Typing Speed Test Details

Overview

The Typing Speed Test is an interactive application designed to measure typing speed and accuracy. Built using Python with the Tkinter GUI toolkit, it integrates with OpenAI’s API to dynamically generate test sentences. The system calculates Words per Minute (WPM), Accuracy, and Characters per Second (CPS) in real-time, providing users with an accurate benchmark of their typing abilities.

System Architecture

      User Interface (UI): Tkinter windows, input fields, labels, and results popup.
Text Generation: Calls OpenAI API to fetch a fresh test sentence on demand.
Timer Subsystem: Countdown logic using threads to avoid blocking UI updates.
Real-Time Analytics: WPM, Accuracy, and CPS calculators running on background threads.
Auto-Save Engine: Periodically saves input state to a file to prevent data loss.
Results Handler: Consolidates performance metrics and displays them in a summary popup.

    

Key Features

      ⚡ Sentence Generation: Calls generate_sentence() to fetch unpredictable content using OpenAI.
⌨️ Dynamic Input Tracking: Text area compares user input against reference sentence character by character.
⏳ Timer Management: Background thread counts down, updating UI every second without freezing input.
📊 Real-Time Calculations: WPM = (typed words / elapsed time) × 60; Accuracy via fuzzy matching.
💾 Resilient Auto-Save: Input is saved every 5s into a plain text file to safeguard progress.
🖥️ Result Display: End-of-test popup summarizes WPM, Accuracy, CPS, and total elapsed time.

    

Core Algorithms

      WPM Calculation: Counts words typed (split by spaces), normalizes by elapsed seconds, and scales to 1 minute.
Accuracy Calculation: Uses FuzzyWuzzy ratio to compare input string with target string.
Timer: Runs on a daemon thread using time.sleep(1) increments to tick down remaining seconds.
Auto-Save: Implements threading.Timer to trigger periodic writes to progress.txt.

    

Code Modules

      TypingTestApp → Main class that initializes and runs the GUI.
generate_sentence() → Calls OpenAI API for random sentence generation.
start_test() → Resets state, starts timer and analytics threads.
update_timer() → Updates countdown and handles timeout logic.
update_wpm() → Monitors live typing speed.
update_accuracy() → Calculates similarity score between user input and target text.
auto_save_progress() → Persists input every 5 seconds.
finish_test() → Consolidates results and opens summary popup.

    

User Flow

1. User clicks "Start Test".
2. OpenAI generates a sentence → displayed on screen.
3. Timer starts counting down in a non-blocking thread.
4. User types → real-time WPM and accuracy update.
5. Auto-save captures progress every 5 seconds.
6. Time expires → input is locked, results summary shown.

Example Screenshot

Future Improvements

🌐 Online leaderboard integration (store results in a database).
🎮 Game mode with levels of increasing difficulty.
🎨 Custom themes and color schemes.
🔊 Audio feedback (key click sounds, countdown alerts).