InkGestures is continuing to come along.
Over the last couple months a handful of people have been trying out a limited beta version of the InkGestures Addin for Microsoft Word 2003 and now we’re ready to try a few more. Thanks everyone for all your feedback!
The biggest thing I’ve learned in the beta testing so far is that Microsoft Office addins can be quite tempermental. If you don’t mind living on the wild side, maybe you’d like to try out the InkGestures addin too and let us know what you think. If you’re contemplating trying the addin, however, it’s important to realize that this is beta software and that there can be some significant hassles. The biggest problems so far have been in terms of getting the correct shared Office files properly set up on systems (called the Primary Interop Assemblies, PIAs). If you performed a complete install of Office, you’ll probably be set and everything will go smoothly. If you’ve performed a partial or “typical” install of Office 2003 or have previously installed and uninstalled some other Office Addins, you may or may not encounter some problems. As you can tell, your mileage may vary. If you do have some problems, I’ll try to help you through it. If do you give it a go, feel free to post here, email me at lorenheiny at hotmail dot com, or blog your thoughts.
You can find the InkGestures download at www.InkGestures.com. On the download page is a time-limited version that will expire on May 15, 2006. The readme online and in the setup file contains a list of known issues.
One last thing. This is still beta code, so for now, please don’t pass the code around.
I hope you find it as enjoyable to use as I’ve had working on it.
Update: Ink gesture support in Outlook is not functioning in this build. Thanks Warner for pointing the problem out.
Update #2: The problem with Outlook and InkGestures is more substantial than we thought earlier. It turns out that if you create or edit an email in Outlook (Outlook uses Word as the editor by default), then the InkGestures addin will no longer function in Word. We’re working on the problem. You’ll probably want to wait until we have this fixed before downloading the InkGestures beta–unless you don’t use Outlook in which case it doesn’t matter.
Update #3: I’ve uploaded an update to the InkGestures Addin at www.InkGestures.com. It’s Version 1.0.9. This build has addressed the Outlook problem on all but one of the Tablets we’ve tested.
Great job. All seems to be working fine here at the moment.
Glad to hear! Thanks Warner. Let me know what you think.
I think this is an utterly amazing piece of software. Be prepared for a review gushing with compliments from me, when you’re ready to let it out. While trying it out, I literally said “Wow!…Oh my gosh!….Woah! Cool!”
I see that I can make a period by making a dot where I want it, but I guess a comma is either on the way or not do-able?
Also, I’m having a hard time figuring out the insert gesture. Could you include a video on the demo page with what exactly you can do with it?
Major congrats on a great product! You could charge $100 a pop and still sell a million (not that I suggest it ^_^ I’m broke as it is)!
Wow – installed fined (after reading the FAQ regarding the DLLs), and works like a charm.
One idea (even though it is not an editing issue): When using a keyboard, I’ve gotten into the habit of doing the “ctrl-s” save command after a bout of editing. In tablet mode, it would be great to have a gesture that would do that (instead of having to click on File>save).
I’ll be trying it out in a meeting today where a group will be “tweaking” a draft.
Will this work with Word 12? I moved to Office 12 on the tablet and would love to give it a spin.
InkGestures doesn’t support Office 12 Beta yet, but we’re working on it.
It looks great! I had a little trouble with the italics, even after watching the video, but I’ve got it down, now. I thought I’d see how it worked with ritePen. I wasn’t too surprised to see that it doesn’t work with ritePen, because I’m used to having to make allowances for rP (that wasn’t always the case). However, I was surprised to see that rP must actually be exited to use the gestures properly, or else all gestures work on only one word; it isn’t enough simply to turn off rP’s pen. I’m really going to have to stop putting off that effort to contact EN.
So, Word 12 isn’t supported but hare you come across any issues where Word 12 being installed prevents it from working in 2003?
I’ve got both on my Tablet + no gestures. The updated SystemState.exe reports all ok but still no dice.
Will the changes made through InkGestures show up as optional changes in Word’s Track Changes?
I edit for clients who want to see how I changed their original work, thus the need for Track Changes.