After a little chat with Tene from xda-developers.net, I suddenly realised that the performance problems could be easily solved my making the keyboard a little bit less tolerant to errors.

So I adjusted a single variable, compiled the version, and ... Now it even runs smooth on my emulator...

You can download the version here :

coreInput12.zip (67,25 KB)

I have a new version of the intelligent keyboard for Windows Mobile 5/6 available. In this version, I use a smaller dictionary (15000 english words), and I have improved the performance as well.

Currently the demo application supports :
- AZERTY, QWERTY & Number keyboard layouts
- tactile feedback (a sound gets played each time you press a button)
- intelligent word prediction (the words get chosen based on the position of the letters on the keyboard, so while you press 'I', the keyboard will also consider other letters like 'UOJKL', but they get a lower ranking.

In order to use it you need to have windows mobile 5 or 6, together with the .net compact framework version 2.0 installed. Simply unzip the zip file, and start the 'coreinput.exe' on your PDA.

Please let me know what you think about this, by providing comments. It seems like over a hundred people have downloaded it, but so far I only got 3 reactions from users on this forum.

Future improvements :
- Better performance
- Skinning support
- Integrating the contact's names in the dictionary, as well as other custom words.

You can download the latest version here :

coreInput1.zip (67,24 KB)

For further instructions I would like to refer to the related posts.

I have been extending my former iPhone UI input simulations further, and migrated the intelligent thumb keyboard part to windows mobile 6 :

Some examples of wrong keyboard input, while the expected result was still first match :

• SURROGATE (input text : XUERMFSRE )
• TWEAKER (input text : YSRALDR )
• ABSOLUTE BEGINNER (input text : ZHDIMYTR JRHOKKER)

It does run on the emulator, but it seems to be a little slow. It would be interesting if YOU could test it yourself on a real windows mobile 5 device, and test the performance. Please download and test it yourself, and leave me a comment about it.

Since it is only a prototype, I am of course open to suggestions. Some things on my todo list :

• Support for caps/non-letters
• Convert it into a WM5 keyboard plugin
• make it skinnable
• support extra dictionaries
• allow the user to add words.
• SPEED & memory usage improvements (currently uses about 12,7MB, no idea about the speed)

The windows version of the former program has also been adapted and the gesture part has been improved :

You can now define if a mouse gesture has to be located in a certain place, and if the size of the gesture is important by clicking on it and modifying the parameters.

Downloads:

You can download the Windows Mobile 5 version here (just unzip and copy the exe to your device, and execute it from there):

Download for windows mobile 5 : coreInput.zip (253,25 KB)

The Windows Version can be found here (unzip & run)

Download for Windows PC : IphoneMockup12.zip (258,87 KB)

You require .Net 2.0 runtimes on both of the platforms to run the app.
If you want to you can also run the WM5 version from your pc too.

Some implementation details :

• Knows +/- 75000 English words.
• Uses a self-developped DAWG-like structure to reduce memory usage and improve performance.
• Gesture system is still orientation dependent, but could be easily made oriëntation independent.
• Currently the source code is written preferring clarity over speed & memory usage

And finally :

Please comment !! Give me your opinion, either good or bad !!!
Also not that the windows mobile version might take a little while to load.

Since there was an unhandled exception reported by a user and I found the cause of the exception, I posted on update from my original article.

Get it here : IPhone UI study : keyboard text input and gestures mock up

Updated !!!
Somebody in stated in a comment he got an exception. I finally found the cause of it, and updated the application. Download the new version below, and be sure to refresh your browser cache

While looking at a few you tube videos about the iPhone, especially regarding the keyboard/text input, I was thinking : hey, why wouldn't I try to replicate the iPhone UI behavior ? I don't think it  should be that hard ...

Being able to use your fingers on a PDA instead of a stylus would improve the usability of handhelds a lot.

So yesterday I started developing, and after a few hours I had basic gesture recognition, and I got a few ideas on how to do the keyboard mapping.

Finally this is the result :

The demo mainly consists of two parts :

The gestures :

• Draw a gesture in the designated area.
• Define a name in the text box and press the 'Add...' button to add a gesture to the list
• Every time you draw a gesture the closest match to the registered gestions will be visible under 'Last recognized gesture'

The text input :

• Click on the buttons to form a word as quick as you can. For most larger words you do not need a lot of precision while typing.
• When the selected word in the list box is OK press <Space> or <Enter>
• In the example above I wanted to type the word "STARTED", but i missed a few buttons. Still, the algorithm can figure out that while I typed "QTATTEX" I actually meant started.
• Click once on the list box with suggestions to select the next item in the list.
• If you want to select the literal text (bottom left), just click on it. The literal will be added to your text.
• Press <CLR> to re-enter a word.

You can download the demo here :

IphoneMockup1.zip (399,67 KB) 

New version on 2007/7/5 !! 
- fixed the Unhandled exception when a gesture exists of a single point click.

This demo runs on windows/.NET 2.0, and the supported language is English only atm.
If I manage to find a pocketpc I will try to port it to the compact framework.

Please let me know what you think of this application by posting a comment.