Chording means pushing several keys or buttons simultaneously to achieve a result.

Musical keyboards

In music, more than one key are pressed at a time to achieve more complex sounds, or

chords Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...

Computer keyboards

Chording, with a

chorded keyboard A keyset or chorded keyboard (also called a chorded keyset, ''chord keyboard'' or ''chording keyboard'') is a computer input device that allows the user to enter characters or commands formed by pressing several keys together, like playing a " c ...

keyer A keyer is a device for signaling by hand, by way of pressing one or more switches. Modern keyers typically have a large number of switches but not as many as a full-size keyboard; typically between four and fifty. A keyer differs from a keyboar ...

allows one to produce as many characters as a

QWERTY keyboard QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden t ...

but with fewer keys and less motion per finger.

Pointers

Mouse chording Mouse chording is the capability of performing actions when multiple mouse buttons are held down, much like a chorded keyboard and similar to mouse gestures. One common application of mouse chording, called ''rocker navigation'', is found in Ope ...

allows a user to use a two-button mouse,

trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the o ...

, or

touchpad A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...

as if it where a three-button device. For example, in the

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...

graphical user interface (known as

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

), the middle button is used to paste text. Since Microsoft-type mice traditionally only had two buttons, users of Unix-type systems such as Linux and BSD ''chord'' the right and left buttons to paste text.

Multitouch chording

TipTapSpeech an application for the iPhone and iPad is a chord-based text entry solution for touch screen computing. A GKOS chording keyboard application development for iPhone was started on the GKOS Google Group on May 25, 2009. The application for iPhone became available on May 8, 2010, and a similar application for Android on October 3, 2010. Thumbs are used to press the keys that are located towards the sides of the screen, either a single key or two keys simultaneously. - The further development of GKOS has led to the ComboKey keyboard that works better on smartphones
ComboKey
also allows one-hand typing with the hand holding the device, generating combinations by occasional swipes to other keys. Douglas Engelbart, Cherif Algreatly, Valerie Landau, Robert Stephenson, Evan Schaffer, and Eric Matsuno filed a patent in 2010 for a chorded solution for multitouch screens.

Minesweeper tactic

In ''

Minesweeper A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...

'', chording may refer to a tactic which is traditionally done by left-clicking and right-clicking at the same time on an uncovered square to uncover all eight adjacent squares if it has the correct number of flags.{{cite web , title=Minesweeper Strategy , url=https://minesweepergame.com/strategy.php#how_to_play , website=Authoritative Minesweeper , access-date=25 March 2022 In many newer versions of ''Minesweeper'', chording can also be done by middle-clicking or by simply left-clicking.

Musical keyboards

Computer keyboards

Pointers

Multitouch chording

Minesweeper tactic

References

See also