New Tablet PC Input Panel

The New Tablet PC Input Panel

By Michael Linenberger

Michael Linenberger is the author of the best-selling Tablet PC book Seize the Work Day: Using the Tablet PC to Take Total Control of your Work and Meeting Day. This article briefly summarizes a chapter update Michael has recently written to that book. A much longer version of this article is available online by going to: www.seizetheworkday.com, and visiting the Chapter Updates page. Note, this entire article was written using the new input panel (both speech and handwriting recognition) on a Motion Computing 1300 Tablet PC.

I have been quite pleasantly surprised with the new Tablet PC Input Panel (TIP) which accompanied the August 2004 Windows XP Service Pack 2 update. There are major improvements in the accuracy and ease of use in the new TIP. The new TIP enables (through different but better means) nearly everything I liked about the old Write Anywhere functionality, and it accomplishes them without the many quirks of using the old tool. Here’s a list of the major input panel improvements:

  • Improved Handwriting Recognition
  • Multiline capability
  • Improved text preview and correction capability
  • Popup, floating TIP at insertion point
  • Dock at top of screen capability
  • Nonstandard word input (including use of the new character pad)

Improved Handwriting Recognition

A telling statement to the effectiveness of the new input panel is this: magazine reviewers who often complained about the Tablet PC no longer site handwriting recognition as a limiting factor. In fact, with the SP2 release, handwriting recognition is now their favorite feature. Users are raving about how much more accurate the new hand writing recognition is. I can honestly say I am no longer concerned with the quality of handwriting recognition on the Tablet PC, it really is that good.

Multiline Capability

Multiline capability is very important if you have a lot of text to handwrite into your document. Both the old TIP and the old Write Anywhere tool forced you to stop writing, pause, and insert text once you ran out of horizontal room on the first line. Only then could you start writing more lines. If your sentence was incomplete this was a frustrating interruption. With the new TIP, a new writing line automatically opens for you as you start to reach the right edge of the writing space (Figure 1). And if you keep writing, the new TIP will add as many lines as can fit on the screen; enough space to finish nearly any length sentence.

Figure 1. Multiline capability of the new input panel.

Text Preview and Correction Capability

One reason this multiline input panel capability works so well is due to the fantastic new text preview and correction implementation. This is an example of a very thoughtful and successful user interface design making a huge positive impact on software usability (Figure 2). There is quite a bit of depth to this correction tool; visit the full version of this article (cited above) for more details.

Figure 2. Converted words, when tapped, open a word editing window.

Floating TIP at Insertion Point

One of the most discussed features of the new TIP is the floating TIP at insertion point feature. As you hover your pen near the insertion point, a small Tablet PC Input Panel icon appears just above or below the insertion point (see Figure 3); clicking that icon opens an undocked version of the TIP just below or above the insertion point, ready to receive handwriting.

Figure 3. The new insertion point TIP icon; tapping it opens the input panel.

Dock at Top of Screen

The Dock at top of screen feature (Figure 4) is also very useful. In addition to the standard dock features of the old TIP, the new ability to dock at the top allows me to rest my palm more effectively as I write. It also enables the multiline capability of the new TIP (which is disabled if docked at the bottom of the screen). Because of these differences, when I want to dock the TIP, I find myself docking at the top of the screen exclusively now, rather than at the bottom.

Figure 4. The Dock at Top of Screen menu command.

Nonstandard Word Input

The ability to accept nonstandard word input is greatly improved because of three new new input panel features: the character pad, the in-context quick-keys, and the symbols button.

The character pad

The character pad is a new written input mode for the TIP (adding to the writing pad and the on-screen keyboard). It resembles the character-by-character input that many PDAs support (Figure 5) but is different in that it accepts any form of hand written characters (PDAs usually require specially formatted block characters for successful input). You open the character pad by clicking the middle button on the left end of the TIP.

Figure 5. The new character pad enables character-by-character recognition, allowing easy entry of URLs, passwords, and the like.

The reason this mode is important is that it converts text one character at a time as you spell your words. In contrast the writing pad converts characters word by word. Word by word conversion tends to change the entire interpretation of a word if even one character is misunderstood by the text recognition logic. Things like e-mail addresses, URLs, and passwords don’t convert well when converted using word by word conversion on the writing pad, but using the character pad they input fine.

The in-context quick keys

The in-context quick keys (see the middle portion of Figure 6) appear on the TIP when the insertion point is in the address bar of a web browser (similar quick keys supposedly also appear if your insertion point is in the To field of a new e-mail message, however this has not worked for me).

Figure 6. The new in-context quick keys become visible when entering text in a browser address bar.

The symbols button

The symbols button (labeled “Sym”in Figure 7) is present when the writing pad or character pad is open (but not with the on-screen keyboard). All but six of these symbols are also available scattered throughout the on-screen keyboard, but it is nice having them all in one place and available on the Writing pad.

Figure 7. The symbols button (marked with a “Sym” at the pointer) when tapped opens a pane with 32 special symbols (see middle portion of input panel above).

In Summary

The Tablet PC, which was already a very useful productivity tool, is now, because of the new Input Panel, an even more powerful ally for making you more successful in your work and meeting day. The Tablet PC just keeps getting better and better.