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On 10/10/06 13:11:42, Michael Mortimore wrote:
My pda (admittedly not linux)
Which? Palm OS5 or WinCE?Palm Graffiti2 is, IMHO, very usable within the very limited resources of a Palm PDA. It isn't intended as handwriting recognition and if you are thinking of it as such, the comparison is more than a touch unfair.
Small PDA's like Palms operate "stroke recognition" and the available processing power means such devices will never be able to "learn" your style. You must adapt to the software. Unfortunate, but necessary given the amount of processor power available on such devices.
For larger handhelds (iPAQ), Rosetta is quite usable but I still have to be VERY expansive and quite child-like in the formation of characters. No matter if the character is lower case or upper case, it must cover 90% or so of the available area and be as "open" as possible - the kind of writing most children do at primary school level.
Note: If your PDA is running WinCE (or Windows Mobile as M$ would like to claim), you can run GNU/Linux on it. Seek out the Familiar Distribution, used with Opie (like KDE) or GPE (like Gnome). I write software for GPE so I'm biased.
:-) http://familiar.handhelds.org/ Also, see my review of installing Familiar: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/wiki/?id=view/dist-reviews/misc/4 (It isn't for faint-hearted.)
has handwriting recognition and it's more trouble than it's worth. it takes so long to fix recognition mistakes that the onscreen keyboard is significantly quicker. I found myself having to learn the symbols it knows rather than teach it my handwriting. It often interprets click and drag as writing when i didn't want it to.
A common problem and very difficult to solve without a seriously heavyweight CPU (for a handheld).
Some of the medium-sized Psion devices have sufficient power but once the device becomes large enough to support a half-decent battery life of such a thirsty processor, a keyboard becomes quite possible and often expected. Catch 22.
Let's face the truth: Most people can't read each other's handwriting. (And as a pharmacist who registered before computers were commonplace in GP surgeries, I've seen a LOT of BAD handwriting!!!) Handwriting recognition may seem like a good idea but in practical terms, the only way it can ever work is for *people* to relearn how to write clearly and above all, slowly.
I don't know if there's linux software for handwriting recognition but if there was I'd expect it to be equally awful.
That's just laughable. You're criticising something without even trying it.
1. You *must* bear in mind the amount of processing power available.2. The amount of processing power in a handheld is tiny compared to what could be available in a tablet (the original query).
3. Your expectations of free software functionality are not encouraging. :-(Within the confines available, I think Rosetta does a really good job. Improving it means giving the device more CPU power and that just undoes a lot of the reason for needing handwriting recognition.
-- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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