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Open Steno Project Timeline
The Open Steno Project has a lot of different goals and projects, and sometimes it's hard to tell what happened when. This page aims to provide a summary of events with dates for anyone curious.
Backstory
Mirabai Knight attends the New York Career Institute to learn stenography at 225 words per minute.
Backstory
Mirabai creates a dictionary builder, named Bozzy, with help from her brother William. It's a program that reads from a word list and creates a dictionary using raw steno input. It requires the use of CAT software set to send keys to the computer instead of a transcript.
Backstory
Mirabai decides she wants to create an open source steno software, unsatisfied with the current proprietary, bloated, and expensive solutions.
Mirabai starts to learn python and breaks down technical challenges that will need to be addressed with a steno program that is actually a keyboard emulator. She notes that the timer feature from other steno software is awful and that Plover should process each stroke immediately. The idea of what Plover should be goes through much process. Does it have a document editor? A UI at all? Is it a program? Is it a keyboard?
Plover
Mirabai meets Joshua Lifton, via an ad Mirabai posted in her apartment building looking for a Python tutor. Joshua becomes the lead Plover developer, funded by Mirabai and donations to the project.
Plover is developed on Ubuntu and is Linux-only.
Education
Mirabai begins writing her Steno 101 series.
Plover
First public release of Plover (version 2.0) Plover is Linux-only and supports only the Gemini PR machine protocol, as well as regular NKRO keyboard input.
Plover
Joshua moves to Oregon to work at Crowd Supply, and the Plover Project is put on hiatus with minimal development. Plover 2.2.0 is released.
Education
Mirabai posts musings and thoughts about gamifying steno education. She calls it Hover Plover (later renamed to Steno Arcade).
Plover
Hesky Fisher starts working on Plover.
Plover
Hesky takes over development of Plover, beginning by porting to Windows and Mac, as well as adding many more steno machine protocols, including Stentura, Tréal, and TX Bolt.
Third-party
Brent Nesbitt releases StenoTray, a Java app that runs alongside Plover to watch your strokes and give outlines for what you might be trying to write.
Plover
Hesky releases Plover 2.3.0 for Linux, Windows, and Mac.
Plover grows, with support for suffix folding, multiple dictionaries, stroke display, adding translations, orthography rules, and more.
Education
Mike Neale introduces steno-training website QwertySteno.
Hardware
Josh Lifton announces plans to build an open source steno keyboard, the Stenosaurus.
Education
Jay Liu introduces steno-training website Plover Dojo.
Education
Zach Brown, a technical writer, publishes the first half of Learn Plover!. Learn Plover! is a free online textbook that Mirabai commissioned Zach in exchange for steno lessons.
Plover
Now at version 2.5.8, Hesky slows development to focus on other projects.
Hardware
Emanuele Caruso announces the Stenoboard, an open source stenographic split 3D-printed keyboard.
Plover
Mike Neale becomes an active contributor and adds many new features to Plover, including a dictionary editor and retro commands. No release is made.
Plover
Hesky steps down from maintaining Plover. Mirabai starts looking for a new maintainer.
Plover
Ted Morin begins work on Plover. Soon after beginning work, Benoit Pierre joins in and begins intense refactoring and improvement of the code base.
Hardware
Scott Urueta announces and starts selling the SOFT/HRUF, an open source 3D-printed steno machine with light linear mechanical switches.
Plover
"Weekly" releases (pre-releases) begin being published on GitHub for users wanting to try the new features. Given the two years passed since a release, there were bugs present in the code base that needed to be addressed.
Education
Steno Arcade crowd supply campaign goes live along with a demo. Project succeeds with 116% funding.
Plover
Plover version 3.0.0 is released, featuring new training tools, a UI rearrangement, a dictionary editor, a new icon, output modes, and many under-the-hood improvements to improve cross-platform behavior.
Hardware
Charley Shattuck starts to sell his customizable steno machine, the Stenomod. The Stenomod comes on a deck of wood for desk and lap use, but can be detached and used in split configuration.
Plover
Plover version 3.1.0 is released.
Behind the scenes, Benoit Pierre performs major refactoring work to allow Plover to support other layouts and chording systems, user plugins, different GUIs (including a QT version), and Python 3. The project license is updated from GPLv2 to GPLv2+.
Don't worry, Plover development continues. Benoit Pierre is working on support for other layouts and chording systems, user plugins, different GUIs (including a QT version), and Python 3.
You can see the roadmap and join in the developer discussions by joining the Plover #devtalk forum or the Plover blog.