dasher(1)							   User Commands							 dasher(1)

NAME

       dasher - graphical predictive text entry system

SYNOPSIS

       dasher [OPTIONS] [filename]

DESCRIPTION

       Dasher is an information-efficient text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures. Dasher is a competitive text-entry
       system wherever a full-size keyboard cannot be used.

OPTIONS

       dasher takes the following options:

       -a, --appstyle=STYLE
	      Application style.  STYLE can be any of traditional, direct, compose, or fullscreen.  The default is whatever was specified  on  the
	      previous invocation of Dasher, or traditional when Dasher is started for the first time.

       -?, --help
	      Describe command line options.

       --help-options
	      Describe the options available with --options.

       -o, --options [option=value[,option=value...]]
	      Override stored options.	Options values are remembered for subsequent invocations of Dasher.

USAGE

       The  main Dasher interface is a window with a blank background containing a column of letters on the right hand side.  Click the mouse but-
       ton to start.  When the pointer is to the right of the crosshair the screen will zoom towards the point underneath the mouse  pointer.	To
       select  a  letter,  move  the  mouse pointer into it and watch how it zooms underneath the crosshair.  A new column of letters will appear.
       Staying within the box for the selected letter, move the pointer over one of these letters to select it as the  next  letter.   Moving  the
       mouse pointer to the left of the crosshair, or outside of the box for previously selected letters, allows you to change previously selected
       letters.

Application Styles
       traditional
	      Dasher displays an edit box above the main window.  Text entered via Dasher will appear in the edit box  allowing  the  text  to	be
	      edited directly.

       direct The  edit box is not displayed.  Dasher runs without focus and the text goes into whatever window does have focus.  This way you can
	      use it more practically to run your desktop.

       fullscreen
	      dasher expands to the entire screen.

MENUS

   File
       New    Clear the edit box and associate a random filename with it.

       Open   Read a text file into the edit box for further editing.

       Save   Save the contents of the edit box to its associated file.

       Save as
	      Save the contents of the edit box to a selected file.

       Append to file
	      Add the contents of the edit box to the end of a selected file.

       Import training text
	      Use a file to further improve Dasher's prediction of the next letters to present (for instance, a training  file	containing  scien-
	      tific terms to add to the initial English training).  Training files must be UTF-8 encoded.

       Quit   Exit Dasher.

   Edit
       Cut    Remove the highlighted text from the edit box and copy it to the clipboard.

       Copy   Copy the highlighted text from the edit box to the clipboard but don't remove it.

       Paste  Paste the contents of the clipboard into the edit box at the position of the cursor.

       Copy all
	      Copy the entire contents of the edit box to the clipboard.

       Select all
	      Highlight all of the text in the edit box.

   Options
       Preferences
	      Opens the preferences dialog.

   Help
       About Dasher
	      Display information about the current version of Dasher

THE PREFERENCES DIALOG

       The preferences dialog is split into several panes.

   Alphabet
       Choose a different alphabet. Dasher will automatically retrain itself if the alphabet specified training file is present.

   Colour
       Choose a different colour scheme.

   Control
       Alter various control options

       One dimensional mode
	      Map the Y position of the mouse to a 2 dimensional position on the Dasher canvas (useful for limited mobility users)

       Eyetracker mode
	      Similar to one dimensional mode, but behaves normally except at the right-hand side of the canvas. Designed for eyetracker users.

CONVERTING TRAINING FILES TO UTF-8
       Dasher  requires that training files be in the UTF-8 format, whereas most text files are likely to be in ISO-8859 format. This doesn't mat-
       ter for plain text, but accented characters are encoded differently. In order to convert them, use the iconv(1) program. For  instance,	if
       your training file is in ISO-8859-1 format (Western European), run iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 trainingfile >newtrainingfile

FILES

       /usr/share/doc/dasher
	      Directory containing system-wide configuration files.

       ~/.dasher
	      Directory containing user specific configuration files.

       Dasher will utilise files of the following form from both of these directories:

       alphabet.ALPHABET.xml
	      The files defining the alphabets available to Dasher.

       colour.SCHEME.xml
	      The files defining the colour schemes available to Dasher.

       training_LANGUAGE*.txt
	      Files  containing  the training data used by Dasher.  These are UTF-8 encoded text and should contain a representative sample of the
	      relevant language.  User specific training files can be used to augment system wide data.

       Refer to the Dasher manual for more information regarding the format and editing of these files.

AUTHOR

       The Dasher Project <dasher@mrao.phy.cam.ac.uk>.

SEE ALSO

       The Dasher project web page is <http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/>

4.11								    2008-02-28								 dasher(1)