Fixate v1.69

End of text

Scrub — swipe, lift, swipe again

Speed

250 wpm

Fixate v1.69

1/0

Settings

Appearance

Alignment

Anchor position57%

Font size18 px

Typeface

Style

Text

Background

Word onset

Flash a colour first

Onset colour

Onset time30 ms

Each word appears in the onset colour for a moment, then switches to the text colour. The onset time is carved out of the start of the word's display, so the total time a word is shown doesn't change.

Reading window

Words before focus5

Words after focus5

Words per page270

A page is just a fixed number of words, so the count stays put whatever the speed or window size — 270 is the average of the printed editions in the library. Ctrl+wheel over the text moves a page at a time, PageUp and PageDown do the same from the keyboard, and Ctrl+Shift+wheel steps by paragraph instead.

Dimming

Starting opacity80%

Dim per word out15%

Side word opacity15%

Shows neighbouring words around the focus word, dimmed. Tapered starts the first side word at the starting opacity and dims each further word by the per-word amount. Fixed keeps every side word equal. Set a side to 0 to hide it.

Page view

Text size18 px

Page width80%

Justification

Line spacing1

Paragraph spacing0.8 em

Edge feather

Clear zone35%

Fade ramp100

Feathers the top and bottom edges of the screen so only the middle band is fully readable. It is fixed to the screen, not the text, so it stays centred however far you scroll. Clear zone sets how much of the middle stays untouched; fade ramp sets how sharply it falls off (low = gentle and gradual, high = stays clear then drops away quickly).

Highlight colour

Default

Gaps between highlighted words

Default highlight strength38%

Scroll to tag600 ms

Scroll ease in125 ms

Scroll ease out125 ms

Quick hop within400 px

How long a jump to a tag takes, and how much of that is spent easing in and out. Anything closer than the quick-hop distance finishes proportionally sooner, so nearby tags feel snappy while distant ones still glide.

Transition in350 ms

Transition out300 ms

Tap the Page button at the bottom of the reading area (or press Z) to open page text: your line slides sideways into its place on the page while the rest fades in around it. Tap any word to fly back into inline reading from there; tap the button again to return to where you left off. Paragraphs before/after set how much text is built; distance fade dims words the further they sit from your line or paragraph.

Motion

Words per flash1 word

Word change

Word separation25%

Fusion guide

Guide height38%

Guide strength55%

A tower in one-point perspective, with the street running away to it. Let your eyes relax as if looking past the screen at the tower — the two dots above the words will drift into three, and when the middle one is sharp the side words fuse with the centre. The dots sit directly above the side words and follow the separation slider.

Glide time180 ms

Easing

Glide slides the line so each word arrives at the anchor, rests, then slides on. Glide time is how long each slide takes; the rest of the word's beat is the still dwell. Flash keeps the in-place cross-fade.

Movement

Highlight focus word

Side words

Fade starts at0%

Gone by100%

Scroll direction

Line spacing40%

Anchor height50%

Step holds the focus word still on the anchor for most of its beat, then slides the column up by one line — Glide time (above) is how long that slide takes and Easing shapes it, so a short glide feels like a flick and a long one runs almost continuously. The slide is capped at 60% of a word's beat, so there is always a rest: at 500 wpm a word lasts 120 ms, which caps the slide near 72 ms however high the slider goes. Continuous never stops: the column drifts at a steady rate and the focus word passes the anchor as its beat runs out.

Side words sets how bright the lines around the focus are. Fixed holds them all at that one brightness; Fade out starts them there and dims them towards the edges — Fade starts at is how far from the focus line the dimming begins, and Gone by is where they hit nothing, both measured as a percentage of the gap between the focus line and the top or bottom of the reading area. Past 100% they never quite disappear. Drag the text sideways to move the column.

With the pointer over the text: the wheel scrubs and pauses at once, Shift+wheel moves five words at a time, Ctrl+wheel turns a page (Ctrl+Shift+wheel steps a paragraph), and Alt+wheel pops a definition up beside the pointer, and Alt+click (or D) opens the full entry with every sense and its related words. Middle-click plays or pauses.

Rise is Flow turned upright: one chunk per line, scrolling continuously past a fixed anchor. Up sends finished words off the top (new text rises from the bottom); Down reverses it, with the text you have not read yet waiting above. Line spacing sets the gap between lines, anchor height sets how far down the screen the focus line sits — low anchor leaves more of what is coming in view. Alignment (Text tab) still decides centred or left-anchored, and words per flash puts two or three words on a line.

Side words55%

Edge fade18%

Flow and Rise keep the text moving at a steady pace with no stops — the focus word passes the anchor as its beat runs out, and everything on either side stays readable so you can drift a little ahead or behind at your own pace. Side words sets how bright the neighbours are; Edge fade feathers the ends of the line.

Timing

Word display time260 ms

How long a baseline word is shown. This and the Speed (wpm) slider are linked — moving one updates the other. Longer words add time on top via the length multiplier below.

Voice

Read aloud

Speak

Voice

Rate1.4×

Pitch1.0

Volume100%

Rate follows wpm

When the voice lags

Match reading speed

Measured

voice speed: not measured yet

Uses the voices your device already has, so it costs nothing in file size and works offline. Each word speaks the focus word as it arrives — fine up to roughly 250 wpm, after which the speech falls behind and words get cut off. Sentences speaks a whole sentence when you reach its first word and keeps up much better at speed. Rate follows wpm scales the speaking rate with the reading speed, using the measured speed of your chosen voice once it has spoken a sentence or two. Rates above about 4× are ignored by most engines, so that is the ceiling. When the voice lags decides what happens once the reading outruns the speech. Queue hands each word or sentence to the engine's own queue so they play back to back with no restart — nothing is clipped, the audio just trails the text a little, and once it is more than three behind the extra ones are dropped. Skip waits for the current word or sentence to finish and passes over anything that went by meanwhile, giving whole words separated by gaps. Lockstep restarts the engine on every word, keeping the audio pinned to the display; above roughly 250 wpm that means every word is cut off part-way, which is the clipping you hear. Match reading speed is separate: it eases your wpm towards the voice's measured speed so the two stay together. Voice choice depends on what is installed: on Android that is usually the Google or Samsung engine, on desktop whatever the browser ships.

Speed ramp

Ramp to400 wpm

Over2000 words

Begins from your current speed and position, climbing to the target over the chosen number of words (then holds). Moving the Speed slider yourself stops the ramp.

Word transitions

Apply to

Focus word

Gap-20 ms

Fade in0 ms

Fade out0 ms

Dimmed words

Gap-30 ms

Fade in80 ms

Fade out90 ms

All words still advance together on the same beat — these only change how each fades within that beat. Set the dimmed words to little or no fade so they don't pull focus from the flashing centre word.

Length multiplier

Mode

Base length (letters)3

Added time per extra letter40 ms

Words at or under the base length get the plain display time. Each letter beyond it adds time.

Added time per extra syllable60 ms

One-syllable words get the plain display time. Each syllable beyond the first adds time. (Syllable counts are estimated.)

Fixate

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