Hello everyone,

I was curious as to whether there was a list of all the stroke simplifications used on Skritter. I've encountered a few of them purely by accident and others by experimentation, but a list would be great. Even though the strokes aren't always "correct" in the most traditional sense, sometimes I'm blazing through characters and don't want to be bogged down by extra clicks of characters like 躁 and 辶 (which seems to be accomplishable in two strokes: a dot and what I can only describe as a loopy "2").

My search didn't yield anything on the subject but I'm sorry if there's something I missed.

The characters/shapes I know/can think of:
口
纟
辶
the roof of 斤
the partial 口 of 所 (also contains the above shortcut twice)

了 stands out as a notable one, then again, many people write it as a single stroke in the first place, so you might have skipped it over for that reason.

之

Is another.

I've found when I write 家, I can do the main downward curved-then-hook stroke with a straight vertical downward movement.

顶 the 楼主! I want such a list!

Took me forever to find my old post on this, too.

口, 廴, 阝, 之, and 纟 in two strokes instead of three, 及 in three instead of four, 辶 in two or three instead of four (which we actually don't support at all, oops), combining the first two strokes in 斤- and 卯-style components, 了 in one instead of two, and 女 radicals (when on the side) in two instead of three.

Awesome! I did not know about the shortcuts for 口 and 纟. 纟has always been annoying since the recognizer never picks up second stroke of 3 stroke form when written quickly. I always had to write first stroke and stop and wait one or two seconds before writing the next stroke. This seems to be only place Skritter consistently hangs up on performance wise.

My most requested stroke shortcut would be for last two strokes in 衣. Probably not an official method, but under speed conditions, I keep writing is like an alpha.

When is the Skritter for cursive Chinese coming out? :-)

Thanks for this compilation. Several of them are new to me even though I've been Skrittering for about a year now. Very useful!

Sorry--support for cursive writing is coming right after support for writing hiragana. Which is to say, it's never going to happen. (Scott.)

I'm really not looking forward to adding any more stroke shortcuts, as it's a big pain to shift everything around. I would only do another batch if there were many in demand, and I've only heard requests for a sideways-S-like shortcut for 冖 and now this alpha for the last two in 衣 (which I'll admit I do tend to join up now).

Seems to me that the real "shortcuts" are just learning the characters well, and thereby moving along lots more quickly. Sorry for the boring idea, but it has worked for me. I'm surprised how rapidly I can execute even complex characters which once seemed full of pitfalls.

Productive shortcuts are defined by how much they speed up the writing/recognition process. In the past few days, I've started to cruise through the 口 and 纟characters which have always caused me recognition difficulties in the past even when each component was properly traced out.

By that definition, joining the last two strokes in 衣 is not a great candidate. Although it happens when writing for real, it's never given me recognition problems except when I'm too lazy to lift my pen. So if shortcuts are great PITAs, please consider my suggestion withdrawn.

I think the existing shortcuts might merit a FAQ entry though?

Yeah, I'll get those into the FAQ; good idea.

I wish there was a diagram to show the shortcuts, as apart from 纟, I don't get it (and wish I did).