Mecalin

A typing tutor application built with GTK4, Rust, and Adwaita.

Based on Mecawin, a classic typing tutor for Windows.

Installation

Available on Flathub

Building from Source

# Development
cargo run

# Production build
meson setup builddir
meson compile -C builddir
./builddir/mecalin

Dependencies

• GTK4 4.18+
• libadwaita 1.7+
• Rust toolchain
• Meson build system

Architecture

Uses GTK Builder with XML UI templates and GResource embedding for a modern GNOME application structure.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please note:

• This project follows the GNOME Code of Conduct.

Translation

UI Translation

The application uses standard gettext for UI translation. To add a new language:

1. Add the language code to po/LINGUAS
2. Create or update the .po file in the po/ directory
3. Translate the strings using your preferred translation tool

Lesson Content and Keyboard Layout

Important for translators: Apart from translating the UI strings, you also need to create localized content:

1. Lesson Content: Create a new lesson file in data/lessons/[language_code].json based on the existing us.json or es.json files. This includes:

   • Lesson titles and descriptions
   • Step instructions and practice text
   • Introduction messages

2. Keyboard Layout: Create a keyboard layout file in data/keyboard_layouts/[language_code].json that matches your language's keyboard layout. This defines:

   • Key positions and labels
   • Finger mapping for proper touch typing guidance

The application automatically detects the system's active keyboard layout and loads the matching keyboard layout and lesson content. If the layout can't be determined or isn't supported, it falls back to the system locale, and then to US English. Note that there is no separate Galician keyboard layout — Galician uses the Spanish layout, so a Galician user with a Spanish keyboard sees the Spanish on-screen keyboard with Galician lesson text. If your language files don't exist, the US English versions are used.