Multi key selection

Typing whole words

Instead of typing each letter of a word individually, it is possible to capture a whole word (or phrase) in one go. To activate multi-key selection select the Multi-key Selection key to press or lock it down:

1. 
2. 
3. 

You'll notice that the Multi-key Selection key cycles through 3 states; UP, DOWN, and LOCKED DOWN, before returning to UP, meaning it can be off, on for just one multi-key capture, or permanently on for many multi-key captures. The progression as each selection is made looks like this:

⇨ ⇨ ⇨ etc

The process of capturing a word using fixation selection then works like this;

1. Select the first letter of the word, e.g. the "h" if you want to type "hello". You have begun capturing the word (or phrase).

   

2. Direct your attention to each letter in the word. You don't have to select each one, just briefly register your interest in each letter; "e", "l", then "o". Don't worry about double letters like the "ll" in "hello" - Optikey will figure that out for you.

   

3. When you get to the last letter select it to signal that you are finished capturing the word (or phrase). Optikey will match what you captured with its dictionary of words and phrases and type the best match to the "scratchpad". Alternative suggestions will be displayed at the top, which you can select if Optikey matched your capture to the wrong word.

   

Multikey selection learns which words you use frequently and will improve its suggestions over time.

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Typing single letters with multi-key selection enabled

To type individual letters with multi-key selection enabled, just select the same key twice, without focusing on any other keys in between, e.g. to type "I" select the "I" key to start the word capture, then stay on the "I" key to select it again; this will stop the capture and output a single "I".

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Typing whole phrases

Whole phrases are types in the same way as whole words, but instead of typing each letter of each word you only type the first letter of each word. For example if the phrase "how are you" was in the dictionary, then you could type this as one multi-key selection like this:

1. Select the first letter of the first word, i.e. the "h" from "how". This begins the capture.

2. Direct your attention to the first letter of each word, so "a", then "y" in our example.

3. Stay on the last letter ("y") to select it and signal that you are finished capturing. The set of matching words and phrases will be calculated and the best choice output to the scratchpad (the rest of the suggestions will appear at the top, above the scratchpad).

N.B. Optikey can only find matches for your multi-key selection in its dictionary - see ['Changing and editing the dictionary'] (https://github.com/JuliusSweetland/OptiKey/wiki/User-Guide##changing-and-editing-the-dictionary) for info on how to add and remove words and phrases.