In the next article we are going to take a look at Wpm. This is a utility for the command line that will help us to test and improve our typing speed. Using this tool we will be able to verify and measure our writing speed from the terminal in words per minute. It is quite possible that many already have GUI-based utilities for the same purpose installed on their system, but the lightness of this one I think gives it an extra point.
To calculate the words per minute, the characters per second are divided by five and then multiplied by 60. This is a formula known and used by many, but it gives slightly higher scores than if we measure our speed on sites What typeracer.com. Despite this, the tool is good enough to measure our writing speed reliably. What's more we will be able to use it offline and with our own texts.
This comment is not intended to belittle TypeRacer, which I love. But it's nice to have a little terminal program to be able to practice as long as we have a little time to spare (for example, while compiling code).
General characteristics of Wpm
- It works with Python 2.7, 3.x and it only requires standard Python libraries for proper operation.
- Application puts at our disposal more than 3700 appointments in the database to work with them. I have to say that so far all the ones I have found by default are in English. To practice any text is worth.
- El chronometer it starts when you press the first key.
- El text you type correctly will be darkened, so it will be easier to write the following text. In case of make a mistake, the text will turn red and we will have to go back to correct the errors and thus be able to continue moving forward.
- Will allow us save separate statistics for eg keyboard type, layout, etc.
- This tool will save scores to CSV file in ~ / .wpm.csv. This file can be loaded directly into Excel. It uses the same format as TypeRacer, although some additional columns are added at the end.
- Unlike other memory-intensive GUI utilities, this one has a low consumption.
- Wpm is free and open source. You can check its code in the GitHub page of the project.
Install Wpm on Ubuntu 17.10
Wpm can be installed using pip. If you haven't installed pip yet, you can install it in Ubuntu in a simple way as described below. We open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and write in it:
sudo apt-get install python-pip
Once the installation is finished, we can proceed to the installation using pip. We just have to write in the same terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) the following command:
sudo pip install wpm
Now we can measure our writing speed from the terminal. To start Wpm, we will have to launch it by typing in the terminal:
wpm
If someone can't find wpm, we can try running the following command (as stated on their GitHub page) to start it:
python -m wpm
Once we have launched it, you will see some quotes, so we can start practicing typing these quotes in the terminal. You will be able to use the arrow keys or the space bar to navigate through the appointments. The timer will start when you press the first key. If we press the ESC key, you can leave at any time.
If we don't want to practice with the texts you provide us, we can use our own text as below:
wpm --load tu-archivo-de-texto.txt
To be able to consult all the options of the program, we can resort to the help section of wpm.
wpm --help
Uninstall Wpm
To eliminate this program from our operating system, we will only have to open a terminal and in it write:
sudo pip uninstall wpm
And that's all. Hope this little program helps everyone who wants to improve their typing speed from command line. This is a good option that is interesting to try.