Glossary

Below you will find some common “uncommon” words that are used in the CharaChorder community.

3D Press

When a switch is activated by pushing it normal to the surface of the device (same as an ordinary keyboard switch).

Active Mode

Nudges your mouse one pixel every minute or so to keep your computer from sleeping.

Ambidextrous Throwover (aka Mirror Mode)

Entry mode designed for one-handed typing. Characters from the opposite hand are mirrored to the hand which activates this feature.

Arpeggiate

A quick, single key press and release to indicate a suffix, prefix, or modifier to be associated with a chord.

Chentry

Shorthand for ‘character entry’, or typing on a chording-enabled device letter by letter.

Chord Modifiers

Inputs which, when included with a chord, change the prefix, suffix, capitalization, conjugation, part of speech, language, or structure of a chord. Note, these can be used arpeggiately.

Compound Chords

Multiple chords which behave differently when used together consecutively within the Compound timeout. Example: know + ledge = knowledge.

Cursor Warping

When your cursor or mouse position moves (“warps”) based on a chord. Example: Chord “ with DUP to create “” and warp your cursor inside “”.

DUP (duplicate) key

In character entry, it repeats your last input. In chorded entry, it is used for words with repeating letters.

Dynamic Chord Library

Advanced system feature enabling activation of multiple named chord libraries through action codes embedded in chord outputs. You can have multiple chord libraries on your device, even if the chord inputs might otherwise conflict. This features allows you to have separate libraries for different settings, further allowing you to have the same input produce a different output on each different library.

When an action code activates a specific library, subsequent chord creation automatically groups new chords within that library’s structure, allowing for context- specific chord sets (e.g., multilingual, coding, email) that can be programmatically switched during use.

Fluid Chorded/Character Entry

Default text entry mode for CharaChorder. Output characters individually (like a keyboard) OR press and release multiple characters of a chord simultaneously to output a chord.

Forced Chord Phenomenon

The experience of typing a word in character entry feeling unnatural due to the development of muscle memory for chording that word.

GTM (Generative Text Menu)

A text-based menu accessible anywhere you type. It allows access to various device settings and features without software. See Generative Text Menu (GTM).

Impulse Chord

An ‘on-the-fly’ custom chord that can be spontaneously created anywhere you can type via the GTM. See Impulse chording.

Macro

Sequence of mouse and/or keyboard actions assigned to a chord.

Spurring

A ‘chording only’ mode which outputs chords on a press rather than a press & release. Enables jumping from one chord to another without releasing everything. It can provide significant speed gains with chording, but also takes away the flexibility of character entry. Spurring also helps new users learn how to chord by eliminating the need to focus on timing.