[maemo-developers] Using graphic input for user input, filenames etc.

[From: Andrew Daviel]

A suggestion for tablet GUI/applications:

I'd like to be able to enter a scribble directly as an input field (FYI, 
one could do this in NCSA Mosaic - "jot", as I recall). And I'd like to 
be able to use a scribble as a filename.


I was trying to add a mark to a GPS track in Maemo Mapper, on an N810 in 
the vehicle mount. I.e. trying to use the handwriting recognizer rather 
than removing the tablet from the mount and opening the keyboard.
I didn't need it to be 100% correct, I just needed to be able to read it 
myself later. Which is not so easy; it tends to read my "Gate" as "9ot 3" 
or something.

Then I realized that if I could just save the actual handwriting, rather 
than trying to get it recognized, it would save a lot of trouble (OK, bad 
example, GPX requires UTF8, but you get the idea. Or scribbles could be 
escaped to text for transport).
Ditto for "save file as". If one is using a GUI file selector, which 
shows files graphically as icons, then using a scribble as the icon is a 
natural extension. If the computer stores the name internally as some 
255-byte value, the user doesn't care - as long as it can be renamed or 
used as-is in the GUI.

We abandoned 8+3 filenames, we abandoned ASCII, maybe we can abandon 
text. Photos as filenames ? Sound clips for the blind ?

-- 
Andrew Daviel, TRIUMF, Canada