PhatWare Releases CalliGrapher 8.1

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.phatware.com/calligrapher/' target='_blank'>http://www.phatware.com/calligrapher/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"CalliGrapher is an award winning natural handwriting recognition software that supports all handwriting styles - cursive, print or mixed. In addition to handwriting recognition, CalliGrapher offers PenCommander (an easy-to-use PC navigation tool), ink color selection and customizable ink width, and a "Quick Correct" window for fast correction as the user writes. CalliGrapher analyzes pen strokes written in any application window or on the designated Write Pad area, converts the pen strokes into text and sends the recognized text to a target application. Employing advanced fuzzy logic and neural net techniques; CalliGrapher recognizes arbitrary alphanumeric strings as well as words from its integrated dictionary."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20050829-CalliGrapher.gif" /><br /><br />CalliGrapher 8.1 has just been released and includes a collection of performance and usability upgrades, as well as support for square-screen devices. Existing users of CalliGrapher 8.0 (and users of CalliGrapher 7.5 who purchased the product between March 21, 2005 to September 1, 2005) can update to the new version for free. Otherwise, the product can be purchased from <a href="http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=172193&productType=2">Handango</a> for $39.95, and as always, a free trial version is available. [Affiliate]

[Brad Adrian]

Caution! Rant coming...

I used to be a tried-and-true, dyed-in-the-wool disciple of Phatware and their Calligrapher products. I still love Calligrapher and use it for 98.847% of my information/data entry. BUT, their upgrade policy has slowly gotten worse and worse and worse.

They used to give free upgrades for anything but the most substantial enhancements. Then, when v.7 rolled out last year, they suddenly began charging for upgrades. I bit the bullet, though, because it is/was a great product. And NOW, they're saying my previous purchase must be no longer than seven months old before they'll give me a free upgrade! AND, even if my purchase WERE that recent, they expect me to send them the purchase confirmation e-mail (the user-specific registration code isn't good enough).

IMNSHO, this kind of upgrade attitude flies in the face of part of what has previously made the Pocket PC such a fun device; building software that solves peoples' problems used to be more important than making as much money as possible in the endeavor.

This doesn't look to me like more than a dot-release, so I'm not gonna throw any more money at it.

Ed, how does that FITALY thing work again...?

[caubeck]

I've been playing with 8.1 for the last few hours. I see no difference between this version and 8.0 but maybe it'll resolve a problem I had with the unit freezing while on TextMaker (if I switched the pda off and went back to the document I was working on, it often froze and I had to soft reset). That was getting annoying.

Calligrapher is amazing, and if you add any recognition problems to the autocorrector, input actually becomes enjoyable.

[Jacob]

even if my purchase WERE that recent, they expect me to send them the purchase confirmation e-mail (the user-specific registration code isn't good enough).


FWIW, If you give them your name and I think the email address that you registered with they will resend that to you - they did that for me.

I haven't played with it at all, but I doubt there will be a huge difference between 8.0 and 8.1. For me there was a very big difference between 7.0 and 8.0 though and that made it worth the upgrade for me.

[veethree]

I've been playing with 8.1 for the last few hours. I see no difference between this version and 8.0 but maybe it'll resolve a problem I had with the unit freezing while on TextMaker (if I switched the pda off and went back to the document I was working on, it often froze and I had to soft reset). That was getting annoying.

Calligrapher is amazing, and if you add any recognition problems to the autocorrector, input actually becomes enjoyable.

Are you using an iPaq 1940/45? It may not be Calligrapher that is the problem - I had installed Textmaker to my SD card and often had that freezing problem in my 1940. Once I installed it to main memory that all went away.

[Brad Adrian]

Calligrapher is amazing, and if you add any recognition problems to the autocorrector, input actually becomes enjoyable.

My rant aside, I still love Calligrapher, and I always have. Its recognition gets stronger all the time and the Autocorrector function is priceless. In fact, I've made sure that all of my Calligrapher Autocorrector "shortcuts" have been entered into my desktop Word configuration. That way, my writing and typing methods and steps are as identical as possible.

Added note: To make Autocorrector even more useful, try creating entries for words with apostrophes or other "special" characters. Since writing such special characters can easily slow recognition down, I find it best to simply bypass them with autocorrector.

For example: set Calligrapher to substitute the word "I've" when you write "ive." Other hard-to-recognize words can be substituted, too, like "dont," "shouldnt" or "cant."

[caubeck]

I've been playing with 8.1 for the last few hours. I see no difference between this version and 8.0 but maybe it'll resolve a problem I had with the unit freezing while on TextMaker (if I switched the pda off and went back to the document I was working on, it often froze and I had to soft reset). That was getting annoying.

Calligrapher is amazing, and if you add any recognition problems to the autocorrector, input actually becomes enjoyable.

Are you using an iPaq 1940/45? It may not be Calligrapher that is the problem - I had installed Textmaker to my SD card and often had that freezing problem in my 1940. Once I installed it to main memory that all went away.

Well yes, this is happening on a 1935. I used TextMaker from the main memory all last year with no problem at all and then transferred everything to an SD card. If 8.1 doesn't stop the problem I'll install TextMaker to the main memory again.

Thanks for the tip.

[SoftMaker]

I've been playing with 8.1 for the last few hours. I see no difference between this version and 8.0 but maybe it'll resolve a problem I had with the unit freezing while on TextMaker (if I switched the pda off and went back to the document I was working on, it often froze and I had to soft reset). That was getting annoying.

Calligrapher is amazing, and if you add any recognition problems to the autocorrector, input actually becomes enjoyable.
This might be related to some Pocket PCs not waiting long enough to set up storage cards. We have an FAQ note on our web site at www.softmaker.de/tipsppc.htm -- unfortunately, it is in German, but it basically says you should change the registry entry PNPUnloadDelay to 4096.

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

[caubeck]

Thanks Martin, I'll try that now.

I hope the new PPC version of Textmaker is soon to appear, just as much as I hope you won't be charging for the upgrade! :-)

[caubeck]

I've adjusted the value given at your page and at least I can state that nothing untoward has happened so far. It was in the 900s before I altered it.

Thanks again.

[SoftMaker]

I've adjusted the value given at your page and at least I can state that nothing untoward has happened so far. It was in the 900s before I altered it.

Thanks again.
Did you softreset your device after the change?

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

[caubeck]

Yes I did, and the problem seems to be solved.

Cheers.