Many years ago when I was a kid, I took typing lessons where they introduced me to a program called Mecawin . With it, I learned how to type, and it became a program I always appreciated not because it was fancy, but because it showed step by step how to work with a keyboard.

Now the circle of life is coming back: my kid will turn 10 this year. So I started searching for a good typing tutor for Linux. I installed and tried all of them, but didn’t like any. I also tried a couple of applications on macOS, some were okish, but they didn’t work properly with Spanish keyboards. At this point, I decided to build something myself. Initially, I  hacked out keypunch, which is a very nice application, but I didn’t like the UI I came up with by modifying it. So in the end, I decided to write my own. Or better yet, let Kiro write an application for me.

Mecalin is meant to be a simple application. The main purpose is teaching people how to type, and the Lessons view is what I’ll be focusing on most during development. Since I don’t have much time these days for new projects. I decided to take this opportunity to use Kiro to do most of the development for me. And to be honest, it did a pretty good job. Sure, there are things that could be better, but I definitely wouldn’t have finished it in this short time otherwise.

So if you are interested, give it a try, go to flathub and install it: https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.nacho.mecalin

In this application, you’ll have several lessons that guide you step by step through the different rows of the keyboard, showing you what to type and how to type it.

This is an example of the lesson view.

You also have games.

The falling keys game: keys fall from top to bottom, and if one reaches the bottom of the window, you lose. This game can clearly be improved, and if anybody wants to enhance it, feel free to send a PR.

The scrolling lanes game: you have 4 rows where text moves from right to left. You need to type the words before they reach the leftmost side of the window, otherwise you lose.

For those who want to support your language, there are two JSON files you’ll need to add:

1. The keyboard layout: https://github.com/nacho/mecalin/tree/main/data/keyboard_layouts
2. The lessons: https://github.com/nacho/mecalin/tree/main/data/lessons

Note that the Spanish lesson is the source of truth; the English one is just a translation done by Kiro.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.