3 A speed reading mode for Emacs.
5 The algorithm is inspired from [[https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz][OpenSpritz]].
12 The story continues at [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html][gnu.org]]
16 Put spray.el into a "load-path"ed directory, and load it in your init
21 Then you can start spraying from the cursor position with =M-x
22 spray-mode=. Binding some keys may also be useful.
24 : (global-set-key (kbd "<f6>") 'spray-mode)
28 In spray-mode buffers, following commands are available.
30 - =spray-start/stop= (SPC) ::
31 pause or resume spraying
33 - =spray-backward-word= (h, <left>) ::
34 pause and back to the last word
36 - =spray-forward-word= (l, <right>) ::
37 inverse of =spray-backward-word=
39 - =spray-faster= (f) ::
42 - =spray-slower= (s) ::
45 - =spray-quit= (q, <return>) ::
51 You may customize spray by modifying following items:
53 - [Variable] spray-wpm
54 - [Variable] spray-height
55 - [Variable] spray-margin-top
56 - [Variable] spray-margin-left
57 - [Variable] spray-ramp
58 - [Keymap] spray-mode-map
59 - [Face] spray-base-face
60 - [Face] spray-accent-face
62 ** If your emacs color theme does not work well with spray
64 You could create a function to toggle the emacs theme to one that
65 works with spray, and then put that in the spray mode hook. For example:
67 #+begin_src emacs-lisp
68 (defun toggle-night ()
70 (if (equal (car custom-enabled-themes) 'naquadah)
71 (override-theme 'leuven)
72 (override-theme 'naquadah)))
73 (add-hook 'spray-mode-hook 'toggle-night)
76 Alternatively, one user found ways to setup a single buffer with better colors, using
77 - http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/BufferBackgroundColor
78 - https://github.com/vic/color-theme-buffer-local
80 He also found this library useful:
81 https://github.com/ShingoFukuyama/ov.el
84 ** Feedback, bugs, etc.
86 Bug tracking is on github.
87 Mailing list for any feedback, questions, etc: https://lists.iankelling.org/listinfo/spray
90 ** Similar emacs package: speedread
92 Available in marmalade or [[https://github.com/vapniks/speedread/blob/master/speedread.el][github]] It has several nice features and does
93 not align on an accent character. Eventually I'd like to merge the two
96 ** Deficiencies in similar projects which spray.el solves:
98 Mostly as of June 28, 2014.
100 For all other projects:
101 - It is very difficult to save your place and come back later. Emacs has
102 lots of built in features like bookmarks or just making a note which
104 - No keybinds. This is especially useful for common, quickly used
105 functionality like pause and back up.
108 - [[https://github.com/jbmartinez/speed-readerff][speed-readerff]] firefox extension.
109 - [[https://github.com/cameron/squirt][squirt]] javascript bookmarklet.
110 - [[https://github.com/Miserlou/OpenSpritz][OpenSpritz]] javascript bookmarklet.
111 - Very difficult selecting where to start / what exactly to read.
112 - Very difficult to figure out where you are within a document.
114 - [[https://github.com/chaimpeck/spray][spray]] website you paste text into.
115 - Very difficult to figure out where you are within a document.
117 - [[https://github.com/xypiie/spread0r][spread0r]] Perl program.
118 - No apparent way to resize text.
119 - Very difficult to figure out where you are within a document.
121 - [[https://github.com/the-happy-hippo/sprits-it][sprits-it]] website or bookmarklet. Looks most promising of the web based projects.
122 - Very difficult selecting where to start / what exactly to read.
123 - Somewhat difficult to figure out where you are in a document.
125 Programs that I, Ian Kelling, didn't try, and why. They also probably have a lot of the problems listed above.
126 - https://github.com/pasky/speedread No simple way to resize text from default of too small.
127 - https://github.com/ds300/jetzt Chrome plugin: Chrome is proprietary, and its open source version is unfriendly to linux distros so they don't package it, and it's readme does not list any benefit to this program over others.
128 - https://github.com/Fr4ncis/openspritz-ios ios program. I don't have an ios device, and this does not appear to have any compelling features.
129 - https://github.com/OnlyInAmerica/OpenSpritz-Android android program. If I knew how to quickly move reading material to my phone, I would try this out. But, it's readme shows that the program is pretty sparse and would have some of the same problems as listed above, so not worth it.
132 Downsides compared to similar projects:
133 - The emacs learning curve.
134 - Would be hard to get running on a phone.
139 *** Main algorithm code location
140 In =./spray.el=, the functions =spray--word-at-point=, =spray--update= and =spray-start= contain the main algorithm of choosing a word, an accent character and an interval to display it. Word splitting is also duplicated the same way as in those functions throughout ./spray.el.
142 *** Algorithm translated from code to english
144 Words are split at space, tab, newline, and emdash characters.
146 Each word is displayed for (60 / the choosen wpm) seconds, except if the
147 word ends with =.!?,;:—= or is greater than 9 characters long, in which
148 case it is displayed for twice as long.
150 When started, an added delay is optionally added, based on the
151 spray-ramp variable. See it's documentation for details.
153 The accent location is chosen as the nth character in a word, depending
154 on its length, based on the following table
155 | length | accent position |
163 ** Contributions are welcome!
165 There's lots of features and enhancements to do. The algorithm and interface could certainly be improved in various ways.