I have a Zire 71, which comes with Graffiti 2. I wasn’t that fond of the original Graffiti, which apparently Palm had to abandon after a patent-infringement lawsuit from Xerox. But I find Graffiti 2 hateful, nasty, evil, foul, and very very very wrong and bad.
Are there alternatives? Something that’s closer to true handwriting recognition? I tell you, this thing is driving me batty. Oh, and I’m really not interested in plugging in other do-dads, the whole point of a PDA is that it’s compact - which to me means no keyboards, regardless of how foldable.
Do a search on the brighthand.com forums for the tungsten t3. They were able to reinstall old graffiti 1 libraries on a graffiti 2 palm and it works fine.
If you’re not averse to spending $30, another option is Decuma OnSpot. Sony bundled a version of this app. with their latest PDAs, and from all that I’ve heard, people like it a lot.
Do a web search on “MessagEase.” It’s an ‘alternate’ keyboard with only about 12 keys: Some letters you get by tapping on a key, the rest (plus all punctuation and special symbols) you get by dragging a short line from one key in the direction of another. What makes it much easier than the usual virtual keyboards is that the keys are nice and big and easy to hit. After a bit of practice I was up to 30 wpm input using a stylus.
BTW, there are several versions of the program.
MessagEase itself uses the full screen for input, then you cut and paste into applications. Free, but awkward to use on an on-going basis.
MessagEaseKb is a hack that replaces your usual keyboard, and you input directly into any application. Also free, and my favorite.
MessagEaseST uses a small printed overlay to show the keyboard down in the area you usually graffiti. This version has a fee, and comes in a zillion variations for different models of PDAs and phones. Since the input area is so small – and my eyesight is bad – this didn’t work at all for me.
A somewhat similar program is “Fitaly” – but all versions of that are fee, I think.
All of the above listed programs are ok, but you still have to adjust to that particular writing style. If you really want something that can be customized to your own writing style, look at TealScript by TealSoft. This is one powerful program. You can use the default stroke library and get Grafiti 1 back, or go and adjust it to fit your own writing style.
I use it exclusively and have had no problems with it. Plus TealPoint has a great reputation for putting out good solid software that doesn’t break your wallet.
