[HN Gopher] Inkbase: Programmable Ink (2022)
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Inkbase: Programmable Ink (2022)
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 97 points
Date : 2024-07-16 14:06 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inkandswitch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inkandswitch.com)
| wnolens wrote:
| Pretty cool ideas. If simple calculations were built into the
| apps I use, I would make daily use for napkin math.
|
| I've dipped my toe into the pen input tablet world a few times
| (often unimpressed), but recently committed to a new iPad Air
| with the latest Pencil Pro.
|
| I write on paper and whiteboards every day for software design
| and todo lists and just general musing. But recently had an itch
| for the advantages of digital. And I'm really happy so far. A lot
| comes down to the app you choose and how convenient the UI/UX is,
| but the killer features I'm going to hate living without:
|
| 1. Infinite canvas. Never have to truncate a sentence or messily
| cross the spine or flip a page. So much context, I just pan and
| zoom to what I want to focus on.
|
| 2. Rearrange rather than rewrite. Long-press turns my pen tool
| into a lasso, then I drag however.
|
| 3. Very productive erasing. Using the new squeeze gesture, my pen
| is instantly an eraser and only takes one pass.
|
| In my opinion, nothing beats a whiteboard for conversations about
| software. It's one of the biggest losses from the pivot to remote
| work. My ultimate goal is to bring convenient whiteboarding to
| zoom calls. But so far I'm really enjoying it in place of the pad
| of paper that's on my desk.
| runxel wrote:
| I second those killer features.
|
| Which software/apps are your favorites? I love Goodnotes, but
| not having infinitve canvas is a problem for me indeed. A bit
| weird to have physical constraints employed on a device living
| in the digital world where it should not apply.
| wnolens wrote:
| Concepts.app right now. My only gripe is shortcut bindings
| are not arbitrarily configurable and for color selection I
| have to tap a pretty darn small target area.
|
| But no others have infinite canvas that I could find.
|
| Otherwise the standard notes app is good. I don't need fluff.
| nsriv wrote:
| It has been a while, but I've used Notability for teaching
| purposes over the pandemic. I can't recall why, but there was
| an exodus from Notability to Goodnotes at some point, so you
| may already have insight into the two.
| sxp wrote:
| Watching the demos, I thought this was related to Ken Perlin's
| ChalkTalk, but they appear to be independent efforts. Inkbase
| cites Chalktalk in the Prior Art Section it's it's definitely
| worth watching those videos. Inkbase, ChalkTalk, and other
| similar interactive tools really emphasize the "bicycles for the
| mind" aspect of computers. One thing that is nicer about
| ChalkTalk is that it cleans up the handdrawn lines by default
| which makes the resulting diagram look nicer. Sutherland's
| Sketchpad also did this and it looked mindblowing the first time
| I saw that.
| lukevp wrote:
| Looks similar to the new iPad features in the next OS.
| mlajtos wrote:
| Inkbase is pretty far from Math Notes from iPadOS 18.
|
| Superficially they are both "programming with pencil". Math
| Notes are more about numerical computing - numbers, symbols,
| quantities, math, etc. Inkbase tackles different problem -
| general-purpose end-user programming with pencil. Think
| SmallTalk but for pencil. While much grandiose idea, the
| usefulness and applicability of Inkbase(-like) model is rather
| limited. On the other hand, Math Notes will revolutionize math
| education, and in turn math itself.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Really surprised that the references skip from 1988 (Viewpoint:
| Toward a Computer for Visual Thinkers) to 2010 (INK-12) totally
| overlooking:
|
| - Momenta
|
| - Go Corp.'s PenPoint
|
| - Aha! Inkwriter (which became the basis for Microsoft's Journal)
|
| - Dan Bricklin's pen software
|
| - the academic exercises Denim and Silk which were written in
| Java
|
| or even extant tools such as:
|
| - https://www.inftyproject.org/en/software.html
|
| - or the facility to do math in text input fields drawing
| software such as Freehand or Illustrator
|
| - or https://ryven.org where one can drag in programming elements
| and annotate with a pen
|
| I've been a big believe in this sort of thing for a long while
| now, and would be glad of it becoming more workable and available
| and popular.
|
| I'd love to have a piece of software which was:
|
| - freeform, allowing both writing and drawing
|
| - yet still allowed capturing data structures and referring to
| things by some meaningful handle
|
| - programmable --- even just a formula pane such as Lotus Improv
| had would be great
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| You might be interested in at least some aspects of Decker:
| http://beyondloom.com/decker/
| mlajtos wrote:
| Have you seen Apple Math Notes? Impressive first version with
| great promise for the future.
| WillAdams wrote:
| I'd need for someone to make another tablet running the Mac
| OS w/ a Wacom EMR digitizer.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I guess Apple's new calculator and notes app on the iPad sort of
| do some of these tasks at a smaller scale for calculations. Where
| has this project gone?
| mlajtos wrote:
| iPadOS 18 is in public beta right now. Will be out in
| September.
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| Bet I'm not the only one who thought something'd spilled on my
| screen...
| mlajtos wrote:
| If you are into this kind of thing, you might like these essays
| from 2021:
|
| 1. https://mlajtos.mu/posts/new-kind-of-paper
|
| 2. https://mlajtos.mu/posts/new-kind-of-paper-2
|
| 3. https://mlajtos.mu/posts/new-kind-of-paper-3
|
| 4. https://mlajtos.mu/posts/new-kind-of-paper-4
|
| I mention various tech (APL, Sketchpad, RAND tablet, Pascaline,
| VisiCalc, etc.) while showing of demos of calculator designed for
| iPad & Pencil. I hope writing about Apple Math Notes when I get
| my hands on it.
| from-nibly wrote:
| Dont forget write by styluslabs in prior art. It doesn't do
| anything really interesting with pictures but the way it handles
| words and text on lined paper is really interesting.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| If someone can find a way to seamlessly pivot the same data
| structures into at least 3 views, you'd have a hit:
|
| 1. Spreadsheets with arbitrary calcs and display
|
| 2. Notebook style calcs, explanatory & UI controls
|
| 3. Pure code text
|
| In spreadsheet mode, you can free form layout everything you need
| to prototype a solution. In notebook mode, you can create a
| literate refinement. In pure code mode you can tweak everything
| to a production device.
|
| I fine notebooks are great, until you're trying to figure out
| connections between disparate code locations and I want pure code
| to fix an overview. When I'm trying to take an existing
| spreadsheet, I'd love to start by copying pasting and getting
| data in to then refine and regularize rather than figure out some
| importing issue that becomes a pin to code flow.
|
| Overall, it seems doable but requires things like named ranges,
| what the ordinal placement is from one locale to the next.
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