
Write – A word processor for handwriting - krupan
http://www.styluslabs.com
======
pbsurf
Creator here. Although the site hasn't been updated in a while Write isn't
dead - there will be a major update coming out in a few months.

~~~
sharpercoder
I bought a Surface3 specifically to write notes and draw with OneNote. OneNote
has its own big problems, and I would love to spend a good amount of moneyfor
software that gets writing, write recognition and draw recognition right. To
document software, I draw diagrams a lot. It would be great when a lowlevel
api would be exposed to recognize specific types of diagrams (e.g. sequence,
class, ...).

~~~
Analemma_
Didn't Microsoft introduce some kind of collaborative OneNote-like program
that also does recognition of common symbols (arrows, boxes, etc?). Similar to
Google's Jamboard software? I thought I remembered seeing this in one of their
Surface presentations but can't seem to find it now.

~~~
wlesieutre
OneNote does this, but not very well. It can understand polygons and ovals.
Arrows drawn in one stroke will convert to a line with no arrow at the end,
and if you try to draw a > arrowhead as a separate stroke it doesn't
understand to convert it to a shape.

Using a closed triangle as an arrowhead does trigger shape conversion, but I
don't know anyone who draws arrows that way.

It's called "Ink to Shape" on the Draw tab.

------
akavel
I found the app awesome for quick writing with a stylus on a MS Surface
(probably works on other tablets/tablet PCs too). It seems the development has
stopped a few years ago, unfortunately; I'm very happy the author still at
least makes the app available for download. And thanks to the HTML+SVG format
used, the documents created in the app are at least open and future proof!

It would be nice if someone wrote an extension/post-processor applying some
OCR to the SVGs, so that plain text could be extracted. I tried to do
something like this myself, but failed. What was most annoying was that the
SVGs the app writes are actually _outlines_ of the pen strokes, after applying
"pen width". As far as I've seen, OCR systems prefer raw strokes as input,
ideally with pen pressure information. I don't have enough experience in
Machine Learning either to try to build a new model for this use case from
scratch.

 _edit:_ A sample article draft/experiment I wrote with it:

\- as a HTML+SVG: [https://akavel.github.io/post/2018-05-31-stylish-
elephants/2...](https://akavel.github.io/post/2018-05-31-stylish-
elephants/2018-05-31%20stylish%20elephants.html)

\- as a PDF: [https://akavel.github.io/post/2018-05-31-stylish-
elephants/2...](https://akavel.github.io/post/2018-05-31-stylish-
elephants/2018-05-31%20stylish%20elephants.pdf)

~~~
pbsurf
I'm hoping to add some rough OCR to allow searching in the future. In the
meantime, if you turn off pressure sensitivity (Pen menu -> Custom Pen),
you'll get raw strokes in the SVG instead of filled paths.

~~~
akavel
Oh, cool, didn't think of it! On to different projects now, but maybe some
day... if you don't do it earlier yourself ;) (Though I actually like the
pressure sensitivity feature very much...)

Also, in case you'd come back to this reply at some point in future: one
feature I'd also love (I think I even wrote an email to you about it at the
time) would be easy pasting of images into the document, and a "knife" tool,
which would allow cutting them to parts along drawn lines. (And then moving
and processing them separately.) I don't remember what exact use case I had
for this, but I remember missing it badly.

Ah, and there was some problem with not being able to easily paste links into
the document purely with stylus, i.e. without reaching for keyboard. I used
Write once for writing a journal from a trip, with photos, and I think I might
have had to edit the raw HTML/SVG to add links from thumbnails to full photos,
or something like this.

~~~
ramses0
For me, this would be perfect a perfect use for removing tablature from some
guitar sheet music:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/halleonard-
pagepreviews/HL_DDS_0000...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/halleonard-
pagepreviews/HL_DDS_0000000000141683.png)

...basically be able to slice the above image into various rows, and delete
the "numbers" part, but keep + rearrange the "music" part.

Seems like the ability to paste / rotate an image and then add in a "razer-
slicer" set perpendicular to page or matching the image rotation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6SuHTHoRd0&t=1m25s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6SuHTHoRd0&t=1m25s)

It's a relatively common operation (even for text, maybe even especially for
lined text) giving you the option to write single-space (or double-space) and
then magically have extra room to take notes, edit, etc, then later remove
those edits.

Actually it'd be very similar to "folding" handwritten documents (in the code-
folding sense).

------
funkaster
I would love to see all of the Write functionality on a Remarkable tablet ->
just tell me where to press "buy now"

~~~
andai
That would be amazing. I've switched from text based notes to pen and paper
recently, and sometimes I'll switch back to a text editor when I need to move
things around a lot, figure out a sequence or structure.

So I was really impressed with Write's ability to combine the best of both
worlds. If this could work on e-paper, that would be incredible.

------
messe
Well, that may just be the least accessible website I've seen that ostensibly
consists solely of text.

~~~
Reedx
Granted, but I can see why they did it from an artistic perspective. They're
going all in on handwritten text and being genuine to that idea.

Though they could use a font that looks handwritten, it's not the same and
wouldn't reflect the product as accurately.

~~~
rrix2
The website is directly exported from the app, as a directly useful demo. I
think that's the point of doing it that way.

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LukeShu
Woah, this is cool.

The "Linux" download is x86-64 only; I know 32-bit x86 is dying, so maybe
that's not worth your time (I'd tried to download it on an old 32-bit ThinkPad
x60 tablet), but an ARM build might get some use.

As long as the download is free, may I ask why you chose to not also publish
the source code?

PS: "JetNote" and "JetDraw" links in "JetNote and JetDraw are no longer under
active development." on the support page both 404.

------
criddell
If this project interests you, check out GoodNotes.

I've been using GoodNotes for a year now on an iPad Pro with a Pencil and for
me it's a killer app. Since I've started using it, my handwriting has
improved. That's not something I set out to do, but it happened probably
because I wanted to help out the OCR engine. It's pretty awesome to run a
search and have your handwritten notes surface.

My worry is that the app only sells for $8 and that doesn't seem sustainable.
The built in Notes app keeps getting better, so maybe the inevitable outcome
is that the third party apps fade away as people switch to the core app.

~~~
DenisM
No encryption though.

~~~
criddell
The entire device is protected with a passcode. Isn't that good enough?

~~~
DenisM
What about inter device sync?

~~~
criddell
I don't think GoodNotes does that. You would have to use something like
Dropbox for that.

~~~
DenisM
Yeah well, there goes your privacy then.

OneNote actually does AES256 on their files. No passphrase - no content.

------
nkrisc
Woe to the screenreader user who stumbles upon this site.

~~~
detritus
Perhaps I'm being dense and ignorant, but how much use would a blind person
have for a handwriting application on a touch-screen device?

~~~
nkrisc
Not everyone who uses a screenreader is completely blind. Vision impairment is
quite a wide and varying spectrum. Also the person viewing the site might not
be the person who will be using the software. Perhaps it's not applicable
here, but imagine a scenario where the person responsible for purchasing the
software uses a screenreader.

~~~
somebodythere
Also the website is a showcase of the notes -> website feature, however the
resulting website is not accessible.

------
vinceguidry
Shut. Up. And. Take. My. Money.

This looks like the tool I've been missing for years.

edit: oh, development's stopped. Oh well, back to my side project.

~~~
akavel
See above —
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17859000](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17859000)
— apparently, the author has some plans for revival! :) And by the way, the
app's actually already usable as is.

~~~
corerius
You know, that's a good point. It would be great if people simply finished
things and called them good sometimes.

Hopefully they don't find a way to stick hand-written ads on the side for the
free version.

~~~
vinceguidry
Pay for software. Plz, plz pretty plz. I will easily drop $30-50 just to try a
piece of beta software whose value prop matches a need I have. You have the
money, indie devs need the money way more than you do, and they need to be
rewarded for greenfield development.

$100-200 for a mature tool that actually solves the problem and is
sufficiently hackable is well within the bounds of what I'm willing to spend.

Devs that don't have the money for these tools have a great way to get into
the software world, use FLOSS tools to greenfield a new tool and collect
$30-50 from anybody interested.

Can we make this happen? It would be _amazing_.

~~~
akavel
In case of this particular software, I actually wanted to pay/donate, but
couldn't find a link for this IIRC. (Or it could have been via credit card,
and I didn't have a credit card.)

I'm curious if there's some way for a dev to easily add a widget/button to get
paid/donated for a piece of software. Ideally, with any tax etc. problems
handled too. I also created some FLOSS software, and would be cool if I could
just slap a button in the Readme, or in the app itself, and have a chance to
get donations if someone wants to express appreciation this way.

~~~
vinceguidry
Personally, for your use case, I'd just use Patreon. All the best aspects of
donation and subscriptions with none of the downsides. Well, you do need to
advertise, but that's inherent in any donation scheme.

Donation isn't the answer I have in mind. In the first place, there's no
social onus placed on users of the software to provide compensation. I love
the Free Software Foundation, and I agree with its goals. But I believe in the
need for two ecosystems, three I guess if you include proprietary software.
Free software and open source.

The main reason is I don't think the likes of SourceForge should be allowed to
sully FLOSS with adware / malware and redistribute useful pieces of software.
The business value of software needs to be accommodated. If you really do have
a pure altruistic motive, coupled with the willingness to accept donations,
then sure, knock yourself out.

But as an individual software developer with an economic motive, intellectual
property is not a hostile concept, it's one that pays the bills. Idealism in
this space isn't all it's cracked up to be when you're all by yourself.

If you have a profit motive, if you want to and are willing to treat your
development activities as a service you're providing to the public, rather
than artwork you release purely for public benefit, then you should use a
standard dual-licensing scheme.

Note that my argument here concerns software _tools_. Tools aren't libraries.
Tools are complicated, feature-rich graphical applications that can have
business value as products all of their own. Tools may use dozens of
libraries. Libraries generally don't depend on other libraries other than the
standard one and if they do they typically vendor them in or statically link
them.

------
agentultra
It would be awesome if some of the work that went into this could be
integrated into ReMarkable.

I love hand-note taking.

------
benatkin
This reminds me of Note Taker by Dan Bricklin, the co-creator of VisiCalc,
which I used a lot until I got a retina device and it hadn't been updated (it
looks like that problem has been fixed). The UI for inserting involved
dragging and dropping rectangular selections like in paint. Write sounds like
it has a much more powerful editing feature. I look forward to checking this
out when I get a chance! [http://notetakerhd.com/](http://notetakerhd.com/)

------
verelo
Wasn't "Write" the name of the word processor that came with Windows 3.1?

Edit: It was!
[https://www.google.ca/search?q=write+windows+3.1&oq=write+wi...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=write+windows+3.1&oq=write+windows+3.1&aqs=chrome..69i57.1813j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

Edit 2: I actually love this name. Hopefully you don't get any headaches over
the history of this name.

------
kovek
Imagine if you make a subset of these features available in text inputs
(browser and apps) with a custom Android distribution. A step after that and
you can make a big step in personal computing.

This is the first step towards something I've been thinking about. Maybe I
really should just publish my ideas online instead of waiting until I'm ready
to work on them.

~~~
satyrnein
I wrote a similar article, including a video of how the interactions work:
[https://medium.com/@eshan/the-case-for-the-
stylus-28094a0abd...](https://medium.com/@eshan/the-case-for-the-
stylus-28094a0abd34)

I went on to buy a Galaxy Note tablet with the intention of trying to
implement it somehow, but I never really got anywhere.

------
megamindbrian2
Awesome tool! God my handwriting is awful. Can it learn and convert it to
text?

~~~
asciimo
Maybe it can export bitmaps suitable for OCR libraries or services (like
[https://pixlab.io/cmd?id=ocr](https://pixlab.io/cmd?id=ocr)) to convert.

------
camtarn
Nice. MS OneNote had exactly this functionality and it was super useful for
taking notes in math/engineering classes. Good to see a non-MS product taking
it on, and producing open output by default.

~~~
komali2
I think waaay too much about this.

Started when I took notes on my surface in onenote during a coding bootcamp.
Between multi-color pen switching, ability to paste in pics of slides and
screenshots of code, and type in code when necessary, it was the ultimate note
taking situation. Made me realize the reason I was a shit student in college
was straight up because I took garbage notes.

But, the surface/windows is not the ideal programming environment for me. I
prefer linux flavors (Debian/Ubuntu usually). So I've been on this like three
year quest to get the ultimate note taking, programming, plus misc task tool
setup.

Ended up with a thinkpad x1 yoga, all the bells and whistles. Great machine.
Tried having a VM running Debian so I could quickly switch from that to
onenote, but the VM performance when closing and opening the lid was funky.
So, dual boot time, and time to find a onenote replacement. Not so bad a deal
because onenote offline mode and syncing are notoriously bad (not that I'd
expect otherwise, it seems like a tricky problem to solve).

Deep down the rabbit hole turns up two apps: Write and Xournal. (Onenote
chrome doesn't work because no pressure sensitivity and no offline mode)

Write is exciting because it works out of the box, has infinite scrolling,
quickly can switch pen colors, and a very interesting save scheme. Their files
are just HTML with svgs. I'm exploring and automatic upload system that simply
renders all my notes as a GitHub pages thing somewhere, with links for
directory's files. Open to suggestions, there.

Xournal is definitely a more configurable, heavy hitter app. It was easier to
install, has way more configuration options (mildly annoying as you gotta tick
a box to get pressure sensitivity on), and allows you to type text in or paste
images. However, it doesn't have infinite, expanding page scrolling. You have
to hit "next page" to be presented with a new blank canvas, or, set your page
length to something absurd, which concerns me for memory management reasons.

Anyway, like I said, I think WAY too much about this, but I'm very open to
suggestions/input.

~~~
komali2
Too late edit: Actually, I just checked, xournal doesn't seem to allow pasting
in images. I could have sworn I did it before but I don't see any in any of my
save files.

~~~
komali2
Aha, you _can_ get images in! You must click a sort of msword type "clipart"
looking icon, and then click where you want the image to go. Then, a file
explorer dialog opens, and it's business as usual.

Not quite as elegant as Onenote's ability to paste in a screenshot super easy,
but the functionality at least has a workaround.

------
rkagerer
Why can't I highlight / select text from the web page?

~~~
Plaastix
From what I can tell, all the text is rendered via SVG.

------
oxryly1
I have a Wacom Intuos pad. Between that input device and my bad handwriting my
output looks terrible. Anyone have any suggestions on how to use it with this
app properly?

------
syntaxing
Wow this is super cool. I wish I knew about this when I was still in school.
It would probably pair really well with the PCs with built in wacom-style
stylus.

------
corerius
I really like the looks of that, but the dates on the blog!

Is it dead, Jim?

~~~
baxtr
The youtube video dates back to early 2013...

~~~
mbreese
The last blog date is also July 2013... so I'm assuming the project was
dropped for some reason.

~~~
arbie
Author says major new version is coming in a few months.

------
nafizh
I am always on the lookout for new note-taking/annotation apps on my ipad. But
so far no one could trump Flexcil. The 10$ is worth every penny.

------
imonroe
Installed on Surface Pro 4, doesn't seem to work. Just draws weird patterns
instead of tracking the stylus properly.

------
mitjak
I've literally been brainstorming something very similar the past few months,
as an iOS app. This is really neat!

------
eximius
The application looks amazing.

The music on the demo video makes me anxious, however.

------
DoctorPenguin
This is terrible

------
rambojazz
This is not free/open-source, is it?

------
whateverme
Please open source

------
HuangYuSan
But why?

~~~
themodelplumber
I say this a little bit tongue in cheek, and I'm sure the DV's will pile on,
but I once took some classes in handwriting analysis [yes, I know] and they
actually turned out to be fascinating. Would do again in a heartbeat, all
things considered.

Anyway the author's handwriting (or the font they picked), seen through that
model, seems to indicate an (impressively) imaginative personality with a
reduced preference for what you might call practicality. :-) Just thought it
was amusing given your question.

------
pasta
This is a nice experiment.

But ofcourse not very usefull. For example you cannot copy paste the text.

But if you like something like this then you can use Inkscape for example to:

    
    
      Write all letter on a peace of paper
      Scan it and import in Inkscape
      Trace the bitmap to vector
      Create a font from all the character
    

There are a lot of tutorials online..

Edit: looks like the title changes. My comment is about the website not about
the app which the title now refers to. The title was something like "a
handwritten website"

~~~
techbio
The page describe copy/paste functionality towards the bottom. Would you mind
saving someone the time to validate the two conflicting statements and explain
the disagreement?

~~~
pasta
Ah I was refering to the website because the title is also about a handwritten
website.

I'm using Firefox and I cannot select any text.

That's also why I commented about how to create your own handwritten font that
can be used for a website.

------
poizan42
The name choice is unfortunate, "Write" was the name of WordPad before Windows
95, even to this day if you write "write" in the run dialog in Windows it will
open WordPad.

