Re: Voice coding R?

Good comments, Paulo.

I had serious hand and wrist problems years ago. I moved to supporting 
my arms on the table and going to a touch pad. Many of my problems were 
solved. I then moved to working on my neck and back problems by standing 
and speaking to capture my audio.

I then reviewed my audio and took notes of coding that mattered. I 
separated thinking from typing at the same time. The result has been 
increased physical health and increased typing productivity.

Your mileage may vary.


Kindly,
*Stephen Dawson, DSL*
/Executive Strategy Consultant/
Business & Technology
+1 (865) 804-3454
http://www.shdawson.com


On 2/4/26 15:49, Paulo Barata wrote:
> Dear Mr. Wagman,
>
> About 10 years ago I experienced some real difficulties with my hands. 
> At that time, I tried to use my computer, including coding, by means 
> of voice commands, but it didn't work well for me. It is possible that 
> voice-control software have improved since that time, I cannot know.
>
> My computer runs on Windows, not on Linux, so I am not sure whether 
> the following suggestions would work on Linux.
>
> Years ago, there were two resources that helped me quite a lot to 
> decrease the use of my hands:
>
> 1. I found that the single most aggressive movement to my hands was 
> the mouse click. So, I started to use the mouse only for positioning 
> the cursor on the screen, but the "click" was performed by means of a 
> foot switch (a pedal). This, below, is the one that I have used for 
> many years, USA made, really sturdy, advertised as Windows and Mac OS 
> compatible, sold in USB versions with either 1, 2 or 3 pedals, each 
> pedal can be programmed to act as we wish:
>
> [At the manufacturer] Savant Elite2 Dual Pedal
> https://kinesis-ergo.com/shop/savant-elite2-dual-pedal/
>
> [At Amazon] Kinesis Savant Elite2 Programmable USB Foot Switch with 1, 
> 2 or 3 Pedals
> https://www.amazon.com/Kinesis-Savant-Elite2-Programmable-FP20A/dp/B00QYRTTHI 
>
>
> 2. To write, I have used (much less now, but very often at the peak of 
> my hand impairment) the software Dasher, a tree-like way of writing 
> any character on the screen, whether letters, numbers or punctuation 
> characters. This was originally developed by Prof. David MacKay at 
> Cambridge University in the UK, and is a free software. It has a 
> learning curve, but it does work. It allows us to write without any 
> mouse click, just by continuously positioning the cursor on the screen.
>
> The last working version of Dasher is Dasher 5.0 beta, at the address 
> below (on that page, it is said that Linux users must compile from 
> source code):
>
> https://github.com/dasher-project/dasher/releases
>
> A version 6 of Dasher seems to be under development, but I think it 
> actually has not been released yet.
>
> On YouTube, you can get a feeling about how Dasher works. The first 
> video is a one-hour-long 2007 Google Tech Talk by Prof. MacKay 
> himself, explaining the concepts behind Dasher. The other two videos 
> are well shorter, just demonstrations of the software.
>
> Dasher: information-efficient text entry
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie9Se7FneXE
>
> Ada Majorek Introduction - CSUN Dasher
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvsSrClBwPM
>
> Dasher alternative input software - review and how to use
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z7fr4pZhmQ
>
> Please note:
>
> (1) At least on Windows, Dasher can send its output (the written text) 
> directly to any other active window, so you could write directly to 
> your text editor, word processor or web browser.
>
> (2) You will notice in the videos that, as the writing progresses, 
> whole words appear on the Dasher screen, which can very much 
> facilitate the writing of text. Dasher uses a background file of saved 
> text (anything, like pieces of newspaper news, etc.), and we can add 
> our own "dictionaries" to that backgroud file, anything we wish, 
> anything that seems to be frequently used, like our own name or home 
> address. In my case, I have added to that background file the most 
> common R functions, a lot of them, like log, sqrt, data.frame, 
> read.table, glm, and so on, and also functions used by some R 
> packages, and other pieces of R code frequently used; this really 
> makes it easier the writing of some R code.
>
> (3) Dasher allows one to write in many different languages, not only 
> English, as there exist background files (each with the proper 
> "dictionary") in really many languages. In the Dasher settings, we can 
> define which will be the background file of our choice.
>
> I hope this will be of interest to you.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Paulo Barata
>
> Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2026 15:14:50 -0800
>> From: Barnet Wagman<[email protected]>
>> To:[email protected]
>> Subject: [R] Voice coding R?
>> Message-ID:<[email protected]>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>>
>> Is anyone using voice coding to work with R?  I need to give my hands a
>> rest and would like to hear anyone's experience.
>>
>> I'm currently using Rstudio but could change IDE if necessary. I'd
>> strongly prefer tools that work under Linux.
>>
>> More specifically, Serenade seems like a possible solution.  It does not
>> support Rstudio directly but does support VS Code, which is supposed to
>> support R.
>>
>> Any thoughts would be appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks
>
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