.KEYWORD tjot
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Move over Graffiti: It’s Jot!
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY In the second of our special feature reviews, contributing editor Bob Freud reviews Jot, another replacement handwriting recognition program for the PalmPilot organizer. Jot is the handwriting recognizer used on many Windows CE devices and is now available for PalmPilot device users. How does Jot stack up? Will it make using your PalmPilot easier? Using Jot, do Windows CE users have it better? You’ll need to read this article to find out.
.AUTHOR Bob Freud
It’s the OS, stupid! That’s what makes the Palm organizer superior to WinCE machines. It’s lean, mean, and doesn’t try to be all things to all users. And yet, superior as we believe our platform of choice to be, many of us still read reviews of WinCE machines (and have even been known to try them out in computer stores). Once we were smug and more than satisfied, but then rumblings of a new Graffiti-like input system were heard and many Pilot enthusiasts wondered, "Could it be better than Graffiti?"
For many of us, this input system, which is called Jot, was only of theoretical interest until the folks at CIC ported it to the Palm Computing Platform. One night in August, Palm organizer enthusiasts discovered that Jot for the Palm device was available for $39.00.
.H1 What is Jot?
Jot is a essentially a replacement for Graffiti, the handwriting input system used on the PalmPilot. Developed by CIC, it is the handwriting input system of choice on WinCE machines. Although this is a dubious distinction, occasionally the dark side does get things right. Many Mac users may remember drooling over Windows ability to use ALT + Tab to quickly switch between open applications.
If you have used Graffiti, then you already understand the basics of jot. You input text in the Graffiti area, but unlike Graffiti, you may also input text anywhere on the screen. This is similar to the shareware program Screenwrite. When you input text on the screen, you see the outline of letter you are writing as you write it (much like the program TealEcho or handwriting entry on the Newton). I have found this helpful in improving accuracy, but after I have become reasonably proficient, I wish there were a way to turn this feature off. As in Graffiti, letters are input on the left side of the screen and numbers are input on the right side of the screen. Unlike Graffiti, the area in the center of the screen, indicated by a pair of up and down zones in the Graffiti box, is used to create capital letters.
.H1 Benefits of Jot
Should you buy Jot? The comparatively hefty $39 price alone will certainly discourage many users. I don’t think that $39 for a piece of software which might dramatically improve my Palm Computing experience is a lot of money, but with the Palm hardware being so reasonably priced, many of us have a mindset that most programs should cost between $12-19 dollars. Go figure! CIC has a 30 day money-back return policy if you are not completely satisfied. As of this writing, no demo was available for Jot, but the need for one was being discussed. The most obvious benefit of Jot for users who have not learned the Graffiti system is that it uses a character set closer to that of "normal handwritten" English. New users should be able to get up to speed more quickly using Jot than using Graffiti, as shown in Figure A. When jot is installed, those characters peculiar to Graffiti (like the loop k or one stroke t) cannot be used. You can, however, keep Jot installed but turn Graffiti off.
.FIGPAIR A New users should be able to get up to speed more quickly using Jot than using Graffiti.
A real plus is that Jot makes it very easy to access extended characters (symbols, etc). For the most part, I had given up on entering most extended characters in Graffiti, and I usually wind up popping up the virtual keyboard. It is not that the Graffiti shortcuts in themselves are difficult. It is just that they are not memorable, as shown in Table A. With Jot installed, in most cases I just write Jot’s shortcut gesture (a vertical line written from bottom to top) and draw the character I want. With a fairly intuitive way to access the extended character set, I would be more inclined to include them in what I’m writing.
.BEGIN_TAB_TABLE Table A Here is a comparison of some extended characters in Graffiti and in Jot.
.TAB_TABLE_HEADER Symbol Graffiti Jot
.TAB_TABLE_ROW @ Dot + backwards o Shortcut + @
.TAB_TABLE_ROW & Dot + 8 Shortcut + Ampersand Symbol
.TAB_TABLE_ROW $ Backslash + S Shortcut + $ (S drawn first, line drawn second)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Trademark Dot + backwards N Shortcut + TM
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Yen Backslash Y Shortcut + Y with two lines through it
.END_TAB_TABLE
I really like the way capital letters are written in Jot. Each one saves me a stroke in comparison to Graffiti. To write a Jot capital letter, write the letter in the area between the letters and the numbers in the Graffiti writing area.
Included in the Jot application is an animated tutorial. Rather than merely showing the letter/character forms available, the tutorial shows an animation of how each character is written. I found this helpful, but some users have complained that the animation is too quick and would like a way to control the speed. The downside for me is that once I have learned the basics of Jot, I want to be able to see a quick reference guide and NOT have to see an animation each time. CIC are you listening? I also wonder how much of that 115k is being taken up by the tutorial.
.H1 Negatives of Jot
The biggest downside of Jot for people who have been using their Palm platform machine for any length of time is that many of the characters which we make automatically in Graffiti are not available in Jot. True to their association with everything Windows, the Jot folks consider this a feature rather than a flaw.
On the Jot section of the CIC web page, the banner touting the superiority of Jot shows the "bizarre" Graffiti characters like K, Y, and T. Actually, I find these one-stroke characters easy to write. I’d be a much more ardent supporter of Jot if they were available, even as variants of the main forms.
Consider also your memory requirements. The program is HUGE: 115 kb. You have to compare this with 0K required for Graffiti (included in the Palm OS ROM). After using Jot for only a short time, I started to notice that the Jot recognizer is noticeably slower than Graffiti. Try the letter h in both Jot and Graffiti and you will notice a slight lag after the Jot version.
Another gripe is that because Jot is an application, its reference is not always readily available–unless, of course, you have SwitchHack installed. SwitchHack is a marvelous hack, which let’s you switch back and forth between the last two accessed applications.
.H1 Speed demons
So, is Jot actually faster? Will it speed up your writing? In carefully controlled experiments conducted by me, I couldn’t tell. My impression was that the speed factor was about the same for Jot as for Graffiti, but I wound up being more accurate in Jot. The virtual keyboard was always faster than Jot or Graffiti and incredibly accurate. I don’t think the great American PalmPilot novel is going to be written in Graffiti or Jot (and I would be afraid to read it if the author had actually pecked it out using the virtual keyboard). Although both Graffiti and Jot represent a significant improvement over the early Newton handwriting recognition, I find them tiring for entering anything more than a sentence or three.
.H1 Who needs Jot?
The primary audience for Jot is probably people who are new to the Palm computing platform and are reluctant to learn Graffiti. Since these folks have not spent several months or a year learning Graffiti strokes, they will not have mental interference from Graffiti when writing the Jot strokes.
However, short of a deal between 3Com and CIC, these are the very users who will probably never discover Jot. Let’s face it. Most Palm device users never download a single piece of software and use the device as it comes from the factory.
The other audience are those hard-core Palm device users who are looking for one more way to soup up their organizers while maximizing its inherent benefits.
So, which is it to be: Jot or Graffiti? Different strokes for different folks.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Jot is available at http://www.cic.com/.
Switchhack is available at http://www.deskfree.com/SwitchHack.html.
Screenwrite is available at http://www.inkverse.com/.
TealEcho is available at http://www.tealpoint.com/.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Bob Freud is an active PalmPilot enthusiast and a Computer Communications Consultant specializing in Web Design and Multilingual Computing. He can be reached via email at quick@intac.com. Learn more about Freud Consulting at http://www.intac.com/~quick.
.DISCUSS http://www.component-net.com/webx?13@@.ee6c1f7
