For VIM, please show the shortcut in lower and upper case instead of showing everything in uppercase and distinguishing actual upper case with a shift key. It was very confusing.
Also, if my answer is wrong, pleas show me the 'incorrect' key I pressed along with the right answer. I want to know whether I mistyped OR I got the shortcut completely wrong.
There should at least be a demo mode that doesn't worry about persisting history across sessions - just shows the product. If you insist on making an account for everyone, permit something like Facebook Connect so I can control how much data I give you and don't have to think about making yet another account.
I know the email thing is a put off but if it's any consolation, the email isn't (immediately) confirmed, nor is the password. Just use a dummy email (try yopmail), you can probably change it later.
I agree on principal but this tool is cool enough that I think it's worth hopping the gate for.
Sorry to say "me too" but "me too". At least let me play with a few screens before the nagging starts. Shame. Looked like a good idea and I'm always trying to tie my fingers in knots with the next emacs C-S-M-repeat-last-interactive-regexp-update
Why does there need to be a sign in page at all? How does that benefit the user? Shouldn't I be able to come to the page, choose a topic, and start practicing? If I want to save progress, or customize something, then I might want to create an account.
I'm not too impressed by this product's teaching method.
I mentally store keyboard shortcuts as an association between key combinations and behavior I see in my editor. The name for the behavior is secondary.
This product provides you with the name of a behavior and asks you to type the keyboard shortcut that performs it. So it's building associations between keys and names of behaviors, not the behaviors themselves. That's a big difference for me.
I imagine this product's method could work for some learning styles. For me, I prefer to practice and apply keyboard shortcuts in an environment where I can see their results (like the actual editor!)
I agree. Using this tool alone won't make you effective at using the shortcuts.
I think it is a good first step though ,for people like me, who use VIM on a regular basis with a fairly limited vocabulary of shortcuts. To actively learn new shortcuts, I usually need to write them down somewhere next to the computer and then keep referencing them (especially when they are ones I don't use very often so they take a bit longer to memorize). Something like this is great because it will at least drill the shortcut into my head, so that while it won't become habitual to use it (and I'll need to make an effort to make it so) at least I'll be able to mentally reference it when I need it without having to look it up.
Interesting. Landing page looks clean and professional. However hesitant that there is much of a market for this. Do people actually want to learn shortcuts like this? Most learn directly in the application and/or refer to a cheat sheet reference?
As a Visual Studio developer, what I'd really like is a plugin that can reveal shortcuts as I use the app in a usual way. So pop up a message if it sees I've done something through the menus: 'hey, you've just pasted in some text: use CTRL+V'
Office is a good start, but to be really useful it needs to have more modes. Maybe you should have a simple shortcut editor that anybody can use to produce schemes which can then be uploaded to some common repository.
Please keep doing this, and explore what else besides keyboard shortcuts can be learned best with the "drill method". I plan on giving you real positive feedback by voting with my dollar as soon as I get some work done today, but I suspect that for some people (I am one of those people) that the "drill method" is an excellent way to learn new things. I am a person who learns by doing, and as such repetition is the key to me becoming an expert with a new language, framework, IDE, etc. Talk about "making wealth" a la PG, this makes a lot of wealth for me, and I suspect there are more like me.
Using Chrome on the mac, the "New Project" shortcut open a private browsing window. I believe the browser shortcut issues are being addressed already though.
Overall I like the idea a lot, I've just began learning how to use VIM and this app seems a nice way to learn, but as has already been mentioned it seems more like a practise tool rather than actual teaching. The only way to learn the answer is by getting it wrong the first time. I think there needs to be more focus on the "shortcuts" tab, or at least integrate together with the main app.
Learning shortcuts is very effective with Spaced Repetition Software like Anki or Mnemosyne. I learnt many useful vim commands that are still burned into my skull years later. For an example deck: https://github.com/amikula/vim_flashcards
The UI here is responsive and bouncy, but splitting it into several decks rather than spacing one deck is suboptimal.
Great idea. The platform is awesome. Great idea and amazing design/execution so far.
I wasn't aware that I could create my own quizzes/training until I clicked on the upgrade link... Perhaps you can make that more clear to your visitors.
I agree with the idea others have mentioned here that not requiring an email/password initially would be a bit better, but it was so fast to get started I didn't mind too much. Congrats.
Tried it out for a bit. It's a little confusing and not a great way to learn shortcuts IMO. The first time I tried it I had no idea what was going on and got every one wrong despite knowing the shortcuts. These results were then saved and I'm not sure how to delete them after I figured out how it worked. Interface looks nice though and you obviously spent a lot of time on this.
It would be better if maybe there was some ipsum lorem text that was updated based on the key compos. the text was acting on. That way if you get a drill item wrong, you get some more positive feedback wrt the key-combo, and if you get it wrong, you get some additional feedback wrt what that wrong combo does.
I just used it a bit, and didn't really enjoy it too much. It's more of a way to test whether or not you know them, rather than teach you the shortcuts. I'm in the process of trying to learn more shortcuts, so I thought this would've been helpful, but there's a lot more refinement needed.
A nitpick: I had never used C-X U for undo in Emacs before. I use C-/ and when I Googled it I found C-_. Not sure which one (if any) is canonical, but it'd be great if it allowed all versions.
You might try MouseFeed, it's a funny plugin which actually disables mouse commands once you've learned the keyboard shortcut: http://www.mousefeed.com/
(Horrible website though, and I haven't tried it with a current Eclipse version.)
For VIM, please show the shortcut in lower and upper case instead of showing everything in uppercase and distinguishing actual upper case with a shift key. It was very confusing.
Also, if my answer is wrong, pleas show me the 'incorrect' key I pressed along with the right answer. I want to know whether I mistyped OR I got the shortcut completely wrong.