Somehow bring up the onscreen keyboard, Menu>Input method>Handwriting.

There are 2 ways one can set the HWR speed, and I am NOT sure which one takes precedent. You can either go into Control panel>Text input settings or Menu>Tools>Settings. I set them both to the minimum, to have the fastest interpretation.

Menu>Tools>Settings>Handwriting speed set to the lowest. This is the biggest counter intuition Nokia has done. minus means fast, the interpretation is eye-blinking fast, while plus means slow, the interpretation takes forever. I believe most people complaining about the handwritten recognition is poor because they probably set this damn thing to a 5+ and thinking that is the fastest! Anyhow, set it to the lowest, you would be surprise the handwritten recogn is better than palm! This is the biggest counter intuition I have ever seen.

Now you are ready to program your shortcuts for repetitive typings. There are at least Shortcuts (Western) and Shortcuts (Greek) and a 16 shortcuts each for a total of 32! You can have your tablets to remember 32 typings you always use, OMG!
Menu>Tools>Teach handwriting:
Input type: choose Shortcuts(Western),
Phrase> Edit: type the phrase you use repetitively, say, "Why are you so difficult?". Just type the phrase, no quotations
Pattern>Edit: draw anything you want except it CANNOT be similar to patterns that already exist, say draw a dumb triangle.

Bingo. From now on, everytime you draw that pattern, the dumb triangle, the phrase comes up nicely, be it xterm, web address, gnumeric or even maemo mapper!
Got to go now, very busy in cooking my 32 shortcuts and the re-discovery of handwritten recogn capabilty of the tablet. Try it, I was a palm user, and I said, the tablet handwritten recogn is totally not bad after adjusting the ****** handwriting speed.

Edit: BTW, even if you still "hate" handwriting input, you can still program your repetitive typing and just change the input from keyboard to handwriting to use the programed pattern, then change input back to keyboard. Try it, you can program a whopping 32 long commands for your xterm/web surfing or whatnots...

Example: a shortcut to go to a particular thread of iTT on your tablet:
make a shortcut for "http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=", type the shortcut and enter the thread #, you jump right to the thread without delay!

Edit:6/28/08: there are more shortcut tricks on thread #10.

Enjoy,

Edit: No wonder everybody is screaming and complaining, the handwriting speed is default to 5+, snail interpretation. Is Nokia/team on prozac? What would they think a snail slow HWR is good for the tablet? So, if you do NOT aware of the handwriting speed setting or never play with it, factory setting is 5+.

Edit 5/30/9 The default I notice today it is 3+, not 0, nor 5+ any more, so Nokia kind of agree with this post, I guess.

bun

Thanks, Bun. I never even knew about the shortcuts. I might find it useful sometime.

Please re try the handwritten input. It is fantastic! It gives me almost 100% accuracy. That damn handwritten speed is really really ******.

This saves a lot of typing on my fingers, OMG!

bun

I did try it again. It works very well for most of the letters, though if there's just a few that aren't trained to your own liking, it's so hard to type! I need to teach it a few letters. I guess I just write weird. I tried handwriting maybe once or twice in the first week I got my n800 and I kind of skipped over it since then. I'll teach it a few of my 'special' letters and see how it goes later. Thanks again Bun, I think those shortcuts will come in handy.

I have problem with the lower case 't' and since I teach it, it no longer give me any problem. Still, the point I want to make, the handwritten recogn of the tablet is NOT that hopeless as I initially thought. And I use the tablet to input text at least 5 min per hour EVERYDAY! I am in heaven

bun

Bunanson, I tried your suggestion, but the only thing that happens is that the recognizer still recognizes letters wrongly, only faster so. I did the training (another crappy "idea" is that you have to train for every language all over again!) and the shortcuts things a very long time ago, but I routinely keep getting wrongly recognized capitals, mangled "i"s, "g"s, "r"s and "v"s, unwanted spaces and missing letters due to not enough space.

It still sucks, only faster now...

The lowercase 't' kills me. 'K' is bad sometimes too. If you really get into handwriting recognition, I suggest disabling some of the default letters to avoid conflicts, in addition to teaching your own. Though unwanted spaces is a common problem for me. One thing I didn't know you could do though, is just drawing a new letter over an icorrect letter to replace it. That's really useful.

I guess it is very subjective. I am totally palm trained in HWR, I wrote in palm with 100% acceptance. I guess that may make a difference. I totally agree with you, tapping is still slightly faster. But again, I remember the first day I use Palm, I uttered the same comments. So, I will definitely report back after 'force' myself to use HWR for a week, and see how it goes. Start from today, I have been using HWR and have been several hrs since, still going well.....The bottomline, whatever get you there is what matters.

bun

Thanks Bun. I have found that the next to lowest setting works best for characters that you have to take the stylus off the screen. This msg created using HWR.

Since I am here already, may as well dump all the tricks I have gathered over the forum regarding "repetitive commands/typings"

They go in order of easiness from a linuxiot (pronounce leen-ugs-idiot without the id ) point of view, the top ones are my choice, and most easy, and gets slightly more involved as one goes down the list. I, "who have/know nothing" - steal from Tom Jones, am barely able to compose this list. I request, whoever reading this post, jump in and expand the howto, pros and cons, of the particular method he/she choose, please. So that everybody can have a good idea what suit him/her the best with their device. And I will bet you 1$, that the list is NOT even near complete. Come on gurus show your tricks......... Thanks, here is the list,

1) Dpad up direction or ctrl+P: cycle thru previous typings/commands/history. They do not 'remember' a lot, probably about 20 or even less. How can one increase their memory? I want them to remember 50+.

2) Handwritten Recognition shortcuts: this thread you are reading

3) Toolbar menu http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...d.php?p=180310, thread #12; http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...t=16749&page=2, thread #15
the dot things, witch craft but works.

4) alias http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=16749, thread #4; http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=15276, thread #2; you have to store it in a /home/user/.profile file, otherwise it disappear upon reboot.

5) VNC, rdesktop or a BT keyboard; borrow keyboard from PC or BT; This is for some serious typing for 5 min or more

6) bash http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=16749; http://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/und...lec06/01.shtml

7) osso-statusbar-cpu; http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=16749, thread #14; Another way to get a software reboot button, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...254#post192254, thread #2

8) personal menu - can use for repeat command launcher; http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...light=personal

9) SSH - ask some guru

10) Kerez - simple commands, http://david.hautbois.free.fr/joomla...d=44&Itemid=43

11) go for the Monte Carlo, a grand choice, not a gambling choice - setup KDE358, they have keyboard shortcuts build in. Step-by-step instructions with screen shots, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=20884; and shortcuts from our famous KDE member, PCQ, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...t=15228&page=3, thread #21

12) One more shortcut; after typing a few letters, press the tab key will show some suggested word to pick from - this is from the grand master fanoush.



That'sall folks,

Edit: 6/28/08: Does anybody know how can I share those shortcuts I made on tricks 2), 3) and 4), i.e., where do they store? I would like to BT to my coworkers as they are interested, but not 'technically competent' to type them in, in other words, they are lazy . TIA
bun