Handwriting Recognition - Tailoring

[CTSLICK]

:soapbox:

This rant brought to you by my COMPLETE inability to get Transcriber to recognize "I" versus "1"!!!!

Why is it that there is no app available that will allow me to completely tailor my handwriting recognition. From my Palm OS days, I used TealScript which would allow me to customize the Grafitti recognition for existing letters or create a whole new one if I wanted to. Basically, TealScript would allow me to select a letter, write it the way I wanted to
write it 3 times and then it would save that as the new recogition. It also kept handwriting recognition stats like number of errors, %recognized etc. I noticed a big increase in % recognized after I started using it.

So once again...WHY can't I get something like this for my PocketPC.

[demy]

I think it depends on your PDA sir. Ive owned almpost all the brands including palm and ppocket pc. as at now,, the pocket pc i recommend is the ipaq 2215/0. thats wot i use now. and it sure is a good boy. im definitely on the top 5 of worst hand writing in the worlb but that gadget sure respects my writing. :mrgreen:

[dh]

I always had the same problem with Transcriber and Caligrapher. Probably 95% of the time it was OK, but that last 5% drove me mad.

There are some basic ideas that should have been included in these products. Things like it's reasonable to assume that a sentence starts with a Capital and that there is not normally a number in the middle of a word. (Apart from pa1mOne of course - Transcriber would be perfect for this word :D, maybe the company naming guy over at Palm uses a PPC )

The worst problem for me was the curser moving from where I was writing to somewhere in the body of the text. I'd be writing along happily in the wrong bloody place.

I solved the problem by installing the driver for my Pocketop keyboard. This effectivly disables Transcriber so I don't get tempted to try it any more. Good job I had already given up with Transigrapher :D or I might have gotten upset.

[CTSLICK]

I think it depends on your PDA sir. Ive owned almpost all the brands including palm and ppocket pc. as at now,, the pocket pc i recommend is the ipaq 2215/0. thats wot i use now. and it sure is a good boy. im definitely on the top 5 of worst hand writing in the worlb but that gadget sure respects my writing. :mrgreen:

I tend to disagree that its device dependant in that (a) I had the same problem on my last PDA (an EM-500) and (b) I have tried most of the newer iPaq's and haven't noted any improvement. I suppose you could blame me as the common element in this problem. But I have paid very close attention to trying to write bigger and make my strokes in the same direction as shown in Transcriber...its just not getting better for me.

But to my point...your comments demonstrate the need. Some folks with poor handwriting do great with Transcriber, others with neat handwriting (like my wife) have terrible luck. Almost everyone has trouble with at least one or two characters. So why not give users a way to tailor specific letters to their way of writing?

[CTSLICK]

I always had the same problem with Transcriber and Caligrapher. Probably 95% of the time it was OK, but that last 5% drove me mad.

Thats me too!

I gave up and moved to Fitaly recently for my on screen entry and a Targus IR Keyboard when I have a lot to input.

And lets not put too fine point on this...I was willing to cough up the money for Fitaly but I would have gladly spent that on an app that lets me tailor/improve my handwriting recognition with Transcriber or Calligrapher. I would prefer to not give up any screen real estate to an SIP input panel.

[dh]

I always had the same problem with Transcriber and Caligrapher. Probably 95% of the time it was OK, but that last 5% drove me mad.

Thats me too!

I gave up and moved to Fitaly recently for my on screen entry and a Targus IR Keyboard when I have a lot to input.

And lets not put too fine point on this...I was willing to cough up the money for Fitaly but I would have gladly spent that on an app that lets me tailor/improve my handwriting recognition with Transcriber or Calligrapher. I would prefer to not give up any screen real estate to an SIP input panel.

I bought Fitaly as well. Just like you, I would be happy to pay for a good handwriting recognition program. I've installed the trial of Caligrapher at least three different times, but I've never been happy enough to purchase, although I really wanted to like it.

While there are obviously some nice features included over and above Transcriber, I have exactly the same results with the key feature, the actual recognition.

So currently I use Fitaly most of the time, the Pocketop keyboard for lots of input and usually Block Recognizer for quick notes in meetings. Sometimes as well I just use the notes feature in PI so I can scribble on the screen.

[Dave Beauvais]

I just whipped up a little "Tweak Guide" for Transcriber. It shows what you can do to help it recognize your handwriting a little better. It still won't let you totally define you own characters, but it will dramatically improve handwriting recognition. You can read it here (http://www.beauvais1.com/ppc/transcriber/).

--Dave

[dh]

Thanks Dave, those are very good tips. I had actually carried out pretty much of of the things you suggest.

My two biggest problems were differentiating between capitals and lower case - even if I made the caps as big as the screen and lower case tiny it still got it wrong, and the curser moving around.

The curser problem always happened if I was "writing" on a part of the screen already containing text. Transigrapher would keep moving the curser to where I touched the screen and there I am inserting text in the wrong place. I'm sure this was mainly due to operator error, maybe I was touching the screen either too hard or too wimpy when starting a word.

[CTSLICK]

Thanks for the link and the info Dave. I have have tried numerous training tweaks but I have never conquered a few recognition problems. I was experimenting last night and here are some of my constant issues

"1" vs "I"
"K" vs "k"
"r" vs "k"
"N" vs "M" (I don't understand this one at all)
"T" vs "t"
The "@" symbol

It doesn't look like much but these letters/numbers get used frequently enough to really make me nuts. The only way around this is for me to pick an alternate way to write a letter or symbol that Transcriber will recognize.

Here's what it gets down to...handwriting recognition as it is today requires a certain amount of concessions made by the user. Transcriber does not equal natural handwriting recognition. Not for me anyway. I need to make an effort to write several letters and symbols the Transcriber will recognize it, not the way I normally write.

And to my point again, let me customize how Transcriber recognizes MY handwriting by letting me use MY handwriting to establish the recognition pattern. Then it starts becoming natural handwriting recognition for everybody.

I guess creating an app like this must be very hard otherwise someone like Phatware would have done it already.

[Brad Adrian]

As far as the problem differentiating between upper- and lower-case letters is concerned, don't forget about the quick gesture that you can use. To toggle a letter between upper- and lower-case, place the cursor to the left of the letter and make a quick upward stroke. Likewise, if you want to change a word to all uppercase, double-tap the word to highlight it and then make the upward stroke.

[Prevost]

There are some basic ideas that should have been included in these products. Things like it's reasonable to assume that a sentence starts with a Capital.I think this is more something provided by the word processing program instead.

For example, in Palm, QuickWord assume next sentence starts with a capital letter, while Documents to Go does not. Even within Windows, Word does, Wordpad doesn't.

It won't be strange learning PocketWord doesn't either...