[NTLK] Re - FITALY

From: Frank Gruendel (fg2_at_pda-soft.de)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 18:26:11 EST


>What enhancements have they done that make it so different?

1) For the Palm it comes in two versions, one that works with
a sticker on which a keyboard is printed which you stick on the
area below the Palm's screen (where Graffiti lives), one with
an on-screen keyboard. Especially the sticker version is perfect
because the keyboard doesn't use screen space.

2) Sliding (drawing a tiny line starting on the key outwards).
Sliding is just as fast as tapping in real life.
This is about the best invention since the wheel I
think. As an example for the letter "a":
Tapping prints "a".
Sliding right prints "A". No need for a shift key anymore,
one tap less for every word starting with a capital letter.
Caps key redundant, too, you can just concentrate on what you
write, not how you write it.
Sliding up prints the german umlaut ("a" with two dots on top).
Since some time they introduced custom sliding. Custom sliding
lets you, for every key, specify 8 directions (top-left, top,
top-right, right, ...) and what will be printed. Thus
sliding our letter "a" left on my palm prints @, a letter I regularely
have problems finding on on-screen and other keyboards.
Sliding the letter e left prints my email address.
Sliding either of the two space keys is <Backspace>, something
frequently needed that on normal keyboards is about
as far away from the most frequently used keys as you can get.

3) The onscreen version realizes that it should place itself elswhere
if required, you always can see where you write without
having to move it around all the time.

4) About two dozens of other good ideas..

> How long was your learning curve?

Very short. I mean, this is not a keyboard where you have look
around to find a key. You always see *all* keys at the same
time. And once you realize how much time you save because
they grouped the most frequently used keys close together and
the least frequently used in the corners, you are hooked anyway.
At least, I was. I still wish I had the Palm version of Fitaly on
my Netwon.
There again, maybe some day I will? Not only Fitaly, but the
Palm emulation as well? That would be the day.

Frank

-- Newton Hardware and Software at http://www.pda-soft.de

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