Keymileage 0.5.2

Keymileage is a small utility that figures out how many miles your fingers travel when typing. You can even measure really long files.

Keymileage tabulates in both the simplified Dvorak layout and the QWERTY layout.

Miles of Files
The most fun thing to do with Keymileage is to load in text files in see how far it took to type them. Choose FileÆOpen and select the file(s).

Beware, however, that Keymileage only accepts plain text files (so this Rich-Text read-me doesnt count). Additionally, You are advised to use either Macintosh or Unix line-endings. Anything you create on your Mac will have them by default, but DOS text files represent carriage returns with two characters, and Keymileage will read that as hitting return twice.

The best source for deliciously huge text files in Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org). However, they are not formatted very nicely. You are advised to resave them in Macintosh line-endings and use a program like Tex-Edit to strip out extra carriage returns.

Computation Process
Mileage is measured based on the coordinate of each key on the keyboard. These measurements are based on the assumption that each standard key is 3/4 inches square, which is practically universal in keyboard manufacture.

Each simulated finger initially starts on its default home row position.
When a letter is typed with that finger, the finger is moved to the new coordinate and left there for of 3 strokes.
Fingers are always moved from their current locations. So if a fingers 3-stroke "wait" has not yet expired, the finger moves directly from that location to the new location.
Fingers revert to their default home-row positions after waiting three strokes, or at the end of the input.

Keymileage simply measures the total number of inches traveled during these movements. At this time, Keymileage only measures linear distance; it makes no attempt to estimate the distance ones fingers travel in the air while coming down to strike a letter.