Nstroke categories

Subcategories

These subcategories are ways to further distinguish the major categories in the next sections.

inward, outward
This is based on the fingers used for a series of keys. Inward means a finger closer to the pinky is used earlier, and a finger closer to the thumb is used later. Outward means the opposite.

skipgram/skipstroke
This refers to the bigram/bistroke formed by the first and third keys in a trigram/tristroke.

scissor
This is when neighboring fingers are used to strike keys that are a distance of at least 2 apart on the board (Euclidean distance). Nstrokes with scissors tend to be slower and less comfortable than non-scissors.

• Thumbs are a special case, since they're fine being widely spaced from the index fingers, so trialyzer does not classify it as a scissor if one of the fingers involved is a thumb.
• In tristrokes, scissors may occur between the first and second keypresses, or between the second and third. If both occur, the tristroke is categorized as scissor.twice. A scissor may also occur in the skipstroke, as with b and e in qwerty's ble, in which case the tristroke is categorized as scissor_skip. Finally, there is scissor_and_skip, which indicates that both a regular scissor and a scissor_skip are present (which only happens in certain redirects).

Bistroke categories

alt
A bistroke using both hands.

roll
A bistroke using one hand.

sfr (same finger repeat)
A bistroke where the same finger is used twice to strike the same key.

sfb (same finger bigram)
A bistroke where the same finger is used twice to strike different keys.

Tristroke categories

alt (or alternation)
A tristroke where you switch hands twice. Another way to think about it is that the first and third keys are struck with one hand, while the second key is struck with the other hand. Must not use the same finger more than once.

• Note that other analyzers sometimes include sfs.alt in their alternation count. Trialyzer does not, because those are generally much slower than regular alternation and it is more useful to group them separately. However, this means trialyzer often reports a lower amount of alternation than other analyzers.

roll
A tristroke where you switch hands once. Another way to think about it is that the first and third keys are struck with different hands. Must not use the same finger more than once.

onehand
A tristroke typed entirely with the same hand, and which is entirely inward or entirely outward. Must not use the same finger more than once.

redirect
A tristroke typed entirely with the same hand, and which is a mix of inward and outward. Must not use the same finger more than once.

• Note that other analyzers sometimes include sfs.trill and sfs.redirect in their redirect count. Trialyzer does not, because those are generally much slower than regular redirects and it is more useful to group them separately. However, this means trialyzer often reports a lower amount of redirects than other analyzers.

sft (same finger trigram)
A tristroke that uses the same finger for all three keys.

sfr (same finger repeat)
A tristroke that uses the same finger twice in a row to strike the same key. Must not be an sft.

• Subcategories of sfr are based on what happens with the remaining key - if there is a hand change, it is sfr.alt; if not, it is sfr.roll.

sfb (same finger bigram)
A tristroke that uses the same finger twice in a row to strike different keys. Must not be an sft.

• Note that this is not the same as the bigram sfb stat, which is the more popular usage of the term "sfb".
• Subcategories of sfb are based on what happens with the remaining key - if there is a hand change, it is sfb.alt; if not, it is sfb.roll.

sfs (same finger skipgram)
A tristroke that uses the same finger for the first and third keys. Must not be an sft.

• Subcategories of sfs are based on what happens with the middle key - if it is on the other hand, the subcategory is sfs.alt; if it is on the same hand, the tristroke is sfs.trill if the first and third key are the same, and sfs.redirect if not.