can map other chords to "undo" by using the translation =undo.

    You can still use the old syntax for macros, but there are new, easier-to-recall versions available:

    • {*}: =retrospective_toggle_asterisk
    • {*!}: =retrospective_delete_space
    • {*?}: =retrospective_insert_space
    • {*+}: =repeat_last_stroke

  • Metas

    Metas are plugins that affect output -- you've used them in the form of delete space, capitalize next word, etc.

    With custom metas we could potentially introduce plugins for audio-file timestamp output, asterisk-undoable pasting, spelling-correction, text case transformation, and so much more.

Fixes

• Fix trailing space issue in spaces-after; #851
• Fix display of \n and \t in the Add Translation dialog; #854
• Improve stability of Gemini PR protocol; #846
• Improve stability of ProCAT protocol; #601
• Reduce CPU usage of Passport protocol
• Fix several formatting issues especially related to retrospective uppercasing and capitalization; #836, #837

Installation Guide

Download below this post.

Plover v4.0.0.dev6

Release contained a bug which caused the suggestions tool to crash Plover. This release has been reissued as Plover v4.0.0.dev6+5.ga5641165

Plover v4.0.0.dev5+23.g773ba288

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Last week we introduced the first weekly with the plugins manager, a tool built into Plover that lets you get new features and widgets for Plover.

Thanks to our users, we were able to find and fix a bunch of bugs.

Fixes

• fix crash when Add Translation dialog would try to write to an errored dictionary
• automatically set QT tool window names
• fix a crash when the plugins manager was opened without an internet connection
• Windows: fix possible crash caused by a dll
• Mac: prevent Plover from hanging when quitting

Installation Guide

Download below this post.

Plover v4.0.0.dev5+9.gba958374

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Changes

Plugins

Screenshot of the new plugins manager (background image source)

• with a new plugins manager, install, list, update, and remove plugins from within Plover!
• new supported plugins:

  • Dict Commands

    Enable, disable, and reorder your dictionaries using strokes.

  • Dictionary Builder

    Interactive wizard to build up your dictionaries from a text article or list of words.

  • Italian Stentura

    Use an Italian Stentura machine with Plover.

  • MIDI

    Use a MIDI piano or a dedicated MIDI machine like Michela with Plover. For keyboard makers: MIDI is a great protocol option with lots of keys and is easier to implement than some serial protocols.

  • Plugins Manager (installed by default)

    Find, install, update, and remove plugins for Plover.

  • Python Dictionary

    .py dictionaries are pure functions that map a set of chords to a translation. A better alternative to scripting the creation of dictionaries for anyone who knows Python.

  • Treal (installed by default)

    Use the Treal steno machine (the code was moved out of Plover and into a plugin).

  • VLC Commands

    Control VLC media player playback using strokes.

  • Windows Brightness

    Control monitor brightness on Windows.

  • WPM Meter

    Speedometer widgets that show your typing speed and strokes-per-second.

• support for custom machine configuration widgets

User Interface

• new icon for read-only dictionaries
• show a "reload" icon while dictionaries are being loaded
• outdated dictionaries are automatically reloaded on configuration change (e.g. when clicking the machine reconnect button)
• improve lookup: strip spaces from lookup, improve and fix display (correctly show translations containing HTML markup)
• improve suggestions: only suggest on new/modified text, rework word splitting (e.g. if "full-release" is entered, suggestions for "release" will be shown too)
• improve keymap configuration widget to be easier to use
• add support for creating new dictionaries

Main Dictionary

• cleanup main dictionary: remove legacy Eclipse TPHR-BG entries, remove redundant entries
• dictionary has some additions and changes thanks to community feedback from issue 400, significant changes are outlined here.

Linux

• the AppImage can now be installed/uninstalled
• drop the need for wmctrl

Mac

• don't suppress keyup events created by Plover, which improves compatibility with some applications when using a Keyboard as a steno machine.

Other

• keyboard: fix a number of edge cases / bugs
• rework keymap configuration widget
• formatting rework: consistent output with both space placement settings, better handling retro-case commands

Development

• drop Python 2 support
• update Python version to 3.6
• update PyQt5 version to latest LTS: 5.9
• export utils as plover_build_utils so it's available for plugins development

Installation Guide

Download below this post.

Plover v4.0.0.dev1+20.g60a373f

Plover is going through a huge overhaul to make for a better experience for our users, and developers, too.

Warning: Version 4 is a major change and the configuration file it creates is not compatible with Plover 3 or earlier. Please backup your plover.cfg

Changes

Plover 4.x looks different and is a little more developer friendly, too.

• New UI (PyQT instead of wx).
  • Plover closes to tray, so you don't need to have a window in your taskbar.
• Dictionary Revamp
  • Enable / disable dictionaries
  • Dictionary display order is now higher priority first (configurable)
  • External dictionary changes trigger a reload on configuration change (e.g. reconnecting the machine)
• Windows now has an installer version available.
• Older Mac versions should be supported again. (The lower bound is untested)
• We now create a Linux AppImage.
• Plugin support (not yet documented).
  • Will allow for custom machines, layouts, utilities, commands, and more, in time.

Screenshots

Plover running on a Mac:

Plover with the Italian Melani theory plugin, running on Windows

Plover now closes to the system tray, next to the clock. The tray icon indicates the output state, and the right-click menu allows you to control Plover without the need to have its main window open.

Installation Guide

Download below this post.

This is a bug fix release affecting Linux and Mac users.

• Fix a certain type of NKRO on Linux (#644)
• Fix control key on macOS Sierra not working with global shortcuts
• Fix an edge case of output for Mac, where certain keys wouldn't be shifted

Please see the installation guide for instructions on downloading and installing for your system.

Installation

To install Plover, please follow the Installation Guide. The downloads for each operating system are at the bottom of this post.

Changelog

This is a minor release, meaning that we try to be backwards-compatible with v3.0.0 while introducing new features. The only gray area is the new keyboard shortcut syntax, which will not always work on older versions of Plover.

Features

• New configuration option to start Plover minimized

• Added line breaks and tabs that work properly with the asterisk key (see documentation page)

• Windows and Mac: handle keyboard layout switching

  This allows you to switch between layouts, like QWERTY and Dvorak, without having to restart Plover

• Add ProCAT machine protocol

Enhancements

• Stroke and translation logging is now turned off by default

  While logging can be useful, it requires I/O from your machine and presents a privacy risk if your files are compromised

• Keyboard shortcut changes

  Keyboard shortcuts (the {#key} notation) have been unified across all operating systems. Additionally, the keys are no longer case-sensitive, and there are aliases for modifiers to allow users to feel more at home while writing keyboard shortcuts. For example, {#Super_L(r)} can now be written as {#command(r)} (comfortable for Mac users) and {#windows(r)} (comfortable for Windows users). Check out the documentation in the Plover GitHub Wiki for more information

• Unicode characters in JSON dictionaries are no longer escaped

• The "Lookup" and "Suggestions" windows now return more results! We accomplished this by looking for different casing; prefixes and suffixes; and across all dictionaries

• Paths and filenames are displayed relative to your home directory, when applicable

Fixes

• Many dictionary updates and fixes
• Faster dictionary loading, which means faster Plover start up
• Fix TX Bolt lag on macOS
• Linux output is now more compatible and no longer has in/out focus events while writing

Legal

• License changed from "GPLv2" to "GPLv2, or any later version"

  This makes us more open by allowing users of later versions of the GPL to use our code, and in turn allows us to use GPLv3 software without licensing conflicts.

Attempt to fix ProCAT bug noticed by @gdwaynewarner

Benoit Pierre has been working on improving Python 3 support, and so hopefully no one will notice any bugs with this update. There are loads of under-the-hood changes and any unexpected bugs would be great to hear about.

Since our last weekly, Plover's license was updated from GPLv2 to GPLv2+, thank you to all our contributors for your help in this change.

Features

• New protocol: ProCAT. Now ProCAT users can connect to Plover without needing to put their machine in emulation mode. This protocol should work with the Flash, Blaze, Impression, and Xpression.
• There is now a shorter path string when showing dictionaries that are in your home directory.

Dictionary Updates

• Thanks to @Slotkenov for putting in huge effort to improve the main dictionary. This includes fixes, removal of bad entries, and new words, and briefs. Also to @davidkitfriedman and others on issue #400 for their contributions as well. More to come in future updates.

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below. Alternatively, if you're suffering from the 'executable not working after reboot' issue on Windows, download the win32 zip instead.

Mac

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

Arch

Use AUR package plover-git

Other

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

Features

• {PLOVER:LOOKUP} window has been rehauled, with a simpler UI that can resize. It also gets suggestions-esque results to be more useful.

Fixes

• Escape characters when logging
• Main dictionary fixes thanks to @percidae, removing a lot of improperly formatted or garbage strokes.
• Linux key presses in combos e.g. {#a b c} are working again, and we should now support capital letters in KDE and QT 5 applications.
• Linux no longer has in/out focus events while writing

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below. Alternatively, if you're suffering from the 'executable not working after reboot' issue on Windows, download the win32 zip instead.

Mac

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

Arch

Use AUR package plover-git

Other

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

Features

• Mac: Plover now adjusts and continues working while you change your system keyboard layout.

Fixes

• Mac: Prevent a crash when changing from the keyboard machine or editing the key map.
• Mac: Fix layout detection, should be better at outputting accented keys on various layouts (thanks @Achim63)
• Linux: Use correct backspace keycode

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below. Alternatively, if you're suffering from the 'executable not working after reboot' issue on Windows, download the win32 zip instead.

Mac

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

Arch

Use AUR package plover-git

Other

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

Enhancements

• More detailed runtime logging, more detailed machine traces

Fixes

• Fix TX Bolt slowdown on Mac OS X (thanks @stanographer for lending me his LightSpeed)
• OSX key combos now use the cross-platform list
• Fix retro currency formatting with decimal (e.g. formatting 1.20 to $1.20)

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below. Alternatively, if you're suffering from the 'executable not working after reboot' issue on Windows, download the win32 zip instead.

Mac OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

Arch

Use AUR package plover-git

Other

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

Hi all,

I've been taking things slow lately to get rested up, but in my absence @Benoit-Pierre has been active as ever, making some great changes to Plover.

Features

• Key combos have been reworked! It should be easier to make key combos now, especially for beginners.
  • Warnings are shown when you try to use keys that don't exist, like {#inventedkey}.
  • Keys are case-insensitive, meaning {#up} and {#Up} both hit your up arrow key.
  • Modifiers will implicitely use the left modifier, e.g. {#control(c)} is equivalent to {#Control_L(c)} from previous versions.
  • A common confusion for users of different platforms is our Linux-centric key names. Now you can use {#Windows} or {#Command} instead of {#Super} and {#Option} instead of {#Alt} if you are more comfortable with those key names.

Enhancements

• Plover log is more verbose to make debugging easier.
• Stroke normalization has been optimized, which should speed up dictionary loading and reduce startup time.
• The configuration file should no longer change section orders on save.
• Unicode characters are no longer escaped while saving JSON dictionaries.

Fixes

• Mac OS X output should no longer occasionally stop when using the keyboard as your machine (thank you @jeremy-w)

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

Mac OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

Arch

Use AUR package plover-git

Other

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

Features

• Plover now supports \n (or \r) and \t as alternatives to {#Return} and {#Tab}, which can be "undone" with the asterisk key
  • E.g. "R-R": "{^\n^}{-|}"
• Plover can now start with its main window minimized (Configuration... > Display > Start Plover minimized)

Enhancements

• Stroke logging is now turned off by default

Fixes

• Fix entries starting with 6, 7, 8, or 9 without explicit hyphen not working
• Fix edge-case crashes from retro delete space
• On Windows, Alt-codes now work while Plover is running

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

Mac OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

Arch

Use AUR package plover-git

Other

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

Plover has its first stable release in over 2 years today.

So much work and love went into this, and we're looking forward to much more frequent releases in the future. Read on below for changes, fun facts, install instructions, and download links.

Plover version 3.0.0

• New icon
• Full unicode support across Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X
• Updated homepage

Tools

• Suggestions window training tool, shows alternate ways to write a word or phrase
• Lookup window, invoke with {PLOVER:LOOKUP}
• Dictionary Editor
• Translation window has a configurable transparency
• In Stroke Display, user can save and clear strokes

Configuration

Layout

• Remap keyboard keys that correspond to steno, also add to list of suppressed keys to prevent accidental key presses

Output

• Space placement before or after written words
• First stroke after startup can be capitalized and without space
• Configure Plover's buffer "memory"

Translation Control

Text formatting:

• Capitalize next letter {-|}
• Capitalize first letter of last word: {*-|}
• Attach / delete space {^}, {^word}, {word^}
• Carry capitalization {~|x}, where x is a character or symbol, with attach: {^~|x}, {~|x^}, {^~|x^}
  • {-|}{~|'^}em → 'Em
  • {-|}'em → 'em
• Force lowercase next letter {>}
• Lowercase first letter of last word: {*>}
• Repeat last stroke {*+}
• CAPS next word {<}
• CAPS last word {*<}
• Toggle asterisk in last stroke {*}
• Separate last two strokes {*?}
  • KAT/HROG → KAT and HROG
• Remove space between last two strokes {*!}
• Format currency on number {*($c)}, {*(€c)}, {*(£c)}, {*(c USD)}
  • 1234{*($c)} → $1,234

Output Modes

• Reset to default: {MODE:RESET}
• CAPS: {MODE:CAPS}
• Title Case: {MODE:TITLE}
• lower case: {MODE:LOWER}
• Snake_case: {MODE:SNAKE}
• camelCase: {MODE:CAMEL}
• Custom modes:
  • Change-space-character: {MODE:SET_SPACE:-}
  • Or eliminate spaces: {MODE:SET_SPACE:}
  • You can logically combine the above: {MODE:SNAKE}{MODE:CAPS}

Sample dictionary:

{
 "KA*PS": "{MODE:CAPS}",
 "T-LT": "{MODE:TITLE}",
 "HR*R": "{MODE:LOWER}",
 "STPH-BG": "{MODE:SNAKE}",
 "R-FT": "{MODE:RESET}",
 "KHRAO*ER": "{MODE:RESET}",
 "TK-RBS": "{MODE:SET_SPACE:-}",
 "K-BGS": "{MODE:CAMEL}",
 "TPH-FPS": "{MODE:SET_SPACE:}"
}

Media Key Support

Control volume and media playback

• Windows
  • AudioRaiseVolume
  • AudioLowerVolume
  • AudioMute
  • AudioNext
  • AudioPrev
  • AudioStop
  • AudioPlay / AudioPause (Toggles)
  • Standby
  • Browser commands:
    • Back
    • Forward
    • Refresh
    • Stop
    • Search
    • Favorites
    • HomePage / WWW
  • MyComputer*
  • Calculator*
  • Mail*
  • *Sometimes won't work
• Mac OS X
  • AudioRaiseVolume
  • AudioLowerVolume
  • AudioMute
  • AudioNext
  • AudioPrev
  • AudioStop
  • AudioPlay / AudioPause (Toggles)
  • Eject
  • MonBrightnessUp
  • MonBrightnessDown
  • KbdBrightnessUp
  • KbdBrightnessDown
• Linux
  • All of the above, plus whatever is in your XF86keysym.h You can optionally include the XF86_ prefix

Sample strokes:

{
"SR*UP": "{#AudioRaiseVolume}",
"SR*D": "{#AudioLowerVolume}",
"PHAO*UT": "{#AudioMute}",
"TPH*EGT": "{#AudioNext}",
"PR*EF": "{#AudioPrev}"
}

Dictionary Updates

• Plover ships with 3 default dictionaries:
  • main.json: Plover's StenEd-Mirabai-extended modern dictionary
  • commands.json: Commands, like arrow keys, copy & paste, and line returns
  • user.json: Blank dictionary that newly entered strokes will be added to
• Many new strokes were added to main.json to since v2.5.8, medical terms, modern words, tech words, animals, and misstrokes. Many invalid entries were also pruned.

Fixes

• All platforms suppress keyboard input when using it as a steno machine
• Plover doesn't get lost off screen on startup
• Mac OS X runs with retina support
• Windows and Mac OS X compatibility across programs and websites was increased

Special Thanks

• Thanks to our developer emeritus, @balshetzer
• @mighele for the dictionary editor, retrospective strokes, spaces-after output
• @balthamos for the suggestions window
• @rbrewer123 for fixes
• @jeremy-w for translation transparency, documentation, contributing.md, PR & issue templates
• @avalai for the new Plover icon and help with the homepage layout
• @Benoit-Pierre for doing so much work to make Plover better at its core, countless bug fixes, internal refactoring, new features, and great code reviews, literally hundreds of commits!
• ...and all the other developers and users who submitted PRs and took part in issue discussion
• @stenoknight for making steno free for everyone

Fun Facts

The last release, Plover v2.5.8:

• Was released over 840 days ago
• Was downloaded over 23,000 times

This release:

• Adds 578 commits
• Has received help from over 20 contributors

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

Mac OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

Ubuntu

See Benoit Pierre's Plover PPA

Arch

Use AUR packages plover and plover-git

Other

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

This release features fixes:

• Fix edge cases in formatting where you could lose letters, e.g. when set spaces after and setting the space character to nothing.
• Fix lost child process error which could suppress keyboard output on Windows, even after Plover was quit.

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

Fixes

• Keyboard mode on Windows: should no longer occasionally stop working, where Plover would seem functional but typing yielded no stenography.
• Remove many invalid entries from main.json with feedback from #400
• Revert change that made long strings on OSX cause slowdowns
• Improve handling of TX Bolt protocol on a particular edge case
• Use English Stenography system for orthography

Development

• Tests are now run with ./setup.py test and tests have their own directory

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Additional instructions for various repos can be found in the Linux README

Weekly Pre-release

Features

Media keys have been added! For Linux, this means hundreds of new keys with an optional XF86_ prefix. All the keys below should function, though you may have to hook up global handlers depending on your distribution. See a list of XF86_ keys taken from XF86keysym.h

As for OSX and Windows, these are the possible media keys, which you can use such as:

{
"SR*UP": "{#AudioRaiseVolume}",
"SR*D": "{#AudioLowerVolume}",
"PHAO*UT": "{#AudioMute}"
}

| Name | OSX | Windows | | --- | --- | --- | | AudioRaiseVolume | ✅ | ✅ | | AudioLowerVolume | ✅ | ✅ | | MonBrightnessUp | ✅ | | | MonBrightnessDown | ✅ | | | AudioMute | ✅ | ✅ | | Eject | ✅ | | | AudioPause­ | Play/Pause | Play/Pause | | AudioPlay | Play/Pause | Play/Pause | | AudioNext | ✅ | ✅ | | AudioPrev | ✅ | ✅ | | AudioRewind | ✅ | | | AudioStop | | ✅ | | KbdBrightnessUp | ✅ | | | KbdBrightnessDown | ✅ | | | Standby | | ✅ | | MyComputer* | | ✅ | | Calculator* | | ✅ | | Mail* | | ✅ |

*Depending on your version of Windows and your keyboard driver, the application launching keys may not work.

| Browser Action | OSX | Windows | | --- | --- | --- | | Back | | ✅ | | Forward | | ✅ | | Refresh | | ✅ | | Stop | | ✅ | | Search | | ✅ | | Favorites | | ✅ | | HomePage | | ✅ | | WWW | | ✅ |

Fixes

• Only save changed dictionaries with dictionary editor, add translation dialog
• Internally handle read-only dictionaries
• Use pkg_resources on Windows and OS X (previously only Linux)
• Fix crash when opening Plover using some OS X key layouts
• Catch exceptions on reconnect

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Ubuntu users may need to use a backport to get the latest version of wxPython:

sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:adamwolf/kicad-trusty-backports
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-wxgtk3.0

Weekly Pre-release

Features

• Stroke Display / Paper Tape now has a clear button, a save button to export to a text file, and scrolls forever. Thanks to @timthelion
• Treal TR now automatically reconnects if the machine is disconnected during use
• Running Plover from the command-line now supports --help, --version, --log-level

Fixes

• Optimize Mac dmg size
• Fix a doubled-notification when using native wx notifier
• Windows output now sends the correct symbols even as the user changes keyboard layout (e.g. Qwerty, Azerty, Qwertz, Dvorak, Colemak, etc.)
• "Add dictionary" file dialog can now be controlled by the steno machine

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Ubuntu users may need to use a backport to get the latest version of wxPython:

sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:adamwolf/kicad-trusty-backports
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-wxgtk3.0

Weekly Pre-release

Fixes

• Fix bug where retro delete space wouldn't work for punctuation and numbers
• Fix "space-after" fingerspelling problem that caused spacing
• Attempt to fix transposition errors on OS X, also improve reliability of extended characters
• Add missing import; last week's builds didn't work on Linux

Documentation

There's now a Linux readme for users looking to get set up for development

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Ubuntu users may need to use a backport to get the latest version of wxPython:

sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:adamwolf/kicad-trusty-backports
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-wxgtk3.0

With this new "weekly" build of Plover, we hope to start a trend of rapid releases. We'll try to push a new weekly every time there's a new feature, so you might see weekly builds on a daily or biweekly basis, depending on how much actual development gets done. One thing is for sure, though, we won't wait another 2 years (!!!) before getting improvements into your hands.

This is a "pre-release", not quite a version 3.0.0 just yet, we want to have the brave among you try it out and let us know if anything broke in a major way.

Special Thanks

This release has been a huge team effort, and I'd like to thank many people and give some credit, where due. Firstly, thanks to @balshetzer for bringing Plover to its current state, and leaving a wonderful project with consistent style to take over. It's been a joy following in your footsteps. Thanks also to @mighele for work on many features, including the dictionary editor, the retrospective commands, and the lookup window. Another huge thanks is due for @balthamos, who created the suggestions window in this release. @rbrewer123 also submitted some useful pull requests to improve the Stentura machine. @jeremy-w revived the translation transparency issue and got us set up with awesome contributing guidelines to help curious developers get started.

And in the last few months, since October, I've been hard at work with @benoit-pierre, who has been wonderful to work with. Benoit has done so much work on Plover, attacking core problems and making sweeping internal changes. He kept making pull requests and pushing for a release, he helped set up continuous integration, performed many code reviews, refactored the development environment on all systems, changed the core of Plover's steno engine, and made countless bug fixes. I can't summarize just how much he has done, you'll just have to review the commit history to see all the incredible work.

Finally, I'd like to thank @stenoknight. Without her, we wouldn't be all be stenoing together on the Discord chat, I wouldn't be stenoing my code, life would be very different. I've been overjoyed to be put in the position as lead dev for Plover, even though I'm not a Python expert like some of our other developers. I've really enjoyed getting things organized and I'm immensely proud of where the Open Steno community has managed to get Plover for this release; it's amazing to use and I hope that everyone enjoys all the new stuff! Speaking of new stuff, here's the changelog:

Features

• New icon
• Full Unicode support on Windows, OS X, and Linux. Now you can use a non-Latin alphabet, including extended symbols such as emoji 💥
• New lookup window to look up strokes for a word. Use {PLOVER:LOOKUP}
• Configure whether space is outputted at the beginning or end of the current stroke (default/current is " add", new option outputs "add ")
• New option to configure whether Plover's first stroke after being turned on is capitalized and has a space.
• New option to change the number of undos that Plover remembers. The default is 100 up from 10.
• New Dictionary Editor that lets you view and edit strokes in your dictionaries. You can filter by stroke or definition, and add, edit, and delete entries in your JSON and RTF dictionaries.
• New Suggestions window, a training tool that watches what you are writing, and gives other strokes that have the same output. It's great for discovering briefs, suffixes, prefixes, and alternative strokes.
• "Add Translation" Transparency option to make your dictionary updates more subtle in case you have clients who get distracted by it.
• New commands:
  • Repeat last stroke: repeats the last stroke exactly, useful for things like arrow keys to avoid having to do a complex stroke multiple times: {*+}
  • Uppercase next word, turns "word" into "WORD": {<}
• New retrospective commands:

  • Retrospective capitalize

    Capitalize last word: {*-|}

  • Retrospective uppercase

    Uppercase last word: {*<}

  • Retrospective lowercase last word

    Lower the first letter of the last word: {*>}

  • Retrospective toggle asterisk

    Change whether the last stroke did or didn't have an asterisk: {*}.

  • Retrospective insert space

    "Split" the last two strokes, turning KAT/LOG, "catalogue", into "cat log": {*?}

  • Retrospective delete space

    Remove a space between the last two words, turning "break off" into "breakoff": {*!}

  • Retrospective currency formatting

    Using a stroke of the form {*($c)}, where you can replace "$" with your own currency symbol, Plover will adjust your last stroke, if it's a number, optionally with two decimal places, (e.g. 123412.34) into currency format (in this case, $123,412.34)

• Delete words on empty buffer. When Plover runs out of asterisk-undos, it will start to try to delete a word at a time instead of doing nothing.
• Add remapping of the keyboard's layout through the configuration dialog, so that users can change which keys are suppressed and which suppressed keys correspond to steno keys. For example, you can suppress the spacebar, or set "Tab" to act as S-.

Introduce a new breed of meta command, "MODE". Now Plover has persistent "modes" that affect the output of the text. The core of the functionality comes from controlling just:

• The text case
• The space character

For the text case, users can use "CAPS", "TITLE", "LOWER". This lets the text come out IN ALL CAPS, In Title Case, and, in all lowercase.

For the space character, using "SET_STRING", users can effectively replace Plover's built in "space" character with any of their choosing. For example, youcouldsetthecharacter to nothing, or-to-the-dash, or-ow-to-ow-any-ow-arbitrary-ow-string.

Then, to disable the functionality, users can use "MODE:RESET_SPACE" to reset to the default space, "MODE:RESET_CASE" to reset to the default case, and "MODE:RESET" to clear the space character and the case.

Finally, Plover ships with some special mode names to help out programmers: "SNAKE" and "CAMEL". Snake just sets the space character to underscores,_like_this_if_you_will, and Camel sets the next character to lowercase (using "{>}"), sets the case to Title case, and sets the space character to none, thus resulting inThisOutputStyle.

Example dictionary for most of the strokes (reset space and case aren't useful to me personally):

{
 "KA*PS": "{MODE:CAPS}",
 "T-LT": "{MODE:TITLE}",
 "HR*R": "{MODE:LOWER}",
 "STPH-BG": "{MODE:SNAKE}",
 "R-FT": "{MODE:RESET}",
 "KHRAO*ER": "{MODE:RESET}",
 "TK-RBS": "{MODE:SET_SPACE:-}",
 "K-BGS": "{MODE:CAMEL}",
 "TPH-FPS": "{MODE:SET_SPACE:}"
}

Dictionary

• Split default dictionary into 3 default dictionaries. New Plover users (or users without any dictionaries configured) will find 3 dictionaries set up in their dictionary list by default: main.json, commands.json, and user.json. "Main" contains all the words, numbers, prefixes, and suffixes from the default dictionary, whereas "commands" is just the commands, such as copy, paste, add dictionary translation, toggle Plover, et cetera. The "user" dictionary is a blank dictionary that new strokes will automatically be added to, alleviating one of the struggles of starting out learning steno and not realizing that it's important to separate your own strokes from the default strokes.
• Add more time increments (1:05 through to 1:55) to the default dictionary, using the K- and -BG strokes.
• Add symbols to the dictionary to match Learn Plover!
• Roughly 20,000 entries added to the main dictionary, mainly from Mirabai's and Ted's personal dictionaries. Includes some fixes, lots of new words, and steno-specific terminology.
• New strokes using the carry capitalize meta: update quotation strokes to better handle words starting with apostrophes, like 'cause or 'em. The default quotation mark and parentheses strokes (KW-GS, KR-GS; PREPB and PR*EPB) also should no longer force lowercase, making them better for use in your text.

Fixes

• The Linux keyboard is now suppressed while Plover is outputting (instead of sending backspace events to suppress key presses).
• Plover windows should no longer get stuck off screen on start up, an issue that Windows users were prone to.
• Reduce Stentura CPU usage.
• Reduce Tréal CPU usage on Linux and Mac.
• Mac OS X build is now 64-bit, and has retina display support.
• Mac OS X now sends key codes instead of just strings, meaning that it has better compatibility with international layouts and legacy applications.
• Windows now has support for all the special keys, including using the Windows key ({#Super_L() grave space})
• "NKRO Keyboard" has been renamed to "Keyboard".
• Command-C now copies in Mac dialogs, instead of closing them.

Development / Internal

• Replace hard-coded key layout with customizable list.
• Plover can be launched in development now with python2 launch.py
• Add CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on submitting issues and pull requests for the repository.
• Core stenography logic has been rewritten and reorganized, in order to make remapping of the physical layouts easier, as well as have all the stenography logic much more modularized, in preparation for multilingual configurations.
• Continuous Integration has been set up to build on Windows, Mac, and Linux with AppVeyor and Travis CI.
• Windows development environment setup is fully automated with a setup and build script.

Download & Install

Windows

Download and run the .exe below.

OS X

Download the .dmg file, drag Plover to your Applications folder, then go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "+" Button > Select Applications/Plover. Now, run Plover.

Linux

You can pip install the wheel file. You can chmod +x the egg if you have all dependencies installed. Ubuntu users may need to use a backport to get the latest version of wxPython:

sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:adamwolf/kicad-trusty-backports
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-wxgtk3.0

Reduce CPU usage in txbolt protocol (Thanks to Rob Brewer).

Changes in this release:

• New feature (on Windows and OS X): Portable mode allows putting Plover on a removable drive. To use, put an empty file named plover.cfg in the same directory as the Plover.exe (on windows) or Plover.app (on OS X) and Plover will use the local directory for all its files.
• RTF/CRE dict parser is more forgiving and recognizes unix style newlines. This allows users to edit RTF/CRE dictionaries in regular text editors more easily

Bugs Fixed:

• Adding a dictionary with the wrong extension crashed Plover.
• Arpeggiate was broken (thanks rbrewer123).
• Plover crashed if the serial port in the config doesn't exist.
• Plover stopped working on resume when using a machine other than the NKRO keyboard.

Changes to default dictionary:

• Fixed several entries (thanks Simon Melhart)
• Default dictionary is now sorted by translation (thanks Zack Brown)
• Removed all conflicts
• converted to UTF-8.