Microsoft Pocket PC dev team seeks input on Transcriber

[Ed Hansberry]

Derek Brown is looking for feedback and comments on Transcriber on the Pocket PC.<br /><br />"The Product Manager for handwriting input (i.e. Transcriber) asked Beth and I for customer feedback on improving the product – and I thought I’d come get this straight from the source. If you have suggestions, wishes, problems, etc. I’d be interested in hearing them. Go ahead and discuss on this thread and I’ll make sure the PM sees all of this."<br /><br />So, post away. We'll gather everything here and make sure he sees it. :-)

[fsaunders]

Transcriber's algorithms appear to favor right-handed users. Additional left-handed support would help me out greatly (and if Transcriber could move the right-hand scroll bar to the left side when entering text, that would be great too!)

[krypticide]

I've been frustrated when trying to input a "1" with a straight downward stroke, only to get an "I". In Shape Selector, that's part of input options for "1", but not for "I", yet Transcriber/Calligrapher still recognizes that as an "I". Also, better recognition between "o" and "0". Perhaps try to recognize that zeros are narrower than "O"s. Otherwise, it's pretty good software.

[JonathanWardRogers]

:x
Better differentiation between the number "1", lower case "l"s and "I"s.

Please!

[jeff]

There are three major things I can think of for improving Transcriber: user defined letter selections, cleaning up stupid recognition errors, and improving performance.

I'd like to be able to define some of my own letter types. I write a lower case 'd' in a slightly odd manner which almost always makes it recognized as a ']'. If I could define my own 'd', things might work better.

The stupid recognition errors would include the 'd' thing - why would I want to write a bracket in the middle of the word 'middle'? - but also differentiating between a lower case 'k' and and upper case one (epecially at the ends of words), and the annoying problem of recognizing the word 'is' as the number 13.

Performance needs to take a huge step up. There are instances, such as using the Find function, where it can take literally 30 to 60 seconds for input to be recognized. It seems to happen most when I haven't inputted any words in a while. I'd say these lags are my number one concern about the program.

Oh, and they should really fix the problem where you can't use Transcriber at all to input a word when looking up a definition in the Reader dictionary.

Jeff

[JMountford]

Over all I think it just needs to be a little smarter IE. follow some of the rules that Word does, like no Caps in the middle of sentences and what not. Other wise I think it works very well and I truly like having it as an input method.

Personnaly speaking though I will never be happy until we have intelligent Speach input!

[mvoosten]

Have support for other languages then Englisch. Eq Dutch !!

[donkthemagicllama]

More often than not, my 8's show up as two o's... I don't make the artsy figure 8 style 8's, I'm an engineer!

Also, as someone previously mentioned, there is very few cases where you'd ever want punctuation in the middle of a word, why would transcriber ever think that's what you meant?

It also seems to have a lot of trouble when entering acronyms that are all upper case capitals... especially E's and F's or H's that have multiple strokes...

[alee]

One thing that has always bugged me is that it's either Transcriber OR the keyboard... Block Recognizer OR keyboard, etc. This is extremely inconvenient... the keyboard is very handy when entering passwords, but is cumbersome when entering URLs -- seems to me you should be able to do both without flipping modes.

With the keyboard active, I think Transcriber should still be able to read input from the upper 2/3 of the screen, and possibly differentiate between unistroke block recognition and Transcriber style recognition on the fly.

[icatar]

I vote for adding the ability to define how you write your characters. As someone else pointed out, I write several letters and numbers differently from what Transcriber defines.

[edgar]

It would be nice to have a Select mode for selecting text, maybe triggered somehow within the pop-up special character window.

[QYV]

I've used Transcriber heavily for over a year now, as using my iPAQ as a laptop substitute for taking meeting notes and checking e-mail while traveling are why I got a Pocket PC in the first place. It's really fantastic software, but there are a number of recurring gripes that, if addressed, would make it perfect.

1.) The Letter Shapes screen allows the user to select which forms of individual letters he/she uses and doesn't use. However, in some cases, several forms of a letter are all included as one group. This means that even though I never write a lower-case cursive "i", I still have Transcriber thinking I should, because in order to have the printed "i" recognized, the cursive "i" comes with it. There are a number of perennial typos that I've traced to not being able to eliminate certain letter forms, and that drives me crazy.

2.) Never, never, never NEVER have a capital letter appear when writing an individual character in small caps mode!! "K" and "S" are the worst offenders here. I go to edit one of those letters in the middle of a word and get a capital, and there's no way to tell it not to do so. I end up deleting and rewriting the letter four or five times to get a small letter, or else deleting and rewriting the whole word. This is one of the things that really hurts my overall input speed with Transcriber.

3.) While I'm not sure it's a realistic request, better distinction between letters and numbers would help a lot. Zeros and ones are particualarly bad. Generally I have to go to the 123 button in mid-sentence to get numbers to appear properly, which is very inefficient. One possible improvement would be to allow hardware button mapping to the a/A/123 input selector - I could write with my right hand and map the Record button to toggle through the modes.

4.) I suspect Transcriber uses predictive abilities based on built-in letter combinations, which allow it to guess what input strokes mean. If that's the case, having a "dictionary" where you could add unusual words that you often use would be nice. I use the word "Mech" all the time, but Transcriber doesn't like it at all (probably because few English words end in "-ech"). If I could add it to a dictionary so Transcriber would be more prone to recognize it, that would be great.

More after some note-taking today, if I think of anything else...

[nishka]

I've been saying this for years and nobody seems to have listened. Newton had one of the best corrective measures of any handwriting recognition software. Here's how correcting mistakes should work:

1. User selects a word and double-taps (or taps and holds) on the word.
2. A drop down menu appears with alternative spellings, the 'digital ink' of the word written, if the word is new an option to add it to the dictionary, and an icon for an onscreen keyboard. If the user's word is not one of the words listed on the drop down, a simple click of the keyboard icon brings up an onscreen keyboard for easy correction.

This is simple, but it was amazingly effective on the Newton. If you really want to see how to make Transcriber work better, look no further than a used Newton Messagepad you can pick up on Ebay :). Honestly, they nailed it. When Transcriber works, it works great. However it's such a pain to make corrections...

[adamz]

Well, obviously more sophisticated artificial intelligence is an upgrade worthy feature.
Personally I prefer the more advanced features in Calligrapher than Transcriber. (The pop-up keyboard is already there)
But you can have my vote for a custom shape area in the ShapeSelector control option.
Increased recognition abilities at smaller sizes would also be good.
Double tapping should bring up the word editor along with the sudgested replacements pop-up alla Calligrapher.

As for a select text command/tool, you can always deactivate the input software temporarily, select the text, tap the input panel back on and continue typing over the selected text. I don't think a secondary space-taking button would increase the efficiency of that method too much, unless it was a one-selection-only type thing. Which might be pretty good if it was fast.

And it would be nice if word double tapping (with the word editor) would work in Messenger.

[JJ]

Overall transcribe does a decent job of letter recogniztion, but more often than not it'll interpret my lowercase or uppercase p as a D and doesn't matter how long I was to extend the "leg" of p, it still does a bad job of getting the right letter.

[AZMark]

How about if it popped up (or not if not selected) a row of numer keys every time it is active. The only reason I don't use it, it because it is difficuly to do numer and text. Address etc.

Maybe using the double tap as most have suggested to bring up the full ascii keyboard, then to turn it off. Transcriber is great for IM's quick notes and stuff, but rotten for addresses, passwords and the such, and these tend to be what I use the PDA for mostly.

[yada88]

Much like dragon naturally speaking, transcriber should have something in it where you can train it to your writing sytle and input certain letters by how we draw them. Would be helpful for those of us with horible handwriting

[GregWard]

I agree with yada88 - why not have a "new user" routine where you had to write a given phrase? Just like a voice recognition start-up. Didn't one of the early CE Handwriting packages do this as an option?
My problem is fine-tuning the letter options is not always as easy as it sounds - I guess like most people I don't spend that much time worrying about how I write - I just do it! So it's a bit unnatural to stop and select my "letter style" from a list. Sometimes I change one thing only to see another problem pop-up elsewhere as a result of my change. A computer could do a lot better job of recognising my style if it knew what I was trying to write from a carefully constructed test phrase.

[RLBogue]

... Progressive recognition. If I start writing at the top of the screen don't wait for me to pause to try to recongize the whole screen. Recognize what you can, put it in the program and take it off the screen. That way I can write continously. Right now I don't use transcriber because I have to pause.

[derekbrn]

Great feedback - keep it coming!!!
Thanks

[TechJosh]

One problem i've been having is that when I use Transcriber in Pocket Word, sometimes it thinks I'm trying to manipulate text mid-writing. I've had it move the cursor to a different location while I'm writing so that the text appears in the wrong spot. I think it might be best if Transcriber took complete control over the screen input while it is active and that it should be manually deactivated when you want to manipulate the text (highlight it, move it around, ect.)
Also, although this would be much more difficult, it would be nice if I could make corrections in Transcriber and it would learn from those corrections how I write.

Another feature that I think would be nice is the ability to crossout a word that you know you've misspelled or decided mid-sentance to change. These words could be ignored by Transcriber. I often find that sometimes I have made a stray mark and I know transcriber will say it is an I or a 1 or something like that. It would be nice if I didnt have to wait for transcriber to mistakenly recognize it, then edit it, then continue with my writing. Alternatively you could add an eraser icon at the bottom which I could click and then erase the mark or misspelled word, then click the icon again to return to writing.

As with previous posts I also think that having dual simultaneous inputs would be nice (namely the keyboard and transcriber) but the keyboard should only be used for corrections (I dont expect to use it at the same time I am transcribing like within the same word) so when I am writing I should be able to write over the keyboard area and once my writing has been recognized I could immediately go to correcting it with the keyboard if I desired.

[JonathanWardRogers]

AZMark had a great suggestion. How about a row of "keys" that are user definable. That way I could set it up to have my most difficult to recognize characters always available (if you want it to be).

If you want more keys than can fit on a single row, how about allowing any number of user definable keys that would be available to tap at any time.

[trevleyb]

Go and buy a second hand Apple Newton 2100 and see how handwriting recognition should work. Such features as double-click, drag-and-drop for words and sentences are great. In Newton, to erase a word, or sentence, or block, scribble on it like you would on a piece of paper. Drop down word re-recognition (double-click a word and it would show the original handwritten word and all the possible recognised words it could think of. If the correct answer was not there, you could re-write or enter the correct word). Lots of features that I cannot remember being that it has been a while since I used one.

Trevor

[Paul_Martinsen]

I use Calligrapher (which seems to have a lot in common with Transcriber) which I find is great for short notes. But I also use my Pocket PC to write in Pocket Word and Outlook. I really think they need to sit down and think how users need to provide input for the different apps. Writing long pieces is certainly different to short appointment titles &amp; different again to spreadsheets (eg spreadsheets have =, +, -, numbers etc which is real hard with transcriber).

Some other things:
Accuracy is about 95% out of the box for me. This is pretty good but means there is about 5 errors every 100 words, or 1 error/ sentence. I think that could be fixed with a training module. Maybe the processing for training could be done with a PC side program if the computation is too much for the Pocket PC (i.e. go thru a training program on iPaq, send data to PC via Acitive Sync, PC does analysis, sends mods back to iPaq). It has trouble with thinking my n's are r's, for example. I think that sort of thing is hard to pick out with the limited control in the shape selector, at least it has been for me :-).

Make better use of the toolbar. If there isn't a good chance I'll use the button nearly every time I use transcriber, it should be in a menu to free up space for more useful things. How about a couple of rows of tiny buttons (eg half toolbar height each) with puntuation and numbers on them. These seem to be the hardest things to get right. I know there is pallet thing but that just gets in the way. Personally I don't use the orientation, aA1, ?, X, or tick (I use the gesture for correct) buttons. Maybe the toolbar should be customizeable to suit different users though.

A macro facility would be good too. It could be used to get at puntuation easily e.g. d with a circle around it inserts a period, l=> colon, h => dash, etc.

Use context to help translate. For example don't insert spaces automatically in the middle of words. If there is a letter by itself, it probably should be lowercase. Check for a web or e-mail address (no spaces, expect 1 @), look for sentence start etc.

It would be good if it could use contextual information to help decide when screen taps should go to the recognizer and when they should generate mouse events. Eg: If I tap in a scroll bar I probably want to scroll, rather than start writing from the left 10 pixels of the screen. Same for clicking dropdowns. Perhaps requiring all writing to start on teh left 30% of the screen would be good; often that area has labels when controls are around anyway.

There should be some facility for the apps to help out too. For example if the recognizer knew that the user that the user was typing a time into the Calendar App then it could restrict the grammer to numbers and colons which would put accuracy way way up.

Finally, handwriting recognition is, I think, one of the best features of the Pocket PC and already works pretty well. It was one of the main reasons that I got an iPaq when my Palm Pilot reached the end of its life. Thanks for continuing to improve it.

[AndyEich]

I love transcriber except for one fatal flaw: If I write a lowercase "a" alone, it's recognition is near perfect, but it will NEVER recognize an "a" within a word or phrase. They always come out as "o", "c", or "d", no matter how hard I try to make them just like my lone "a's".

I can sometimes write 25 words on the screen without any errors except that every "a" is replaced with an "o".

I am writing "a" exactly like the 2nd lowercase one in the Letter Shape Selector. This problem has been the same since the Transcriber that came with my Ipaq 3650 and in the current version, and it appears with or without training the Shape Selector to match my writing style.

[Sven Johannsen]

Personally I use Calligrapher. I used the new and improved Transcriber for a day or two when I got my J568 (replacing a 545). I found it to be fairly accurate but I could not live without the full keyboard pop-up of Calligrapher. There are just times when recognition doesn't cut it. Passwords, URLs, things that aren't neccessarily words.

I find it cumbersome to cycle through regular, Caps, and numbers. If there must be a selection, make it a set of radio buttons so I can go directly to the one I need, without cyling or popping up a menu and then selecting. Spelling correction should be like Word. Tap and hold (right click) a word and options/suggestions appear in a selection box.

If I put the cursor in the middle of a word and write something, don't put a space behind the new stuff. I know it is a setting to append a space, but don't do it in the middle of existing text, OK.

I can't help myself, please forgive me.

Just buy Paragraph and Lernout & Hauspie and be done with it ;) Oh, and pick up ScaryBear too for their Today screen plugin's. I don't need the depth of PI or AF, but I do like to see what I have on my Today screen instead of just the fact I have something.

[Santa Fe]

Two words; LEFT HANDED

The current version is pretty difficult for us left handers. The predictive software doesn't seem to predict our hand movements very well.

[Jeff Rutledge]

One thing that has always bugged me is that it's either Transcriber OR the keyboard... Block Recognizer OR keyboard, etc. This is extremely inconvenient... the keyboard is very handy when entering passwords, but is cumbersome when entering URLs -- seems to me you should be able to do both without flipping modes.

With the keyboard active, I think Transcriber should still be able to read input from the upper 2/3 of the screen, and possibly differentiate between unistroke block recognition and Transcriber style recognition on the fly.


I agree 100% on this.

[DREAMWEAVER]

I strongly agree with nishka re: the newton correction method.

I would only like to add that the gesture that evokes the punctuation keyboard should evoke a full keyboard.
I love transciber Its as close to the good old newton writing that I have found. Calligraphy seemed to slow my iPAQ down.
I have a problem with capital G and & poor recognition and there are no options close to how I write.

Keep up the good work just keep refining transcriber. :)

[Daniel]

I have to start by saying that I bought Calligrapher some time ago, and briefly switched back to Transciber 1.5 when it came out, but found it wasn't up to scratch (pardon the pun). I think that Transciber is and is intended to be Calligraphers younger sibling (gender specific language replaced here), which is why it is exists at all. I think you'll find that MS bought the code off PhatWear (or the other way around?). I am using Calligrapher version 6.2 right now, it's just better.
I agree with a few of the things here:
Left handers need a break (I'm not one).
Punctuation hard to input mid-sentence and near impossible separately. Letter I number 1? These are also very difficult to input. Although I do have a work around, for the 0/O issue, when inputting a 0 (zero) put a stroke through it diagonally from top right to bottom left, this soirts the recognition issue out. You can also make Transcriber use a one by inputting a 0 (zero) then a 1, it does contextually decide to use the 1 more often than not.
Capitals/lower case issue? I've found that if you draw the character really small then it thinks it's a lower case charater instead. Also with the lowercase letter l (L) you can avoid having it recognised as an I by doing a very short leg on it.
That's the funny thing about Transcriber (and Caligrapher) there are some kind of hidden work arounds for a lot of these issues (sorry, none for left handers, although in Calligrapher there is a way to change the angle that your input is recognised on), MS should make this a little more clear.
Custom recognition, like has been suggested a couple of times.
I would love it if I could make Transcriber recognise Japanese input, I do have another SIP for this, but it is fairly limited. Is there anyway I can do this?
Bugs:
When inputting an IP into one of the screens it is required, Transcriber somehow manages to delete the last octet of the IP that you are attempting to input. Obviously this is bad and should be fixed.
When starting up Transcriber for the first time, or after it hasn't been used for a while, it takes a very long time to recognise the words you input, this is bad.

I have to say that I have used Transcriber to write word docs of about 2 pages, and find that it works quite well most of the time. Obviously, I am as annoyed by recognition errors as the next person, and no software is perfect. I think personalised recognition might go some way to resolve this.
Otherwise, other than passwords and punctuation (IP numbers and Japanese, a language would be excellent here), I use Calligrapher (Transcriber) for all my input.

Daniel

[johnm]

I agree with most of what has been said so far. Ones and zeros a big problem. Also mixing the case of the letters in mid word. There should be a way to make it clear that this is what you want. Also the occasional extra space in a word is a bit annoying. I have my own gripes about this letter or that letter. I've found that since I use transcriber everyday for taking notes I've found it less frustrating to just adapt my (poor) handwriting to accomodate transcriber rather than expect the other way around. In fact I've learned a few new tricks just from reading these posts (thanks Daniel.)

I actually tried for several months to use transcriber without the toolbar because I'm a freak for more screen space, but I found the problem with the numbers too frustrating and had to turn it on so I could get to number mode. Maybe find some way to switch modes with a gesture? Or pop up a temporary floating bar that you can move out of the way and then click to exit number mode? Maybe one for all caps too?

Finally after thinking about it, I guess I would vote for a popup keyboard or at least a way to quickly get between the normal keyboard and transcriber.

All in all I love this thing! From my own extensive testing it is the fasted input method short of my folding keyboard. Now if only I didn't have to clean up all my recognition errors later on a desktop version of word.

[Jason Dunn]

My 2 cents on the subject:

1) Try writing an email with an URL - it's an excercise in frustration. It keeps trying to make the hyperlink before the URL is done, which screws up the double tap to correct process

2) There are many bugs where Transcriber simply doesn't work properly. Open Windows Messenger, used Transcriber, then try to double tap on the word to correct it. You can't! :?

3) The word correction/dictionary feature is atrociously bad. It suggests casing that is completely illogical (mICROSOFT) and omits the one you want (Microsoft), and often suggests gibberish words for common words that I know are in the dictionary

So much more, but that's all I can think of for right now. Transcriber is good, but it needs some polishing to become GREAT. :-)

[Killdog]

The one thing that bugs me THE MOST is when I write something, often just one or two words, it can take 45-60 seconds to transcribe it. This is ridiculous!!! :evil: After I get going, say in Pocket Word, it seems to go pretty quickly. However, if I switch apps, say to Contacts, again, I start to write the name of the person I want and again, 45-60 seconds. Usually I'll stop it, get out the onscreen keyboard, and then do it that way. EXTREMELY INCONVENIENT! I've tried even doing a hard reset on my iPAQ and at first, it works great. After some more apps are installed however, I'm back to square one. Waiting... :evil:

Secondly, the thing with numbers has got to be fixed... when I type in a string of numbers, it should recognize it as such.

Third, I also have this problem where I want to edit something and it skips down halfway down the page... I end up messing up the good text, and losing my place, where the mistakes were. Also not good. :?

Finally, I also agree that there should be some kind of intro screen where it learns your handwriting... Something simple such as: "Write the following the sentence in your usual handwriting..." This could greatly improve the transcribing process. People usually write letters one way!!! :idea: Not 5 different ways. This could greatly speed up the recoginition process.

I also like the greater flexibility/customizibility in Calligrapher. All in all though, you have a great product here- like anything, it could really use some improvement.

Thanks for your hard work!

Killdog 8)

[Supermange]

First of all, thanx for turning to the community..

This is why I use block recognizer:

:arrow: I am familyar with it!
(From when I had a palm.)

:arrow: I couldent write @, å, ä and ö (Swedish charters).
(Tried to follow the demo but I still couldent do it.)

Palm had a game called giraf or somthin... it was usefull to get the speed up...

Well, hope it helped.

rgds

[Bruno]

I have tried both Calligrapher and Transcriber. Booth are good programs but booth have the same major flaw that gets me to uninstall them.

No support for Swedish letters ( å, ä,ö) :(

If Windows CE supports the letter then so should Transcriber!!

Please make it possible to support any character that Windows CE supports. Or at least make it possible for me to add support for these letters.

[ctitanic]

The main problem I'm having with transcriber is that I was unable to set it as my default input method changing the registry, reason why I could not add this hack to my program Tweaks2k2 (http://www.pc-counselor.8m.com/downloads.htm). I have received many emails asking me to do that but I could not. :(

[phess11]

I agree with the comments about the 1 and I recognition. What I have had some luck with is following the 1 stroke with a 2, and then deleting the 2. I think that maybe adding numbers to the special characters soft keypad would help a lot.

phil :?

[oldan]

Everything said here so far has been excellent and I agree agree agree agree!

But the one thing I don't see is what I want


Macros

Well, OK, perhaps not macros, but take a look at ShortCuts on Grafitti or Calligrapher has a similar feature in that you write something and circle it. What ever that is, I want it!

Oh, yeah, and perhaps the ability to make Esperanto characters -- it IS after all, a Unicode device, right?

-- Oldan

[compaqipaq]

Transcriber would be improved by having:
1) Better Recognition and/or more letter choices
2) Integrated Keyboard
3) Shortcuts-like Calligrapher

[pgil]

I would like to echo the recommendations to draw lessons from how the Newton used to handle HWR; in no small part I moved from the Palm to PPC because of the possibility of achieving a similar environment to that I once had with the Newton.

In particular, we should assume that we will likley never achieve the goal of 100% recognition, but rather focus on having efficient ways to deal with the 5% or so we get wrong. Thus, being able to correct mistakes or misinterpretations quickly becomes paramount to the ultimate efficiency of HWR.

Being able to tap on a word back up the page of recognised text during a lull in note-taking and receiving an immediate drop down list of alternates, using the inverted caret to join two words that were meant to be one, using the "scribble" to erase text or drawings, etc, etc all added to the productivity of the HWR tool.

If I had to lament the flaws of Transcriber or Calligrapher, it is in the error-correction arena, and in the number of steps required to get to the final desired answer.

[Trimble]

Ok, I also used and loved the input on the Newton. Yes, they did nail it, it was great. The newton got tagged ALOT for misspellings, but I still maintain the belief that reviewers for magazines, etc. simply never gave their Newtons enough time to learn. Mine was able to bring it's accuracy up past 98%. That's less than one wrong word in FIFTY. I hate to say it, but that's a HECK of a lot better than I'm getting with transcriber... so, my first idea is

1) Make it learn. Even if the learning is just a matter of transcriber realizing that it made a mistake because a shape recognizer setting could be better, if the same mistake keeps being made, have transcriber adjust the recognizer itself.

The newton learned by WHOLE WORD recognition. as you added words to it's dictionary, it got really good. Perhaps my favorite thing about the newton was that I could write continuously. The recognizer would recognize whole words at a time, and stay a few words behind me on the screen. As it recognized each word, the digital ink of the word would disappear, and the typewritten word would appear at the cursor. Transcriber won't begin to recognize until I stop writing. This is annoying.

2) Make transcriber recognize continuously instead of waiting for me to stop writing. It should stay a few words behind, but it should keep going.

I like the way the text in most applications scrolls up automatically when you have written onto the last line. that makes it really useful to keep writing long notes without having to dink with the app's scroll bar. but it's really annoying when the digital ink gets to the bottom of the screen and I have to stop writing because there is no room. I have discovered that transcriber will continue to recognize just fine if I simply start writing my next line on the TOP of the screen, but it would be soooo much better to...

3) make transcriber scroll the digital ink up as I get near the bottom of the page. It should do this even before it attempts to recognize the ink. Recognition should still follow behind a few words, but the work in progress should autoscroll up, independently from the application scrolling up the finished text.

I got really good at watching it's work and stopping to make corrections as it goofed up. It was really easy to doubletap a word and be able to SEE the digital ink so that I can remember what I drew. With transcriber, if I write a whole page, wait for it to recognize, and see a bad error, I can easily have forgotten what that word SHOULD HAVE BEEN. I have to unrecognize the whole darned thing to see what it was.

4) show us the digital ink on the correction screen. Also, give us a keyboard icon to pop up the real keyboard when we need it.

I will admit that the newton had a bad habit of trying to move the cursor (ok, it didn't really have a cursor, but It did have an "insertion point" where it thought the text you were writing should go) to whereever you started drawing your words. I DO prefer the way transcriber keeps the cursor where you left it unless you explicitly tap a new cursor location before you start writing. I can do my own carriage returns, thank you very much.

I also agree that transcriber should assume at all times that (unless we indicate otherwise),

5) Always assume that a) Sentences begin with a capitol letter, b) there are no other capitol letters in the sentence, c) there are no numbers or symbols in the middle of words, d) a period is always followed by two spaces, e) we dont usually intend to misspell words(they SHOULD be in the dictionary). f) we never end a paragraph without using a period first, and g) a new paragraph should be indented. We should be able to switch on this "Strict" mode for normal note-taking and writing, and switch it off for free-style editing.

I do enjoy having the ability to free-hand onto the screen of my handheld as opposed to having to use a graffiti style input. I never could understand why some newton users prefered that style over the natural input method, but if Transcriber were my only choice back then, I think I'd understand.

[JonathanWardRogers]

:?: I agree with most of what Trimble says. But I would like to add that this "strict" mode should be configurable.

Here are a few reasons why:
1) It is a common misconception that a period must be followed by two spaces. That is just one style (AP I think) of writing.
2) I never want my paragraphs indented. It is much more common now to leave a blank line (as Trimble did) in between paragraphs, than to indent the first line.

I bring these issues up because I would hate to have such a great feature added and not be able to use it because of one or two things I would like different.

[DREAMWEAVER]

This probably isnt a transcriber thing but i would like to see it made a default input method like the keyboard. so when you do a soft reset you dont have then manually make it the imput method.

[ericdo]

Transcriber is one of the great features that I love over my old Palm devices. A number of things have been mentioned here which are very valid points.

1. Ability to make Transcriber the default. Everytime I reset my 3870 (often) I have to reselect Transcriber as the input method. Very often I forget to change when the keyboard comes up and then end up not using Transcriber.

2. Duration till start of recognition. Seems to be a common problem. Once I've been using it for a while then it's OK. The problem seems to be when it is first being used.

3. Some more intelligence/validation rules to entering words. eg no capitals in the middle of words, don't mix letters and numbers unless obvious situations like currencies eg 34USD.

4. Word suggestions like with the keyboard.

5. Adding spaces when editing words is really anoying. It should recognise that you are editing a word. If there is a space there already, there is no need to add another one.

6. This whole buisness of telling it which angle you are writing from is crazy. As long as your characters are the same height, it should be able to draw an imaginery straight line underneath them to work out the angle.

Thanks for giving up PPC fans the chance to have our say!

[Riled]

First of all, I love transcriber. I first used Calligrapher back when it was like version 5, and I was excited when Microsoft bought it to be in ROM for the PocketPC. Great move as it is the killer app.

Enough gushing. The few things that I think would improve it are:
1. OK, here's my great original idea: in corrector, I am there often just to change one letter. I notice that when I tap on one letter it highlights that letter but gives the same alternate spellings that it gave when doing the "down/up" motion on that word. My suggestion is that, when in Corrector, double tapping on a letter should give alternate spellings based on just that letter being changed. This would greatly enhance corrector.
2. Let me put my hat in the ring with the people who would like to see Calligrapher-like impementations of a full keyboard pop-up, and with those who would like pen commander-like macros. These are great features, and if the Microsoft current license of Calligrapher allows them to be added--do it!
3. Add a function to go in and manually edit the dictionary, and then make Transcriber rely more heavily on it. Ie: when Transcriber decrypts the ink to type, have it first try to find a logical match in the dictionary. And, when dropping down alternate spellings, have them only be from the dictionary. This will make the alternate spellings much better and with time, near perfect as users edit their own dictionary for the words that they use.

Thanks for listening.

[garrans]

For writing out email (and website addresses) recognize that @something.com needs no spaces, also true for www.blah.xxx

[Carlos]

Having used every Newton made since day one, I'm pretty spoiled by excellent handwriting recognition. Transcriber falls short in a few ways. The most annoying is it's unreliability when it comes to making corrections. Many times it will incorrectly interpret something as a numeric or symbol character; the corrector is apparently disabled for words which contain those. I second the others' comments on "1" vs "L" and such. These are the most common causes of the corrector not working; it inserts a "1" in place of an "L" for example, which disables the corrector.

I would also like to see a little greater logic regarding the addition of spaces. If I correct/insert a character in the middle of a word, it should not add a space. On the other hand, many times it will fail to add spaces where you would want one, particularly in the subject lines of new e-mail messages.

[[Cruzer]]

I would like to see the same funtionality that Rosetta had in the Newton 2100. Even now too me its still the best Handwritting recognition out there. Currently Transcriber is just like the Newton 110-130 days. On the 2100 there was nothing really to configure, just use it.

Just my thoughts.

[mrudzik]

This maybe off topic but ...
I use and love transcriber and so do several of my users. I have two users that use both a pocket PC and an IBM Thinkpad Transnote. The transnote is a pen based touchscreen notebook pc. These users would like to have handwriting recognition on the pc and would use transcriber there as well as on the pocket pc if it were available.

[Killdog]

A few more comments in addition to my first post here...

First I noticed anytime I type 15, it always gives me an 'IS' or 'is'
Second, I'd like better support for the "&" sign - I write like an rounded E with a line down the middle - usually this is interpretted as "El" or "cd"

Finally I'm often frustrated when I go to correct something, usually to change cases, I try writing the corrected letter as I should (bigger) and it's still interpretted as lower case. Again, backspace and I write it bigger (2/3 screen) and still no dice. How about if I write a letter on 2/3 or 1/2 of the screen, it'll understand I want UPPER CASE!!!! :-)

Just my lowly thoughts...
Killdog

[Tycho Morgan]

I think it would be good to add the Pen Commander, or a similar scripting/shortcut method to transcriber. This would speed things up and make it all around better to use.

I also want it to perfectly read my handwriting 100 percent of the time, but I think I'll have to wait on that one.

Cheers,
Sam

[timmy]

Like some other posters, I seldom use Transcriber since it doesn't handle Swedish chars. I have turned to Character recognizer instead.

If Swedish chars where available I probably would use Transcriber instead, since I don't feel very comfortable with writing in the same spot over and over again....

/Timmy

[passiebeer]

I agree on many people that the transcribe tool is very useful, but indeed needs a left hand addendum.
Especially the left to right lines, like the horizontal bars in 'T' or't', 'F' etc. are too right hand minded. I usually draw these from right to left.

Also, a way to optionally disable the auto-popup of the 'soft keyboard', so it doesn't cover half your screen if not wanted.

Furthermore, I never found a 'forward' button in I. Explorer. Would be useful for me.

Finally a quick way to really close a program directly, from within the program (window bar). I now had to buy and add an additional tool for this.