It begs the question though, why isn't there a proper SwiftKey keyboard for Windows? The OSK on 8.1 is awful compared to SwiftKey on Android. The Windows 10 is a improvement, but I'd still pay for a better one.
A) Microsoft still mantains and updates silverlight.
B) It's mentioned as one of the components of Windows 10[1].
So I'm really confused here as whether Microsoft will kill it already, or keep it alive. They seem to be willing to kill it[2][3], but Netflix alone is enough reason to keep it alive.
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/default.asp...
[2] http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-wont-includ...
[3] http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-confirms-its-new-edg...
Silverlight has been a dead-end technology for some time, but it will continue to be supported in Internet Explorer in "legacy mode". You can still run ActiveX-controls in IE (in legacy mode), so expect to be able to run Silverlight apps for the foreseeable future.
Databinding is a complete trainwreck, the Combo-box class is horribly overcomplicated by its double-duty as text-entry and drop-down-list, the DataGridView is a complete beast of leaky abstractions, and the layout engine completely falls apart if somebody alters the DPI unless you obsessively test DPI alterations yourself.
I don't blame Microsoft for any of this - it was 2000 and they were making a wrapper around some terrifying legacy code.
But this thing should have been tossed in the dustbin of history a long time ago.
Data binding is not solid, but it is a quick hack to display data, the solution is using a business model and mvp or mvc.
What do you find complicated about the combo class?
Data grid view... It is a train wreck, but then again, there is not much need to use it if you have a proper model behind.
The layout engine does sucks... The only alternative I found is to use the dev express layout control. The rumor is that 4.6 solves this.
Win forms is solid and it has very little chance of disappearing. Areas of the screen can be controlled independly, which means ui encapsulation is there... Something not easily done in html.
WPF and UWP apps are both far easier.
Does WinForms still get love in the new versions of the SDK or is it considered done now?
(There still are bugs around, but I think they will not be addressed ever. Fixing those could potentially break existing applications relying on that behaviour.)
We looked at some software called EZ Keys from a company called Words Plus. (I don't think she used it specifically, at least for long--I know she used another program, a DOS-based one called Living Better that ran in 40-col. mode that I can't anything about on the Internet.) EZ keys looked more or less like Intel's thing -- scan rows, scan items in a row, completions/predictions over at left. It even had an option to use a frequency-sorted keyboard like the Intel one, with the common letters pushed to the top left (since those are the first rows/cols to be scanned). Hawking apparently used EZ Keys, so it's possible the Intel folks intentionally gave their thing a similar interface to make the transition easy.
It is worth remembering that no user cares if it's WinForms or whatever. Some folks might like a nicer voice if they haven't gotten used to theirs like Hawking ;), but the main concern is just getting the message across. Intel seems to have worked on the right stuff: better prediction (Presage http://presage.sourceforge.net/, which looks interesting) and context-sensitive controls. The infrared-laser-based input method sounds cool, too.
This is a neat space: an optimization/prediction problem where improvements can be a significant help to someone. (There are also practical optimizations that don't have much to do with the general word-prediction problem: sometimes people have to say things about their care, food, etc., or generic 'hi' and 'bye', and it's good if those are fast.) A Web page or Chrome extension can do a lot--how close can you get to smoothly operating the Web with just the spacebar? the arrow keys and Enter? or plain old typing, but slowed down and using 0-9 for completions?
I've heard that nowadays, people with communication trouble and enough movement use text-to-speech on mobile gadgets with their nifty and highly refined predictive input and that's awesome.
The project also doesn't use SwiftKey but
"Presage, an intelligent predictive text engine created by Matteo Vescovi."
http://www.speechfxinc.com/dectalk.html
I don't know how different is that from CallText 5010 which was, as the Wired article states, eventually bought by Nuance Communications. Still, as per Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECtalk
"The CallText 5010 is still listed on Hawking's site as of 2015.[9]"
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/...
"System.Speech has a memory leak - by eoghanoh
Status: Closed as Won't Fix"
I see your work is based on http://hts.sp.nitech.ac.jp/ Can you tell us what are your changes?
Edit: I see HN already commented your work:
My startup Spoken - http://spokenaac.com - uses n-gram predictions to help users with aphasia or other language disorders speak. The user interface challenges aren't quite as intense as Stephen Hawking's binary input, but it's an interesting field if you're into design and big data.
On the iPad, for example, if I type 'f', I get shown 'for', then if I accept, I always see 'example' and 'instance'.
Separately, predefined phrases/templates can be really practical for things related to care, food, saying hi and bye, etc. That's a special case--user likely cares more about getting it done efficiently than choosing the exact wording they want each time.
