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Friday, November 30, 2007

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Innovations in Tablet PC Software

- Rob Bushway

Yesterday, I wrote a 5 year anniversary piece on the state of Tablet PC software. What I, and many others for that matter, would like to know is: how would you like to see the state of software improved.

Here are some idea starters:

Andrew, from the U.K., left a comment regarding MindJet's MindManager. While the product has kept Tablet PC features as core functionality, they have only given a few minor improvements over the years. Several years ago, they added the ability ink notes for a given topic. One of my big pet peeves, however, is the missing ability to search those inked notes despite numerous requests from me to do so. It never makes it up the priority list. Andrew has other comments on how the Tablet PC features could be improved upon in MindManager.
Custom navigation schemes tailored to a Tablet PC.
Intelligent syncing
Inking support in Google Gmail, Calendar, etc.
Inking on the web: what ideas do you have there that make logical sense?
What about scenarios for the end to end experience of living mobile?
What about built-in TIP support in FireFox and Opera for goodness sakes. Why, after five years, do new Tablet PC users have to hunt down an add-in for something Internet Explorer supports natively. I know the reasons behind it, but surely Microsoft could add in the FireFox and Opera address line bar as field types to recognize.
Along those lines, when can we get Adobe off their behind and support native ink? Head over there to send your feature request in to Adobe.
What about Vista OS improvements? Where can Microsoft improvement the experience for us mobile users and those who love to use pen?

Those are just some ideas to get everyone started. I've got many, many more, but want to see what the Tablet PC community comes up with first before posting all of mine.

Software | Tablet PC

11/30/2007 7:31 AM MST

Innovations in Tablet PC Software Comments [10] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Friday, November 30, 2007 8:39:50 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

As far as Firefox TIP goes, it's not Microsoft's problem. They shouldn't hack the TIP just to make it work with crappy cross-platform code that doesn't give a crap about handicapped people. But anyway, the Firefox problem is being addressed for version 3.0 as I found when I researched the issue for someone in the newsgroup. They are revamping it to implement accessibility everywhere so that it works better with screen readers, which of course nets it the TIP support as well.

Josh Einstein

Friday, November 30, 2007 8:42:50 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

That is great news, Josh!

Rob

Friday, November 30, 2007 10:33:58 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I've made several requests for ink support to a senior person at Adobe. I didn't see any signs of movement and got a copy of PDF Annotator instead.

There already is a lot of Web software that already works well with a Tablet. We should celebrate this as a great feature of tablets from a mobility standpoint.

Mickey Segal

Friday, November 30, 2007 11:31:02 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Vista should incorporate true left-handed support... OneNote does a good job of this.

Floating keys for those of us in slate mode. Especially if I could have different keys float depending the app which has focus... so I'm not opening the TIP just to push the CTRL key so I can do multi-select, or press a frequently used hotkey. Inkable Keys by OrangeGuava was a good start, albeit a bit crude.

Add an expanding ink panel into the standard Windows controls, so apps don't have to be "ink aware" to really be ink friendly. I'm imagining an experience like MindManager when you edit a topic's title in ink mode.

Grab and drag support everywhere there's a scroll bar.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head.

Kenneth LeFebvre

Friday, November 30, 2007 11:33:43 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

oh... and, if you haven't tried it, Mickey, check out Bluebeam PDF Revu. It's what I expected PDF Annotator to be! (I paid for both.)

Kenneth LeFebvre

Friday, November 30, 2007 12:07:45 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

All I needed to do with PDFs is ink up documents sent to me. PDF Annotator works fine for that, but it is not surprising that the higher priced Bluebeam PDF Revu would have additional features needed by others.

Mickey Segal

Friday, November 30, 2007 12:12:24 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Kenneth mentions left-handed support. I've been told (by mostly people who don't have a clue about windows programming) that moving the scroll bar to the left would break lots of applications. Personally I think this is BS because I know that the Windows API makes lots of adjustments to various coordinates and points in certain situations, not to mention scroll bars tend to be non-client areas on the various controls that support them. For example, in IE you can turn on left to right reading which does move the scroll bar to the left and everything works fine. The only problem is now the whole web page is displayed backwards. Why can't they just move the scroll bar and not reverse the web page? Sure, it might be inconsistent if not *all* scroll bars were on the left, but tell me one feature that isn't inconsistently implemented (such as the TIP issue mentioned). I don't know why they can't make Windows be more lefty-friendly.

Josh Einstein

Friday, November 30, 2007 3:00:23 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I like the way that Gecko Tip puts a scroll bar on both sides of the window. One for everybody! They aren't very big, and don't take up much room.

I second the grab and drag everywhere idea and the idea of a pen friendly alternative to keys like control, alt and shift.

As a leftie, I feel less bothered on a touch enabled screen. With the pen in the left hand, I can still use my right fingernail if that's more convenient. (We learn to be semi-ambidextrous in a right handed world.) So I want better passive inking and/or universal touch/active screens.

Just some thoughts.

Sharon

Friday, November 30, 2007 3:28:47 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

The tablet pc input panel doesn't work at all for Adobe FrameMaker. Handwritten text just vanishes into the bit bucket when you tap on insert. The virtual keyboard works though. Strange. I guess in handwriting mode, it does something more than simulating someone typing at the keyboard. Anyone know a hidden registery setting or something I'm missing that can make this work for incompatible programs like this?

Jeff Jackson

Saturday, December 01, 2007 3:55:10 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Thank you for linking to my comments on Tablet PCs.

Reinforcing some of the things people have said above:

No one is going to take my Tablet PC away from me. Once I leave the office its way, way better than a notebook PC or a PDA. A4 , Letter and Legal have become de facto sizes over centuries. Portable computers should learn from that. Yes there is lot to celebrate.

It would be great if applications like Firefox (it is my preferred browser. IE7 gives up after 10 tabs) had out of the box support for Tablet PCs. Does Gecko Tip work with Vista?

I think I may have said this in one of the linked comments, print to Journal Note Writer, annotate, Print to your PDF printer, email to who ever never the PDF form filled in. No need for other applications.

Happy inking
Andrew

Andrew Wilcox

Comments are closed.