 Original page copied on the Internet Archive, 1510302014 Pen Services/Extensions  Windows CE Windows NT Windows 95 Windows 3.1x MS-DOS Pen Services/Extensions MS-Phone Production Licenses
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Pen Services/Extensions
Pen technology enables the design of reduced-form-factor
computer systems that do not utilize a keyboard, and
enables the creation of applications for which handwriting
input is a requirement or a significant user interface
enhancement. At present, most pen-based computers are used
for vertical or specialized applications; Microsoft is
committed to providing needed functionality for vertical
market solutions, for manufacturers of pen hardware, and
for customers whose business systems rely on pen
technology. Pen support is also an element of the Windows
95 mobile computing strategy, to the extent that some
portable PCs rely on the pen as their primary input
device.
Architecture
The design of Pen Services was driven by the following
goals:
Figure 1. Pen Services Architecture Pen Services for Windows 95 are provided in two components. Every copy of Windows 95 will include an ink library (PKPD.DLL and PKPD32.DLL) that handles all ink display and manipulation. This means that ink collected by an application running on a machine with a pen can be freely shared with any computer running Windows 95. Windows 95 will also support ink as a standard clipboard data type. Windows 95-based computers with tablets, or with a pen as the primary pointing device, will be delivered with the complete pen system, including recognition services and real-time inking services. Existing users of Windows for Pen Computing can easily upgrade to Pen Services for Windows 95 with a setup disk available from the manufacturer of their pen hardware. Pen Services incorporates the following core modules:
CompatibilityAs in Windows for Pen Computing, Pen Services for Windows 95 provides pen capabilities to all existing applications. When it detects the presence of Pen Services, Windows 95 enables recognition anywhere that an application can accept text. This functionality is enabled through the "Enable writing in all programs" option under the "General" tab in the Control Panel pen applet. Pens Services for Windows 95 also enables the writing tool button and action handles for all edit controls. With Pen Services for Windows 95, it is possible to use Windows-based applications with only a pen-even if no keyboard is available. Developers can build on this base to offer additional features, such as annotation, to their applications.
User Interface Enhancements
Much of the user interface for pens introduced in Windows 3.1 has been improved for Windows 95. New Tools One of the greatest strengths of a pen is its ability to point and tap. Therefore, pointing and tapping is the primary way of getting things done in Pen Services for Windows 95. Action handles (see Figure 2), now provided in edit controls, provide a point-and-tap way to accomplish most actions with a pen.
The "boxed edit" control (see Figure 3), which provides writing guides for handwriting recognition, has been updated to support new correction mechanisms (see page 5). It also action handles for selecting and performing actions on text. The Boxed Edit Control also now allows applications to constrain recognition in powerful ways, providing highly accurate recognition results.
The "writing tool" (see Figure 4) is also new for Windows 95. Tapping the "writing tool" button (automatically provided for any edit box) brings up a comfortably sized writing area or an on-screen keyboard, both with correction tools. The on-screen keyboard has a new layout and new features such as word completion, in addition to providing a familiar interface for entering characters. The keyboard is accessible from both the "writing tool" button and as a stand-alone application, enabling the use of the pen to control MS-DOS-based programs. Gestures Pen Services for Windows 95 makes much better use of gestures. Gestures are handwritten symbols that are recognized as actions rather than as text. Like keyboard shortcuts for menu commands, gestures make great accelerators. However, just as an application that only provided keyboard shortcuts without menus would be very difficult to learn and use, a system that relied only on gestures would be similarly difficult, especially since gestures can be mis-recognized. For this reason, all commands that are available as gestures are also available either as buttons in the "writing tool" button or as commands on an action handle menu. Just as many users can use Windows without ever using a keyboard shortcut for a menu command, so too can pen users be productive without ever having to learn a gesture.
To make gestures easier to remember, all of the gestures
have been made into circled letters, giving them strong
mnemonic qualities. For example, you can copy text with a
"(c)" or undo an action with a circled "U".
Recognition, one of the most visible and important features provided by Pen Services, has been substantially improved since the first release. Error rates have been cut dramatically, largely through better use of contextual clues. The recognition engine now supports the use of "word lists," which give the recognizer a list of likely words. Of course, because real writing is rarely limited to a particular set of words, the recognizer will not hesitate to ignore the word list if the written word does not appear to match anything in the list.
Better Error Correction
Recognition is, however, and always will be, an imperfect science. As much as the error rate has been decreased, there will always be mistakes. After all, how many of us can read our colleagues' handwriting (never mind our own after a few days)? For this reason, Microsoft has offered new features to make error correction as quick and simple as possible:
CIC provides the most advanced recognition with HRS. Development tools Developers will notice greatly enhanced support for Pen Services. The API has been updated to be more object oriented, and the APIs are provided in both 16 bit and 32 bit forms. The inking model has been improved to offer applications far more control over the inking process (for example, to implement a highlighter tool) and better performance. A new Ink Edit control provides powerful ink-editing capabilities to applications. The application developer can simply place one of these controls on a form and the control handles the rest. Users can draw, erase, move strokes around, and adjust color and thickness of individual strokes of ink. Because most pen functionality is provided to applications automatically (or encapsulated in controls), applications developers can implement as little or as much pen functionality as they want. The updated Windows 95 User Interface Design Guide offers the most up-to-date references on implementing Pen support. Pen Driver Information For both Pen Services and Pen Extensions, the key to pen input is the pen driver that is the interface from the tablet/digitizer to the pen manager. Both Pen Services and Pen Extensions come with sample drivers.
Tablets Supported:
The pen development kits include source code so that OEMs
can modify the driver for their particular tablet. Ask
your tablet manufacturer if they have a pen driver
available or contact LCS/Telegraphics
for pen drivers or pen driver development. Pen Extensions 1.0a for Windows 3.1x
Microsoft Windows for Pen Computing, also know as Pen
Extensions, is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM)
product that is shipped with new pen computers. With
Windows for Pens, users can use the pen with existing
applications for the Windows operating system and
development tools to:
With Pen Extensions handwriting (printing) can be captured and then translated to appear as typed text. This capability allows for new devices to be created that free the user of a keyboard. Pen computers are ideal for situation for those jobs that force one to roam the office or plant. Pen Extensions is a series of modular extensions to MS Windows 3.1 operating environment. The Pen Extensions include a set of DLLs and drivers that enable pen-based input and handwriting recognition in Microsoft Windows. The components of the Pen Extensions are transparent to normal Windows 3.1 applications, and yet they are readily available for those applications that seek to leverage their capabilities. Pen services are available through a new set of APIs, referred to in the following pages as the Pen API. This API is available to every computer running version 3.1 of MS Windows-regards of whether or not that computer is a pen computer or has an attached pen peripheral. Applications developers can therefore leverage the Pen API window classes as well as use other pen API services, and fell confident that their programs will run identically on all machines running MS Windows 3.1. If the pen is present, the Pen API informs applications so they can activate advanced pen-specific features. It also automatically enables pen interaction in the pen control classes. If the pen is not present, the same .EXE will operate without modification under Windows 3.1.
Pen Extensions can be broken down into four components.
First are the Pen and Display drivers which hand the
tablet input and the inking output. Next, is the
recognizer that transforms the tablet/ink input to
recognizable ANSI characters. CIC's
HRS for Windows 3.1 replaces the basic Pen
Extensions driver with a more advanced recognition engine
for better performance. Third component is the PENWIN.DLL
that handles all the API calls. Finally, there are pen
interface programs that assist with pen interaction. These
features are:
The pen development kits include source code so that OEMs
can modify the driver for their particular tablet. Ask
your tablet manufacturer if they have a pen driver
available or contact LCS/Telegraphics
for pen drivers or pen driver development. Annasoft offers a complete line of Pen software from Microsoft and CIC for MS-DOS, Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, and Windows CE.
11838 Bernardo Plaza Court San Diego, CA 92128 619-674-6155 800-690-3870 fax 619-673-1432 annasoft@annasoft.com www.annasoft.com |
to provide a compact yet powerful
implementation covering all aspects of specialized pen
hardware;
