InkSeine Features: What Makes InkSeine unique?

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MS Research
Ken Hinckley
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What makes InkSeine unique?

InkSeine is a complete rethinking of what user interfaces should be for
the digital pen and ink experience.

We've jettisoned pull-down menus and other trappings of the traditional mouse-and-keyboard interface in favor of mechanisms that are tailored to be fast and predictable when you are using a pen. This enables the tool to fade into the background so that your can really focus on your primary task: capturing your ideas, sketches, and creative thoughts.

To make it easier to access all of the information on your device, InkSeine has a great search experience integrated with inking. This offers you a really slick way to get at all your stuff without having to deal with the file system or switch to a separate "search application."

When your searches turn up stuff you need, you can just drag any image, document, email, or web page into your notes. It becomes a small round icon that lets you get at the document in a fraction of a second whenever you need it again. If you drag an image out of search results from your local hard disk, the image is imported directly into your notes so that you can start marking it up. It's a great way to bring together all the stuff that you need for your projects, and sure beats the heck out of trying to tap through folders with a pen.

We hope InkSeine can help you to Rethink Your Ink, and get the most out of your Tablet PC in the process. But also be sure to let us know what you find quirky or unproductive- we are keen to make it as useful as possible, as well as to weed out things we're trying that, in the end, people don't find productive or pleasant to use.

These are some of the cool features offered by InkSeine:

Blaze a super-fast trail by using radial menus for pen commands.
   Just hover to preview the commands. Touch down in the center and
   stroke towards the command you want to activate it. On a UMPC with a
   passive touchscreen, hold the pen on a radial menu to preview its commands.
                                                Directional strokes offer a fast way to select pen styles.

Directional strokes offer a fast way to select pen styles.

Select existing ink right on the page to initiate a search. Lassoing search terms

Create queries in the context of your notes to keep track of searches,
reuse them, or return to them later.

Easily find emails, documents, ink notes, or web pages without
leaving your notes.

Drag links to the documents and web pages you find right into your
notebook.
Links to emails found in the search

...or drag images into your notes, from search results or file folders.
Dragging images out of the search results

Filter your desktop searches by file type or date with simple pen
controls. Filter by date

Scroll through any application by circling the pen - or capture screen
   clippings for markup - using InkSeine's convenient tool ring. The
   tool ring floats on top of whatever applications you have open,
   ready for use.
       Floating tool ring for clipping and scrolling

Floating tool ring for clipping and scrolling

Automatic hyperlinks: When you use the tool ring to capture screen
   clippings from Office applications (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, & emails
   in Outlook), or from web pages (viewed in Internet Explorer), the
   capture automatically gets a hyperlink attached to it. Use the link to
   quickly re-access the document! InkSeine does not support automatic
   hyperlinks for captures from OneNote, PDF files, or web pages viewed in Firefox.
       Example hyperlinks for image captures from various Office applications.

Example hyperlinks for image captures from various Office applications.

View your notes page-by-page, like a real notebook. Never waste
   time scrolling and zooming again! Pages scale to fit the screen when
   you rotate your tablet.
         The pages of your note and a menu for working with pages appear at the bottom of the screen.

The pages of your note and a menu for working with pages appear at the bottom of the screen.

Hover over any page to get a preview of it.

Highlighter hints illustrate how to use InkSeine's pen gestures so you
can quickly learn how to blast through information like a pro.
Highlighter hints appear on top of InkSeine when you first start using it, to help you get started.

Highlighter hints appear on top of InkSeine when you first start using it, to help you get started.

Options let you customize the InkSeine user interface to your device
and the way you work. (Click here for more information about the options).
InkSeine's Options panel lets you customize things.

InkSeine's Options panel lets you customize things.

A unique comic book tutorial makes it fast and fun to get started.
Excerpt from InkSeine's comic tutorial for how to use the radial menus.

Click here for the Install instructions.