Double-tap for Hands-free, and every key in one place

LotusQ 2.14.0 is about your keys. You can double-tap to dictate without holding anything, every key now sits in one Shortcuts window, and on a Mac or Windows you can move the HUD to another edge of your screen. The keys you use today stay as they are.

Double-tap for Hands-free

Holding your dictation key works as before: hold, speak, let go, and your words are pasted where you were typing. That's Push-to-talk.

Now you can also double-tap the key and talk without holding it. That's Hands-free. Tap the key again, or press ■ on the HUD, and your text is pasted. A double tap of your Compose or Translate key works the same way. If you'd rather start Hands-free with one press, set a Hands-free shortcut in Settings › General › Shortcuts.

A quick tap, shorter than half a second, no longer dictates. It pastes nothing, so a brushed key won't send anything. The first time, and every third time after, the HUD shows a hint: hold to dictate, or double-tap for Hands-free.

Esc cancels, and Undo brings it back

Press Esc while you hold your key or during Hands-free, and nothing is pasted. The HUD shows "Recording cancelled" with Undo. For 30 seconds, Undo sends that dictation to be transcribed after all. LotusQ keeps a cancelled dictation in memory for those 30 seconds and never saves it to disk.

Every key in one place

Settings › General now shows your shortcuts, input device and language as short summaries, each with a Change button. Shortcuts opens one window with every key: Dictation, Hands-free, Pause, Cancel, Compose and Translate.

To start over, choose Reset to default. It shows each key's old and new value before anything changes, and it also sets dictation back to Push-to-talk.

On a Mac with 🌐 as your dictation key, Shortcuts warns you if macOS would also act on 🌐, and tells you how to stop it.

Move the HUD (Mac and Windows)

The HUD can now rest at the top centre, the left edge, the right edge or the bottom centre of your screen. Drag the Pill to a spot, or choose one in Settings › Appearance › HUD position. At a side edge the Pill stands upright and its cards open beside it. On Linux the HUD stays at the bottom centre.

Auto-send has its new name

The way of dictating where LotusQ listens and pastes each time you pause is now called Auto-send. It works as before, and its pause key (F8 unless you changed it) still pauses it. Hands-free now means the double-tap.

New keys for new installs

A new install on a Mac or Windows starts with these keys:

• Windows: Ctrl + Win to dictate, Ctrl + Win + Alt for Compose, Ctrl + Win + Shift for Translate.
• Mac with a 🌐 key: Globe (fn) to dictate, Fn + Ctrl for Compose, Fn + Shift for Translate.
• Other Macs: Ctrl + Option to dictate, Cmd + Ctrl + Option for Compose, Ctrl + Option + Shift for Translate.

Linux keeps F1 to dictate and F6 for Compose.

Already using LotusQ? Your keys stay. Home shows a card once that offers the new keys. Switch to Wispr-style keys lists the keys that would change and asks you to confirm, and it changes only your keys. Until you close the card, Undo puts your old keys back. On Linux the card has no Switch.

Coming from Wispr Flow?

Your habits work on day one. On a Mac or Windows, a new install uses the same dictation key, held to talk or double-tapped for Hands-free, and dictation and Compose sit where Wispr Flow puts its Push to talk and Command Mode. See what's different.

Wispr Flow is a trademark of its owner. LotusQ is not affiliated with it.

Also in 2.14.0

• One recording can run for up to 20 minutes. At 19:00 the HUD says "1 minute left", and at 20:00 the recording stops and its text is pasted as if you had ended it yourself. Auto-send isn't affected.
• A word you delete on one computer no longer comes back from another computer's older copy. If another computer overrules a change you made, the Dictionary page offers Redo, Delete anyway or Dismiss.
• Fixes for Compose on Windows and for saving snippets.

Getting 2.14.0

If you're on 2.13.1, LotusQ updates itself. Your settings, dictionary, snippets and History carry over, and so do your keys. On a Mac, macOS may ask you once more to allow Input Monitoring for LotusQ.

New to LotusQ? Download it for Mac (Apple Silicon), Windows 10 and 11, or Linux, and try it for 7 days.