Copyright © Salman Burkie, 1995-1998. All Rights Reserved.
Manual
(Click to jump to explanations. Click hot-link there to jump back here).
Scrawl Editor is a simple editor for handwritten data. It allows you to enter handwritten notes ( ink) which are segmented into words and then formatted into paragraphs. You can also enter text using a keyboard, a third-party on-screen keyboard or a pen (within Windows for Pen while the PenPalette app. is running). Both handwritten words and text can be interspersed and are formatted in a similar manner.
In addition, handwritten drawings (inkblock) can also be entered. These are formatted to appear on a separate line on-screen.
A carriage return is represented as an endofline and appears on a separate line as well.
Possible uses:
No, at the moment there is no built-in handwriting recognition. However, char-by-char handwriting recognition is available within the TextWindow if you run this program within Windows for Pen (and the PenPalette application is running).
Most actions are available on the menu. However, the most important (most frequently used) actions (scrolling, editing) are controlled by the pen/mouse.
If the "Grip" menu option is enabled, then the cursor changes shape and
you can use short strokes of the pen/mouse to browse through the
document (traditional scrollbars are also available).
"Grip" cursor
Normal cursor
When in non-"Grip" mode
(normally), the pen/mouse can be used to draw short strokes (gestures)
on the screen. Here is the complete list of gestures you need
to remember:
and as an alternative to the "UnselectAll"
menu option:
Selection
Select single/multiple units
by "crossing" them out
(selected units will become highlighted). To select units on
more than one line, or for very large blocks, you can use 
and 
to select a block of units. These gestures can be used again and
again to select single-unit/multiple-units(block)/multiple-blocks.
Move, Copy
If a selection has been made then the
or 
gesture will copy the selection to the indicated position,
while the 
gesture will move the selection to the indicated position
(the selected units will be removed from their previous positions).
Input
If there is no
selection then it is assumed that the user wants to insert new data
and any of the and gestures can be used for input (the insertion point is
given by the top-most and bottom-most points on these gestures
respectively). The sources of input can be set (using
"InputOptions" on the menu) to:
A window will appear on which you can enter handwritten notes and drawings. Some menu options are also available within this window: Undo/Redo (to reverse/redo your strokes) and Erase/Move (for "out-of-order" stroke editing). To Erase/Move a group of strokes, draw a new stroke (called a selecting stroke) which passes through or touches all of the strokes that you want to select to be erased/moved and then press Erase/Move on the menu. The selected strokes will be erased or can be moved (in the case of a Move) using the pen/mouse. The selecting stroke will be removed (since it was only being used as a temporary marker). Erase/Move can also be reversed using Undo/Redo.
A short flick of the pen across the boundary (starting inside the boundary and going outside) will classify your handwritten data as ink (to be segmented into words, then formatted into paragraphs on screen). A flick of the pen that starts inside, goes outside, comes back in and then goes outside again (in the form of a "2" or a "Z") will classify your handwritten data as inkblock (a drawing which will appear on a separate line on screen).
Any flick of the pen across the boundary while the window is empty is taken to be an endofline (this will appear on its own line on screen as well).
The window is cleared for more input after each of these "flicks".
To quit, just touch any part of the screen outside the window to indicate that you want to get out. You won't accidentally lose data because quit only works if the window is empty.
A window will appear on which you can enter text using the keyboard or the pen/mouse with a third-party on-screen keyboard or use Windows for Pen's char-by-char handwriting recognition (when running this program within Windows for Pen). All carriage-returns ("enter" key) will be converted to endofline.
At the moment the TextWindow lacks the common Copy, Paste commands - will be added later.
There is no effect if no Scrawl data is found in the file.
There is no effect if no Scrawl data is found in the Clipboard.
Delete
The 
gesture is used to delete the selection. All the units in
the selection are removed from their respective places in the document.
Does not indicate a position within the document, so it can be placed
anywhere on the program window.
Unselectall
The 
or 
gesture can be used to unselectall - has exactly the same
effect as the "UnselectAll" menu option. A "SelectAll" menu option is
also available.
All the editing actions mentioned above are reversible. So don't worry about making mistakes - even selections are reversible - checkout "Undo/Redo" on the menu.
Well, these are the basics to get you started. Try out the program now. Get familiar with the basics, then read on . . .
Most menu operations like File/Open are quite conventional Windows. Other menu options under "Selection", "InputOptions" are also useful. You can experiment with these yourself - or deal with them after you have read the rest of this manual.
This section discusses no new features - just hints and shortcuts using a combination of existing features:
------>
or 
and then 
and select-block 
or 
or 
All the above actions are reversible using
undo/redo.
Most other options on the menu
(example: File/Open etc.) are not reversible.
See pen/mouse-based scrolling and grip for scrolling/browsing options.
If the grip option is currently on, then the pen/mouse can be used to dynamically scroll through the document (see grip for details).
A minor capability to non-dynamically scroll is also available if you press the barrel button while using a pen (obviously this is only available if your pen has a barrel button - many do), or use the right mouse button if you are using a mouse. Press the button and move the pen/mouse on screen to scroll the document.
The traditional scrolling using scrollbars is also available.
Try to get a feel for dynamic (useful for scrolling through large/small documents) and non-dynamic scrolling (useful for precise positioning) by practicing a few times before you do anything remotely useful.
NOTE: a few things to remember:
Both the select and select-block gestures can be used to select single or multiple items from
within your document. These gestures can be used again and again to
select more blocks. So the selection can consist of:
The ordering of the blocks can be set to be either "in-order-of-selection" or "in-order-of-appearance-in-text" - depending on the selection options.
Selection toggles the current state of an item - re-selecting an already selected item will un-select it. This means you can make overlapping selections to exclude items. For example, to exclude a few items from within a larger selection, instead of selecting smaller blocks while leaving out the items you don't want, you can now select the whole block and then "re-select" to exclude - a much more intuitive procedure.
If you re-select a selected item twice, it will again be part of the selection. But the ordering may have changed if the selection options are set to "in-order-of-selection". Ordering will obviously remain the same for "in-order-of-appearance-in-text".
Use undo to reverse an incorrectly placed selection.
Both the
and gestures will cause an input action to take place if there
is no selection (the insertion point is
given by the top-most and bottom-most points on these gestures
respectively).
The type of input action will depend on the current input options. The basic types are:
See the section Input within Can you give me the basics - quickly ? for a more detailed explanation.
and as an alternative to the "UnselectAll" menu option:
(Click to jump to explanations. Click hot-link there to jump
back here).
Arrows indicate direction of drawing.
Select
Draw a horizontal line across whatever you want to select.
Can also select more than one item on the same line - just draw across
all of them. Selected items will become highlighted.
Repeat to
toggle - useful for excluding items from within a larger selected block.
Select-Block
Draw
brackets to
select a block of items. Also useful for selecting large
sections of your document. Once you have placed a bracket, you can
redraw it to reposition it. Do not worry about erasing a bracket that
you don't want - it will disappear on your next action (unless it is
another bracket or a scrolling action).
The left and right brackets
indicate the start and end points of the block that you want to select.
Here is a more precise (albeit confusing) explanation: draw the left
bracket to the left of the first item (or to the right of the item
before the first item) and the right bracket to the right of the last
item (or to the left of the item after the last item).
Either
bracket can be drawn first.
Delete Selection
Draw this anywhere on the document to delete the selection.
Has no effect if there is no selection.
Copy Selection/Input
Draw either of these anywhere on the document for the same effect -
i.e. copy the selection to the point indicated by this gesture.
The order of the items will be either "in-order-of-selection" or
"in-order-of-appearance-in-text" - depending on how you have set the selection options.
If there is no selection, an input action will be taken - the type of action will depend on how you have set the input options.
The top-most part of the gesture indicates the point where the items should be inserted.
Move
Selection/Input
Draw this anywhere on the document to move the selection. The
items in the selection will be removed from their places and inserted at
the point indicated by this gesture. The order of the items will be
either "in-order-of-selection" or "in-order-of-appearance-in-text" -
depending on how you have set the selection
options.
If there is no selection, an input action will be taken - the type of action will depend on how you have set the input options.
The bottom-most part of the gesture indicates where the items should be inserted.
UnselectAll
Draw either of these anywhere on the document to get the same
effect as the "UnselectAll" menu option.
File___Format___InputOptions___SelectOptions___Undo___Redo___Grip___Help
(Click to jump to explanations. Click hot-link there to jump back here).
Copying Screen Images to the Clipboard
Windows
allows you "capture" an image of the desktop (whole computer screen) to
the Clipboard by pressing the PrtScr key (usually situated next
to the ScrollLock and Pause keys). To only copy an image of the
currently active window, press Alt-PrtScr.
One of the following is usually set to be the default option.
Query Everytime
If this option is enabled, then for
every input action, a small dialog box will ask
the user for the type of action that is desired. The default input
option will not be used (except to highlight one of the buttons to
indicate the current default input option).
Useful when a variety of
different items have to be inputted - the input options menu does not
have to be used to change the input option each time.
and are equivalent to UnSelectAll.Ordering Options
The items
within a single selected block (selected using either a selection stroke
or a select-block) are ordered in the same way as they appear on-screen.
There can be many such blocks in a selection - the ordering of these
blocks is determined by the options given below.
Example: if you
select a block consisting of the items (u51, u52, u53) at the end of
your document, then select a block (u5, u6) at the beginning, and then
copy the selection consisting of these two blocks to some other place,
then the ordering of the newly inserted items will depend on this
setting.
Use this to undo your previous action. Applies
to most editing actions.
Some menu items (example: New, Open
etc.) cannot be reversed.
Once this option is enabled, the cursor will change shape to indicate that the pen/mouse can be used to dynamically scroll through the document. Select again to toggle back to the normal state (the cursor will also be restored).
"Grip" cursor Normal cursor
So the pen/mouse can be used for editing gestures (Normal) as well as pen/mouse-based scrolling ("Grip").
Try to use "Grip" in short bursts (i.e. pen-down, move pen slightly, then pen-up) when you first try it. This way, it won't be disorienting and you will soon find it quite obvious to use.
Since currently there is no limit on the horizontal extent of the document - and hence on horizontal scrolling - it is possible to get lost if your document shoots off into infinity while scrolling (see if -infinity meets +infinity here !). The horizontal scroll box will not move beyond its extreme positions. If you get lost, move the horizontal scrollbox to the extreme left to bring the document back on-screen.
Similar to this document.
Scrawl Editor can be used to save handwritten notes, drawings and text. It does not feature handwriting recognition, but limited handwriting recognition is available if you run it within Windows for Pen (while the PenPalette application is running).
Scrawl Editor will run on the following systems:
It will run on computers equipped with:
Any input device that works with windows will be fine. Although a pen/tablet is nicer for handwriting input, your handwritten notes can be read/browsed easily on a normal mouse-equipped windows machine.
Installation will not add to or modify your windows configuration. Uninstall makes it completely reversible.
The installation procedure is currently not all that automated - however, the advantage is that you know exactly what this installation will do to your system. The procedure isn't that complicated anyway - its all spelled out below. Uninstall shows how to reverse the effects of installation.
After downloading sced1.zip (Scrawl Editor v1.0 - complete package), use pkunzip.exe (also downloadable if you don't already have it) to expand it to generate the scrawled.exe executable and other files. You may also setup a Program Manager "Program Group" and "Program Item" for the scrawled.exe executable as explained below.
At the DOS prompt (either from outside Windows or in a DOS window within Windows) type:
The directory sced1 will contain the following files:
Setting up
a "Program Group" and "Program Item" within File Manager
You can
set up a "Program Group" and "Program Item" for scrawled.exe
within Program Manager by choosing File/New and selecting the "Program
Group" option. Then fill in these settings:
Choose File/New once more to create a "Program Item" within that group and set:
On uninstall (see the uninstall section for more details), choose File/Delete once to delete the "Program Item" and once again to delete the "Program Group" (it will query you before deleting - so make sure you are deleting the correct group and item). This action will remove the extra entry (pointing to scrawled.grp) in the PROGMAN.INI file in your windows directory. After this action and after deleting the sced1 directory, you will have removed all traces of Scrawl Editor from your system.
Handwriting recognition capability
When running within Windows for Pen, users will be able to use Windows
for Pen's char-by-char recognition within the TextWindow (the
Windows for Pen "PenPalette" application needs to be running for this
to work - Windows for Pen installation normally places this in the
"Startup" folder as well as the "Microsoft Pen Tools" folder on
installation).
Optional Settings for improved performance
Windows 3.x, Windows 95 users can set Control Panel/Mouse/"Tracking
Speed" to its slowest setting for improved tracking. On uninstall, you
may also want to reverse the change you have made to this setting.
No change to this setting is needed for Windows for Pen. Those running WinTab compliant drivers with their graphics tablets may not need any such changes if they are already getting superior tracking.
As mentioned in the installation procedure, just follow these steps to reverse the installation (type these at the DOS prompt from outside Windows or in a DOS window within Windows):
(The following assumes you had installed to the c:\ directory)
If you had created a "Program Group" or "Program Item" within Program Manager for scrawled.exe, just delete these by clicking on the "Program Item" and pressing the delete key (or use File/Delete) and then repeat to delete the "Program Group". This last step will remove the extra entry in PROGMAN.INI (in your windows directory) and you will have effectively reverted the windows directory and configuration back to its original settings. Program Manager will query you before deleting "Program Item" and "Program Group" - so make sure you are deleting the correct group and item before you say yes.
NOTE: if you changed the "ControlPanel/MouseTracking" setting (as suggested in the installation section), you may want to change it back to its original setting (the default setting is usually somewhere in the middle of both extremes).
Scrawl Editor (tm) and documentation are copyright (c) 1995-1998 Salman Burkie. All Rights Reserved.
While Scrawl Editor is made freely available by Salman Burkie, as a service to the community of pen-computer users, it is provided for academic, research and internal business purposes only. Its use is subject to certain restrictions. In particular it may not be copied without the copyright notices and this disclaimer.
Parties wishing to make commercial use of the software should contact Salman Burkie to negotiate an appropriate license for such use.
While Salman Burkie is anxious to hear of any problems you may encounter with the software (scrawl@acm.org) and intends to issue periodic maintenance releases, use of the software and its accompanying documentation is at your sole risk. They are provided "AS IS" and without warranty of any kind. SALMAN BURKIE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND AGAINST INFRINGEMENT. SALMAN BURKIE DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, OR THAT THE OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT DEFECTS IN THE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED. FURTHERMORE, SALMAN BURKIE DOES NOT WARRANT OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OR THE RESULTS OF THE USE OF THE SOFTWARE OR ITS DOCUMENTATION IN TERMS OF THEIR CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY SALMAN BURKIE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY OR IN ANY WAY INCREASE THE SCOPE OF THIS WARRANTY. SHOULD THE SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU (AND NOT SALMAN BURKIE) ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE, SHALL SALMAN BURKIE OR HIS AGENTS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION AND THE LIKE) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF SALMAN BURKIE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY.
Last modified: Sunday, 29-Jan-2012 09:48:09 MST
Accesses: [TextCounter Fatal Error: Could Not Write to File /home3/stereoma/www/scrawl/cgi-bin/counter_data/_scr_editor_manual_index_html]
Word-processor for Handwriting
Scrawl Home Page
Please send suggestions, comments and any questions via e-mail to info@scrawl.com.