PKWrite (“Phone Key Write”) by Robert Gasparotto

 

 

              

 

Intro

 

PKWrite is a text entry tool which uses the same system inspired by normal telephone keypads and used as the basis for most cellular/mobile phone key entry - namely 8 alphabetic buttons/keys (namely “ABC”, “DEF”, “GHI”, “JKL”, “MNO”, “PQRS”, “TUV”, “WXYZ”) which are used to capture any word in the device's dictionary. 

 

This is achieved by intelligent "guessing" of what word is intended by the button combinations tapped; e.g. “CAT” could be typed in by typing the “ABC” button, then “ABC” again and lastly “TUV”.    Also, the user can cycle through the available combinations by tapping a special key.  This is necessary because the combination of keys needed to spell “CAT” would also spell “ACT” and “BAT”.

 

PKWrite also provides some extra functionality like cycling through all endings to the current word (i.e. word/phrase completion).

 

Why use PKWrite ?

 

- Text entry similar to that used by most cellular/mobile  phone manufacturers

- Only 8 keys used to type all 26 alphabetic characters

- Intelligent "guessing" of intended words using frequency-based dictionary

- Word completion available

- Layouts optimised for thumb entry

- Left and right-handed layouts included.  Also, different size layouts included (normal and thumb-optimised)

- Copies text automatically to clipboard when exiting PKWrite, which can be pasted into the target application

- Ability to add and remove words from the built in dictionary

- Ability to add and remove phrases from the built in dictionary

- Ability to change the case of all the selected words or current word

- Frequency-based ordering of dictionary words. This is updated constantly as words are chosen.

- 7,000 word dictionary included

- Phrases are catered for as well and can be added/removed from dictionary as well

- Automatic sentence shifting provided (after ‘?’, ‘!’ and ‘.’)

- Phrase/Word completion

Figure 1 - Basic Layout (Right-Handed Small layout)

 

 

 

Type/Spell Mode

 

Typing Area

Exit

Menu drop-down

Onscreen Keyboard

Command Button

Next Ending

Next Word/Letter (and extra layout key)

Backspace

                                     

	Typing Layout button				Selection Tools

 

 

 

 

Figure 2 – Spell Indicator

 

 

Displayed at top-right (under Graffiti indicator)

 

 

Figure 3 – Different Typing Area Layouts (change with Typing Layout button)

 

Layout Number

Figure 4 – Selection Tools screen

 

 

Figure 5 – Key Layout Help (/K)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Compatible Devices/OS’s

 

I have physically tested PKWrite on a Palm Vx as well as a Tungsten T, but it should run on all devices from Palm V onwards.

 

The software needs at least Palm OS 3.5, so Palm III and earlier devices will not run properly. 

 

(Tech Note: Palm III will actually run but since graphical buttons are only introduced from OS 3.5 onwards, the buttons will look like garbage).

 

Demonstration version limitations

 

Since there are a lot of hackers out there and unfortunately a lot of people happy to use hacked software I have been forced to make a demonstration version of the software with limitations rather than provide a full version that has an expiry date or a registration key.  Once payment has been made, a registered version will be available to you.

 

Please be understanding – I know a couple of the limitations may be annoying but I have put a lot of time into developing this product.

 

Limitations

 

No adding/removing of words/phrases is allowed

 

Installing PKWrite

 

Make sure you install the following files onto your palm:

 

1.   Database

 

Install one of the following

 

-          PKWriteDB_UK_English.pdb

-          PKWriteDB_US_English.pdb

 

2.   Application

 

Install one of the following

 

(Demo users)

-          PKWrite_Small_R.prc                - Small(Thumb)-sized layout (right-handed)

-          PKWrite_R.prc                          - Normal-sized layout (right-handed)

-          PKWrite_Small_L.prc                 - Small(Thumb)-sized layout (left-handed)

-          PKWrite_L.prc                           - Normal-sized layout (left-handed)

 

(Registered Users)

-          PKWrite_DEMO_Small_R.prc     - Small(Thumb)-sized layout (right-handed)

-          PKWrite_DEMO_R.prc               - Normal-sized layout (right-handed)

-          PKWrite_DEMO_Small_L.prc     - Small(Thumb)-sized layout (left-handed)

-          PKWrite_DEMO_L.prc               - Normal-sized layout (left-handed)

 

Removing PKWrite

 

Delete the above installed files from your Palm
Using PKWrite

 

Starting up PKWrite

 

Use any freeware launcher tool to launch PKWrite.prc from your current application.  You will see a blank text field when you start up PKWrite.

 

Exiting PKWrite.

Option 1 - PKWrite "Quit" button  

 

Tap the "Quit" button.  You will be asked to confirm. After answering "Yes" you will exit the PKWrite screen and will be returned to your previous application - often to the exact same spot you left (this depends on the application).

 

Option 2 - Application Launcher silkscreen button or other application launcher

 

If you quit PKWrite by switching to another application using the System Application Launcher silkscreen button or hardware buttons or a 3rd Party launcher application you will be launched there rather than your previous app.

 

NOTE:    For both options the text in the PKWrite text field will be copied to the clipboard and can be pasted into another application's text fields.

 

Entering text

 

PKWrite is called Phone Key Write because you type in characters using the same system as most cellular/mobile phones use.  There are basically 8 letter keys (labeled "ABC" to "WXYZ" at the bottom right section of your screen) which are used to type in all 26 alphabetic characters.  Together with different layouts, many other characters can also be typed in (see later section).

 

The way it works is simple.  You basically tap the buttons that have displayed on them the letter you want to type in.  As you type in you will see the current word (highlighted) changing as you type.  You may see what you believe is garbage coming up - don't worry - PKWrite is doing a partial lookup ("guessing") the word you want to type in.  If the word exists in the dictionary, when you type in the final letter of the word, the word should magically appear correctly on the screen.  If it doesn't there are 2 possible reasons why:  the word does not exist in the dictionary - if this is the case you can add the word in Spell mode (later).  The second reason is that another word with the SAME letter combination exists in the dictionary - you can cycle through all these (using the "Next" button) until you get the one you want. 

 

An example is necessary here:

 

Say you want to type in "bat".   This would be done by tapping the following buttons: "ABC", then "ABC" and finally "TUV".  As you type you may see the following combinations coming up: "c", "cc", "act".  Now, act is not the right word but it does use the same combination of letters that "bat" does.  Try to see if "bat" exists by tapping the "Next" button.  You should see "bat" coming up next.  Now you have your word.  Note that the more often you type in a word, the more likely it is that the word will come up first next time, e.g. "bat" will most likely come up next time first.  Obviously if you use "bat" and "act" as often as each  other, there will be a 50% chance of either coming up next time :-)

 

Typing Modes

 

There are 2 modes of entering text in PKWrite: Type Mode (to type using words/phrases that are already in the dictionary) and Spell Mode (adding new words/phrases to the dictionary)

 

A “word” is defined in PKWrite as a continuous string of Alphabetic (a-z) characters.  E.g. “hello” is a word, “123” is not and neither is “hello123”.

A “phrase” is a continuous stream of words (defined previously) separated by spaces.

 

The way the mode is shown in 2 ways:

 

Type Mode:

- the Type/Spell Mode button shows “Spell” – this indicates that when you tap on the button you will go to Spell Mode (see Figure 1)

- the Spell Indicator is blank (see Figure 2)

 

Spell Mode:

- the Type/Spell Mode button shows “Type” – this indicates that when you tap on the button you will go to Type Mode (see Figure 1)

- the Spell Indicator shows an “S” (see Figure 2)

 

* Type Mode:

 

In this mode, you will type words using the PKWrite dictionary.  Should the word/phrase  not exist you can add to the dictionary in Spell Mode (see next section)

 

The buttons you will generally use are:

 

In Typing Area (see Figure 1):

-          “____” – space

-          “ABC”, “DEF”, “GHI”, “JKL”, “MNO”, “PQRS”, “TUV”, “WXYZ” – letter combination buttons

(Note: if you are in a different layout, instead of “next”,“____”, “ABC”-“WXYZ” you would see other layouts instead –see Figure 2)

“next” – Cycle through full/partial word combinations

“+ . . .” -  Cycle through word/phrase endings

 - Delete previous character

 

Note: Word/Phrase completion only works with alphabetic words/phrases

 

Here is a basic example to show you how typing works:

 

We will type in “goodbye cruel world”

 

-          Open PKWrite

-          Make sure that the layout is the alphabetic one (tap the Change Layout button  until the alphabetic layout appears (Figure 3)

-          Make sure that we are in Typing Mode (the “Spell/Type” button will say “Spell”

-          Tap the following buttons in order:

o        Tap “GHI”, “MNO”, “MNO” “DEF” – the word “good should be highlighted

o        To show how PKWrite can cycle through combinations, tap the “next” button – you should see various other words come up with that button combination.  Keep tapping until “good” comes up again.

o        Tap “ABC”, “WXYZ”, “DEF” – the word “Goodbye” should appear

o        Tap “___” – this will unhighlight “goodbye” and make a space

o        Tap “ABC”, “PQRS”, “TUV” – the word “cru” should be highlighted

o        To show how to get PKWrite to autocomplete, tap the “+ . . .” button – the word “cruel should appear.  Keep tapping to cycle through all the options until you get to “cruel” again. 

o        Tap “___” – this will unhighlight “cruel” and make a space

o        Tap “WXYZ”, “MNO”, “PQRS”, “JKL”, “DEF” – “world” should appear

o        You are done.

 

To type in other symbols, tap the Change Layout button .  Remember that in other layouts, there is no guessing/completion of words/phrases since the characters are not alphabetic (a-z).

You will notice that as soon as you type in a non-alphabetic character after a word, only that character becomes highlighted.

 

Note: the “enter” and “tab” buttons in layout 2 will perform a carriage return and a tab for you.

Note: the “next “ button is replaced by other characters when you cycle through the different layouts

 

As an example, let’s put a period at the end of the sentence. 

 

Tap the Change Layout button until you see the layout with a period (layout 2).  Tap the period button – a “.” should appear highlighted.

 

* Spelling Mode

 

This mode is used to add words and phrases to the dictionary.  One would spell out a word or phrase, select it using the selection functions (or stylus) and then choose an add function from the Selection Tools (see next section for details).

 

In this mode, 2 things are different to Type Mode:

-          when tapping the “next “ button, only the LAST letter is cycled through (this only applies to alphabetic characters again)

-          no “guessing” of words happens by PKWrite since it assumes you are typing up a new word anyway

 

An example:

 

We would like to add the word “fraggle” to the dictionary.

 

Make sure that PKWrite is in Spell Mode:  the Spell Indicator shows an “S” (see Figure 2), the “Spell/Type” button shows “Type”.  If it says “Spell” tap it again.

 

Tap the following:

-          Tap “DEF”.  Tap “next” until the “d” becomes an “f”

-          Tap “PQRS”.  Tap “next” until the “p” becomes an “r”

-          Tap “ABC”. 

-          Tap “GHI”.

-          Tap “GHI”.

-          Tap “JKL”.  Tap “next” until the “j” becomes an “l”

-          Tap “DEF”.  Tap “next” until the “d” becomes an “e”

-          Tap the Selection Tools button

-          Tap on “Add Words” – the word should be now added

 

 

 

Button Functions (detail)

 

* "+..." button (Cycle through endings for current word)

 

-          Type Mode:

o        This will cycle through all the possible endings (phrases/words) for the current word

o        If there are no matching words/phrases, nothing will appear to happen on the screen

-          Spell Mode:

o        Nothing happens           

 

* "Next" button (Cycle through combinations)

 

-          Type Mode:

o        This will cycle through all the possible combinations of words with the same button combination

o        If there are no matching words, nothing will appear to happen on the screen

o        No phrases will be matched by this button – use the “+ . . .” button instead to match phrases

-          Spell Mode:

o        PKWrite will cycle through all letter combinations for the the last alphabetic character of the word

o        Non-alphabetic characters will not be cycled through

 

* “ABC”-“WXYZ”

-          These buttons are used to type in alphabetic words/phrases

* Delete Previous character button    

-          This button will delete the character to the left of the cursor position – will in fact delete currently selected character if highlighted

* "Change Case" button  - this will toggle between the following different cases

 

-          Lower case (no graffiti shift shown by the graffiti shift indicator at the top-right of the screen)

-          Title case , i.e. first character of words is upper case while rest of word is lower case (graffiti shift indicator shows normal shift mode)

-          Upper case , i.e. all characters are in upper case (graffiti shift indicator shows a Caps-Lock symbol)

 

Note that the graffiti shift indicator is shown on the top-right section of the screen. 

The case state has the following rules:

- if you change the case before entering a word, the next word will be in that case

- when PKWrite is first started up, the case wil be automatically set to title case

- as soon as a non-alphabetic character (or space) is entered, the case mode will change automatically to lower case.

- if there are multiple words selected when the button is tapped, ALL alphabetic characters in the selection will change to the new case

- only alphabetic characters are affected by the "Change Case" button

 - merely selecting text manually will not change the case of the selected text, the "Change Case" button itself will have to be tapped to achieve this.

 

"Change Layout" button 

 

-          When you tap this button, the Typing Area (see Figure 1)  will change appearance to one of the layouts shown in Figure 3

-          For Layout 1 (layout number is blank at the top-right of the screen), only alphabetic characters are portrayed.  Also, multiple characters re displayed on each button

-          For Layouts 2 through 5, other characters are shown on the buttons – only one per button

-          The Layout number is visible at the top-right of the screen (see Figure 3)

-          When the button is tapped at Layout 5, the layout will start at 1 (ABC) again.

 

"Selection Tools" button  

 

-          When you tap this button the Selection Tools screen appears (Figure 4). 

-          Operations:

o        “Cancel” button  - cancel without doing any operation

o        “Select All” – select the entire text field – this is good for adding the entire text as new words or as a phrase

o        “Delete Selection” – deletes all selected text.  To delete the entire text field, do a “Select All” followed by a “Delete Selection”

o        “Add Words” – adds the selection as a collection of different words – only if the words already exist they will not be added. Only alphabetic words are considered

o        “Rem Words” – removes the selection as a collection of different words – if the words already exist will they be removed. Only alphabetic words are considered

o        “Add Phrase” – adds the selection as a collection of different words to form a phrase – if the phrase already exists it will not be added. Only alphabetic words separated by spaces are considered.  Make sure that you select no leading spaces for a phrase.  E.g. “ hello there” is bad – “hello there” is good.

o        “Rem Phrase” – removes the collection of words as a phrase (if it exists).

           

"Keyboard" button  

 

-          This launches the onscreen keyboard (or replacement keyboard if you have one installed).  Note that the text field must have the focus for the keyboard to appear.  If it does not appear just tap in the text field so that the cursor blinks.  Then tap the button again.

 

 

"Command” button   

 

-          This launches the command bar (which you would launch normally by doing a diagonal slash (/) in the graffiti area)

 

 

"Menu" button   

 

-          This drops down the top menu bar for you.  You would normally have to tap the menu silkscreen button to activate the menu.

 

 

Functions - via the Menu

 

"Edit->Undo" - Standard Palm Undo of last edit action

 

"Edit->Copy" - Standard Palm text copy to clipboard

 

"Edit->Cut" - Standard Palm text cut to clipboard

 

"Edit->Paste" - Standard Palm text paste from clipboard

 

"Edit->Select All" - Standard Palm selection of all field text

 

"Edit-> Sel Info" - this function shows the following information

    - "Total Chars" - this is the total number of characters selected (alpha and non-alpha)

    - "Total Words" - this is the total number of words (alphabetic chars only) that are found in the selected text.   Remember that only alphabetic words can be added to the dictionary.

    - "In Dict" - this shows you the number of alphabetic words (see "Total Words" previously) that actually exist in the dictionary at the moment.  Should you choose to add the selection to the dictionary (via the "Selection Tools" button) the words that will be added should be "Total Words" - "In Dict" since that would represent the words that are selected but not in the dictionary. Remember that only words that are NOT in the dictionary wil be added.

 

"Tools->Reset Freq" - this will reset all the frequency counts in the dictionary.  What this in effect means is that PKWrite will consider no word more important than any other when "guessing" the intended words.  It will have to start customising itself to your most used words all over again. Also, since this operation could take a while to do, use it with caution.

 

"Tools->Dict Info" - this option will show you the total number of words currently in the dictionary.

 

"Help->Keys" - this will show you the Key Layouts

 

"Help->Tips" - this will show you a list of tips

 

"Help->Functions"  - this will show you a basic function help text

 

"Help->About" - this will show you build information about PKWrite.

 

Tips

 

* Tap the layout button 3 times to get the numeric layout

 

* You can see the layout number at the top-right of the screen ("ABC" layout is shown as blank, screens 2 to 5 will show "2" to "5" so you know where you are.

 

* When in Spell mode, you will see a "S" at the top-right of the screen.

 

* If you want to spell a new word which is an extension of a word you are busy typing in just switch to spelling mode WHILE when you have typed in the whole word that does exist.  Then type the extension to the word and add the selection as a new word.  e.g. if you have the word "clever" in the dictionary and you want to add the word cleverest, just type in "clever" using Type mode and then while "clever" is highlighted, enter Spell mode ("S" will appear at top-right).  While in Spell mode, type in "est" and then add to dictionary via the Selection Tools.

 

* If, as you type, you see that the word that you think is in the dictionary is not starting to form, i.e. the letters being added to the end of the word are the first letters of the buttons, the odds are that the word is not in the dictionary.  A quick test of this is to tap on the Endings button ("+...") and see if there are any endings found - if there are then the word exists otherwise it does not

 

* If you have an expansion card you might want to store all the layouts you would want to use there.  When you want to use a specific layout you copy that version of PKWrite to RAM.  This assumes of course that you are running PKWrite from RAM.

 

* A good use for phrases is people's names - e.g. "Joe Bloggs".  Also for corporations, e.g. "Chase Manhattan Bank"

 

* When using phrases, try to keep the first word longer than 2 letters e.g. use "matter of fact" rather than "as a matter of fact".  This is because when you type in the first letters of a phrase and hit the Endings button ("+..."), you want the list of items to go through to be as small as possible.  If you had "as a matter of fact" as a phrase, you would have to type in "as" and then hit the button - obviously there are many words and phrases starting with "as".  If you had rather "matter of fact" as a phrase and typed in  "matt" before hitting the button, you would get "matter of fact" pretty quickly

 

* Phrases can only be retrieved using the Endings button ("+...") with the first word of the phrase entered.  As soon as you type in a space, you can no longer retrieve the phrase.  Thus it is a good idea to keep the first word of the phrase bigger than 2 or 3 letters

Known Bugs/Issues

 

1.  DateBK5 - when doing a new ToDo,  clicking on Details and then, without typing anything, launching PKWrite.  This results in a crash.  To work around this, remember to type at least one character before launching PKWrite.