Ubiquity gets better parser, some commands yet to be upgraded

Mozilla's Ubiquity dazzlingly cool preview release promises to make commands a great deal easier to remember and use by removing those annoying hyphens. With a totally updated parser -- unimaginatively referred to as "Parser 2" Ubiquity also promises support for a ton of new languages.

"[The old parser] was based on a lot of assumptions about English that are not necessarily true in other languages", explains the preview release announcement. Spaces between words, or noun-verb ordering are more flexible under the new parser, opening Ubiquity to a non-English speaking audience and getting rid of those picky little hyphens for Anglophones.

Unfortunately, that also means a great many commands you might be used to are currently incompatible. The new version greeted me with a warning, notifying me that some commands -- known in Ubiquity parlance as "verbs" -- didn't load because of incompatibility with Parser 2. A quick look shows old verbs like "flip-page" and "desaturate-image" are in need of an upgrade.

Still, for fans of Ubiquity's slick hands-never-leave-the-keyboard workflow, this is an upgrade that's been a long time coming.

Tags: firefox-addons, mozilla, natural language, NaturalLanguage, productivity tools, ProductivityTools, ubiquity