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User's guide Sticky

A topic by kemze created Feb 16, 2022 Views: 125 Replies: 1
Viewing posts 1 to 2
(6 edits)

Introduction

So you've added the book to your avatar and you want to know how to use it without getting people confused! Here's a quick start guide.

The point of the book is for you to, well, talk by pointing at the words themselves to form a sentence. There is a good amount of general purpose words, verbs and adjectives for you to describe common topics - but note that the book is not a 1:1 replacement of the spoken language - it's more of a "shortcut" way of speaking. Many of the words in the book are abstract and can have multiple meanings. So, to really speed up your book talking, practice and learn the contents of each page by using, but also learn to form simpler sentences in your head before pointing.

Basically, don't translate normal speech to book words 1:1 - try to simplify the sentences in your head first before pointing.

Anyways, to bring the book up, first go in to the gesture menu and toggle "Enable book". This attached the book on your hip. To bring the book up, use left fist and right point - as if you're holding the book with your left hand and pointing at a word with the right. The book stays on your left hand until you completely let go and you don't have the Pages menu opened.

Point at the start of the word you want to say. Don't "tap" it, don't "smear" your finger - just calmly point at the first letter. Having a colored fingernail can help legibility. If you need to think about which word to pick next, avoid resting your finger on the page - keep it hovered, or better yet, just point elsewhere (such as the sky) until you know what to point.

There still will be some moments where communication will fail and people will get confused. You will probably also want to speak about new ideas, names and concepts that isn't in the book or maybe just spell something out. For this, a keyboard is supplied on page one. If the book is added to left/right hand, just tilt the hand upwards to clearly show it in full view. To use the keyboard properly, make sure you spell out each word and separate them with space, and don't rush.

(2 edits)

Advanced

The words in the book are arranged in a way to minimize confusion when pointing at them, allowing for dense pages without compromising on legibility. However, when you point at words or letters, you should try to keep your finger still for about half a second. Don't rush - the person you're talking to may have bad internet or high ping, which leads to missed words and forces you to repoint the sentence. It's more preferable to be slow at first until you learn the proper speed.

At the top of the page, there are handy words to manage your sentence. "cancel" and "repeat" can be used as "nevermind", "say again?", "i'll start over" while "general" and "specific" can be used to speak about a topic in a more general sense, like "I mean in general" or about a specific instance, like "that specific thought". "not" can be used to invert any word or verb if it's not available.

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Pronouns are not included. It is assumed that you will point at the thing or person to talk about them. Saying "I love you" could be pointing "(point at me) LOVE (point at you)". If pointing is too specific and confuses people, try hovering the hand over the thing and do circular motions, this usually conveys "this thing".

More abstract conversation subjects, such as a hypothetical scenarios or objects, is a bit more difficult to refer to, but as long as you directly reply to the thing being talked about it should be fine. Otherwise, there are words to help describe: "place"/"thing"/"time", "this"/"there", "here"/"there", etc.

Possessives aren't included either, but they can be conveyed by reordering the sentence. Instead of pointing "(me) LOVE (you) CAT" (I love you cat?) try pointing "(you) CAT (me) LOVE" (You cat I love = your cat i love).