Edgewrite Test


woogal

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I was browsing around today when I came across this - http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:EGnd_n...bs/joystick.pdf which then led me to this - http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~edgewrite/

Being a bit bored I decided to see if edgewrite would work as a gp32 text input system. My firsts tests were done the correct way using the diagonals (at least briefly read the links above if you haven't done so already otherwise you won't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about). Unfortunatly, as we all know the gp32 joystick diagonals at a bit pathetic, so it was a complete failure. I then tried it by rotating the gp32 slightly and using down for bottomleft, left for topleft, up for topright and right for bottomright, and found that it works quite well :)

To try it for yourself, download the files from here - http://gp32.sector808.org/edgetest.zip

Make sure you put edgechar.cfg into gpetc. Once loaded you'll see a # in the top left (thats your cursor) and a box in the bottom right. If you wiggle the joystick you'll see a blob move within the box. Now look at that second site again and try drawing letters as shown on the character chart. Try and move fairly smoothly, but don't rush. Only lowercase letters, numbers, space, backspace, linebreak and fullstop work, and only using the basic chart (not the extra combinations in the pdf).

If you want to try using some of the other combinations from the full chart, take a look at the edgechar.cfg file. Add extra lines in this format -
<string to display>=<corner sequence>
The string can be anything you like (so you can create shortcuts), as long as it doesn't begin with a # (thats used for special input like linebreak). The corner sequence is a string of numbers showing the path to take. Count clockwise from bottom left to get the number. Make sure you have a blank line at the end of the file otherwise your last entry won't work.

Have fun ;)
 
Suggestion... :)

Instead of using just the stick, it would prolly be easier to do it with 2 buttons like this:

Up+L = Top Left
UP+R = Top Right
DOWN+L = Bottom Left
DOWN+R = Bottom Right

And I think it would be better if instead of releasing means that the letter is done, releasing means that the stroke is done, and when you press A, the letter is done.

With those improvements, and a way to save the file, this would be a very good way to write stuff :)
 
rcx21000 posted on Feb 7 2004 at 08:37 PM said:
Up+L = Top Left
UP+R = Top Right
DOWN+L = Bottom Left
DOWN+R = Bottom Right
uhh, that'd make it 10 times as difficult as it is now, really. and i'm sure he will release some sort of editor after a while.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
i'm sure changing to capital letters will be added once there'll be a full-featured editor released. i can't wait. i haven't been this excited over anything since ages, i'm really looking forward to this (i'm already typing faster with this test app with any editor i've tried before on gp32).

edit: just came up with a bunch of possibilities: integration into computer emulators (C64, Atari ST, MSX, Dragon32, Speccy), integration into gp32linux (afterall, they already got a shell running), text editor + port of gcc = coding on the go (provided that someone ports gcc of course :p)
 
Ok, here's punctuation support.

This zip includes the full basic and punctuation character sets.

You can also switch to true diagonal mode using select if your gp32 has working diagonals.
 
Another update and a new test app.

This version of edgetest is now much smoother, quicker and easier to use (especially for letters like 'o' and 'g' that involve circular movements). I'm now typing at about 10 words per minute, and managed to write 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' with only two mistakes whilst not even looking at the gp32 :) Thats a better speed and accuracy than I can manage on a pocket pc :)

I've also thrown together another quick test app (EdgeDrop) that will eventually become a training game. The idea is to write the letters before they hit the bottom of the screen. There's not much to it yet, but it's still fun to mess about with.

Both files are in the attached zip.
 
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