CellWriter

CellWriter is a grid-entry natural handwriting input panel. As you write characters into the cells, your writing is instantly recognized at the character level. When you press 'Enter' on the panel, the input you entered is sent to the currently focused application as if typed on the keyboard.

Please see the website for more information: http://risujin.org/cellwriter

Michael Levin risujin@risujin.org

Reporting bugs

If you find a bug, please follow this checklist:

1.) Check the program website (above) to make sure you are using the latest version and see if your problem is already described under the Support section.

2.) Make sure your system is running up-to-date stable versions of the X-server (X11 7.2 at the moment) and supporting libraries. Instabilities in supporting software can cause CellWriter to crash. These issues are further difficult to work around.

3.) Please find reliable steps to reproduce the problem. Run CellWriter with the following arguments to produce a log file:

    $ cellwriter --log-level=7 --log-file=cellwriter.log

4.) If you are experiencing crashes and the log file simply says something like "Caught signal 11, cleaning up", it would be very helpful if you could try and find the exact location of the fault with a debugger. You will need to install gdb (the GNU debugger) and compile the latest CellWriter source code (see notes on compiling below). Once you have done so, start gdb from the source directory:

    $ gdb ./cellwriter

Enter 'r' to start the program. Try and reproduce the crash conditions.
When the program crashes, gdb will print out the location of the fault in
the source code. It looks something like this:

    GNU gdb 6.6.90.20070912-debian
    ...
    (gdb) r
    Starting program: /home/.../cellwriter-1.2.5/cellwriter
    ...
    Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
    [Switching to Thread 0xb701d6b0 (LWP 5419)]
    0x08050863 in main (argc=1, argv=0xbfda35a4) at src/main.c:694
    694             g_print("%s", error->message);
    (gdb)

Save this output and send it to me via email. This is the fastest way to
help me fix a crash bug because it's difficult for me to fix crash
conditions that don't occur on my computer.

5.) Send me an email (address listed above). Please include any relevant information about your computer or handheld device (distribution, Xorg version, Wacom driver version, etc). Don't forget to attach your log file!

Notes on compiling

CellWriter is packaged with Autotools. To compile and install use:

    ./configure && make && make install

If you are NOT planning to install the software but want to run it from the source directory, you need to configure CellWriter to use the local data directory. When you run the configure script, pass the absolute path to the 'share' subdirectory to the script:

    ./configure --datadir=/home/[user]/.../cellwriter/share

If you do not do this, CellWriter will not be able to load the tray icon or the word frequency file.

CellWriter has additional compile-time flags. To see what they are, type:

    ./configure --help

Embedding in GNOME Screensaver

With the 1.3 series, CellWriter can be embedded into GNOME Screensaver. To enable this functionality you will need to open the GNOME Configuration Editor:

    gconf-editor

Open the GNOME Screensaver entry (/apps/gnome-screensaver/) and set the 'embedded_keyboard_command' key to the the CellWriter path and executable name with the '--xid' and '--keyboard-only' flags appended:

    /usr/bin/cellwriter --xid --keyboard-only

Check the 'embedded_keyboard_enabled' option and CellWriter should be embedded in keyboard-only mode (for security) within GNOME Screensaver next time it starts.

Currently, CellWriter cannot open the Options dialog or enter training mode while embedded.

Recognition results format

If you want to know more about what the recognition engine is doing under the hood, start CellWriter from a console with the debug logging level (cellwriter --log-level=7) and detailed information will be printed to standard out after a character is recognized. Here is some sample output:

Recognized -- 71/87 (81%) disqualified, 21ms (1ms/symbol), 37% strong 'k' ( 100 [30587], 100 [32722], 69 [21491], 33 [ 17]) 79% [000---012] 'K' ( 58 [29191], 38 [32672], 100 [26191], 0 [ 0]) 42% [012---000] 'M' ( 77 [29845], 4 [32645], -2 [10154], 0 [ 0]) 16% [000R--012] 'P' ( 15 [27757], -12 [32631], 52 [18831], 0 [ 0]) 8% [011--R001] 'd' ( 45 [28759], -8 [32634], -23 [ 6823], 0 [ 0]) 2% [000RR-102]

The top stat shows how many samples were disqualified before performing detailed recognition (71). Next is the total time of recognition in milliseconds (21ms). Strength is defined as the match strength of the first result minus the second (79% - 42% = 37% strong).

For each letter, the ratings of the four recognition engines are displayed in normalized (0-100) and raw form (in brackets, [0-32767]). From left to right are the preprocessor, average distance, average angle, and word context engines. After the engine ratings is the post-penalty strength. Lastly is the mapping transformation in brackets.

The mapping transformation describes how the preprocessor mapped a symbol with more strokes onto a symbol with less strokes. The first set of columns describe which stroke on the larger symbol was mapped to which stroke on the smaller symbol. The next set of columns indicate whether any stroke was reversed ('R'). If any two or more strokes on the larger symbol were mapped to the same stroke on the smaller symbol, the column set on the end indicates the order in which the strokes were glued together.

In the example above, a sample for the character 'k' was rated highest by the preprocessor, average distance, and word frequency engines, but only second-highest by the average angle distance. After penalties, it had a strength of 79%, 37% above 'K', and was constructed by gluing together the three input strokes in order without reversal.

Controlling via FIFO

Since 1.3, CellWriter will watch its FIFO (~/.cellwriter/fifo) for input. The main window can be controlled by writing one character to the fifo file.

To show the main window:

    $ echo -n S > ~/.cellwriter/fifo

To hide the main window:

    $ echo -n H > ~/.cellwriter/fifo

To toggle the main window:

    $ echo -n T > ~/.cellwriter/fifo

Thanks

Big thanks to Nelson A. de Oliveira for his continuing support!