TextMaster™

from Stevens Creek Software

for the Palm Computing Platform
(PalmOS 5.0 and higher)

Users Guide

Version 2.3
March 2004

TextMaster Overview

TextMaster is a successor to an earlier application, EZ KB. EZ KB allowed you to use the "right" button of the "5-way navigator" found on newer units from Palm to popup the on-screen keyboard, allowing you to use a simpler method to enter text. Surprisingly, even users of units with built-in keyboards, like the Treo 600 and Tungsten C, found that, if they already had a stylus in their hand, it was actually easier to enter small amounts of text using the stylus and the on-screen keyboard then to shift hand positions to use the physical keyboard.

TextMaster retains that same capability, but makes it many times more useful with the addition of a user-programmable database of phrases and a popup phrase list. If you are using any application where you enter text, whether it be an email application where you are adding email addresses, standard phrases, or your signature; a web browser where you frequently need to enter things like "http://:" and ".com", your date book where you might find yourself often entering "Meeting with boss" or "Dentist appointment," or countless other applications, TextMaster can simplify the task. Just enter the phrase once into the TextMaster database, and any time you need it, just tap the "right" button on the navigator and your list of phrases, divided into "folders" (or categories if you prefer) appears, ready to select with one or at most two taps. Up to 32 folders each containing 32 items can be saved, giving you instant access to nearly a thousand words and phrases to use in your applications without Graffiti. And each phrase can contain up to 4096 characters, allowing you to use and reuse extensive boilerplate text in your memos and emails effortlessly. TextMaster also gives you two alternate methods to access the phrase list in addition to the right navigator button.

Adding text to a memo or an email using TextMaster

Installing TextMaster in Your Palm

TextMaster is designed to run on Palm handheld units running PalmOS 5.0 or higher. If you do not have a Palm running PalmOS 5.0 or higher, do not install this software.

Whether you downloaded the software from our Web site or received it in the mail, you should have a file called TextMaster.prc on your desktop or laptop computer (on the hard disk or on a floppy diskette). If you have a file named TestMaster.ZIP, that is not the proper file; that's a compressed or "zipped" file that you must uncompress with standard "unzipping" software (which we do not provide).

If you do not have the file TextMaster.prc, you cannot proceed. If you do have TextMaster.prc, here's how to install it on your handheld unit:

From a Macintosh:

Run your HotSync Manager software, and from the HotSync menu, select Install Handheld Files. Drag the file TextMaster.prc into the window (or use the Add to List button to accomplish the same thing), quit the HotSync Manager, and perform a HotSync.

From Windows:

Using the Install software that came with TextMaster: As part of the download or on this diskette or CD you should see a program named Install in the same folder as the TextMaster software. Double-click on Install, and it will copy all of the files to a new TextMaster Software folder in your Palm\Add-On folder on your computer, and at the same time will perform all the steps to install the software in your Palm, except for the final step of performing an actual HotSync. When you do your next HotSync, the software will be installed in your Palm.

If the procedure above does not work for some reason, simply double-click on the file TextMaster.prc. If you are offered a window asking use to "Select a user", do so. Click Done on the Install Tool window which appears and perform a HotSync.

After installing TextMaster, you'll find it in the System section of the Home screen on your Palm handheld. Look for this icon:

Starting the Application

Select the TextMaster icon from your Home screen (if you are using "large icons" and the standard Palm Launcher, the name will be abbreviated "TextMas..."), and you'll see the main screen of the program which looks like this:

Before registering the software, you will see a License button in the upper-right hand corner of the screen. You can use TextMaster on 7 different days without a license. During that time, if you decide to use the software permanently, you can purchase a license and obtain a serial number. Once you do, tap on the License button and enter the serial number to license the software. If the serial number is correct, the License button will disappear.

If you run into a problem, this probably means that when you provided your Palm "HotSync name" (also known as your Palm user name) to Stevens Creek Software, you did so incorrectly. Check the name in the Enter Serial Number screen, and write it down exactly and email it to Stevens Creek Software technical support at supportmail@stevenscreek.com and wait for a new serial number to be provided to you.

Configuring TextMaster

There are two activation methods (ways to activate TextMaster), and four modes of operation available for you to choose on the main screen:

Activation method(s):

• Right 5-way navigator button activates TextMaster by pushing the right button on the "5-way navigator", which is only available on some, but not all, PalmOS handheld units. This is definitely the most convenient way to activate TextMaster, but there are a few applications in which you may find it interferes with some feature of that application, and if that is an application and a feature you like, this mode won't be desirable.If your handheld unit does not have a 5-way navigator, checking or unchecking this box will have no effect.
• Command stroke uses the special PalmOS "command stroke" to activate TextMaster. On some units with a physical keyboard, like a Tungsten/C, there is actually a physical key showing this stroke (on the Tungsten/C, it's just to the right of the space bar). On any Palm unit with the ability to enter Graffiti, the "command stroke" is a "lower-left to upper-right stroke" in the Graffiti area. On units like the Tungsten/T3, if you activate the "on-screen Graffiti" (indicated by the squiggly line on the bottom icon bar on the T3), then you can make that stroke on the main screen of the handheld. In either case, when you enter the command stroke, an icon menu bar pops up on the bottom of the screen, and one of the icons will be the TextMaster icon. Tap on it (you have to hold the stylus down for a second or so; that's just the way the icon menu bar works) and either the keyboard or your phrase list will appear, depending on the mode of operation of TextMaster.

You can select one or both of these methods of activation.

Modes of operation (Action):

• None de-activates the software, so that you can leave it installed on your Palm but make it inactive.
• Popup keyboard only does what the predecessor application, EZ KB did, and nothing more - when you activate TextMaster, the on-screen keyboard appears, allowing you to enter text by tapping the on-screen keys. Niether of these modes is likely to be preferable
• Popup phrase list pops up the phrase list when you you activate TextMaster, but one of the choices on that list will be "Keyboard," so that if you need to enter characters or words which aren't on your memorized list, you can get to the keyboard.
• Popup keyboard, then phrase list first pops up the keyboard when you you activate TextMaster, but if you activate it a second time (i.e., activate it when the popup keyboard is active on screen), then you will get the popup phrase list.

In general, one of the two last choices will likely be what you want. Which of these two you prefer will depend on whether you find yourself using the memorized phrase list or the keyboard more often.

If you have either the third or fourth option (popping up the phrase list either first or second), then there is actually a third way to see the phrase list. When the onscreen keyboard has been activated (either by TextMaster or by any other method, e.g., selecting Keyboard in an Edit menu), there is an additional way to activate the popup phrase list - tap on the word "Keyboard" on the top line of the window:

If you tap on the title line, but to the left of the word "Keyboard," the standard Edit menu will appear if you want access to that. But tapping on the word "Keyboard" itself will popup the phrase list.

There is also one special configuration checkbox labelled Inactive in Address Book Look Up. Palm implemented a very non-standard method for the "Look Up" function on the main screen of their Address Book (or Contacts, depending on which type of Palm) application.Checking this box makes that function work "normally," that is, TextMaster will become inactive while you are working in that field (it will still be active on the other screens of the Address Book/Contacts application, e.g., when entering new addresses). Note that if you do not check this box, you can use TextMaster to popup the keyboard to enter characters in the lookup field rather than using the "Palm method"; many users find this desirable. However, note that even if TextMaster is active, it is only active when the cursor is blinking. So if you have TextMaster active, but then decide you want to use the special Palm lookup feature, just inactivate the cursor, which you can do by pushing the "up" or "down" button (incidentally this really shouldn't cause the field to lose its blinking cursor, but it does), and then push the right button to get the Palm look.

Note that this checkbox only inactivates the right button push method of activating TextMaster. Since the command stroke method doesn't interfere with the Address Book Look Up, there is no need to deactivate it for that special case.

The first time you use the software, you might want to use the test fields to see how it works. One thing you'll see is that, when you set the software to popup the keyboard, if the field is a "general" field, the keyboard will popup on its alpha screen; it it is a "numeric" field, the keyboard will popup on its numeric screen. And, even if you have selected Popup phrase list mode to indicate that you want the popup phrase list to take precedence over the popup keyboard, if you are entering text into a numeric field, the software will assume that you don't have any "memorized numbers" and will popup the keyboard in numeric mode first. If you do actually have memorized numbers to enter, you can then popup the phrase list. The keyboard will also take precedence over the popup phrase list, even if you have Popup phrase list mode selected, in two other circumstances where it is always less likely that you will want the phrase list - when you activate the software when the Palm "Find" dialog is active, or when you activate it from the "Look Up" field on the main screen of the Palm Address Book (Contacts) application.

Adding phrases to your database (dictionary)

From the main screen, tap on the Add phrase button and you will see this screen:

There are four aspects to any phrase:

• Title: This is the word that will appear in the popup menu to allow you to select this particular phrase from your list. You should keep it short (there is a 24-character limit), but obviously long-enough to distinguish it from other entries.

• Folder: Phrases can be placed in the "MAIN" folder, which is the "top" level, i.e., not inside any folder, or they can be placed in a folder. Tap on the folder popup and you'll see a list of available folders:

  

  The list above is the way TextMaster configures itself when you install it, but the folders (categories) are entirely up to you. You can delete these and add more (using the "NEW FOLDER" selection) as you like. Phrases which you add to the MAIN folder are accessible with a single tap, while phrases placed inside a folder will require two taps, so take that into consideration when organizing your phrases. No need to worry; you can move a phrase from one folder to another, or from a folder to the MAIN level, at any time.

  To create a new folder, enter the Title, select NEW FOLDER, and then tap OK (or Add, Repeat) if you want to add another folder or phrase. Do not enter any text, because folders aren't phrases, so they have no text.

  See below (under "Application-Specific phrases") for a discussion of how you can use special folder names to associate certain folders with certain applications.

• Add leading space: Some phrases, when you add them, should have a space inserted before them. Let's say you add the word "the" to your phrase list. When you insert that in a memo or email, you would want a space inserted before it, if it isn't at the beginning of a line and if it isn't already preceded by a space, and if you check Add leading space, that's exactly what will happen. But for some phrases this wouldn't be appropriate. For example, if you are inserting the phrase ".com" in your web browser after enter "www.google", you definitely don't want a space inserted there.

• Text: This is the text will be inserted when you select this item. It can consist of any text, and multiple lines, with a limit of 4095 characters. For many simple entries in the phrase database, you might want the text to be exactly the same as the Title. For example, ".com", ".org" work just as well as a Title as the Text. So you don't have to enter the same text twice, just tap the Copy Title to Text button.

Editing your list of phrases (dictionary)

From the main screen, tap on the Edit phrase list button and you will see this screen:

As should be obvious, folders are marked by a small folder icon, and the phrases in that folder are offset to the right. Phrases in the main folder will be displayed all the way to the left. You can add a phrase by tapping on Add, delete a phrase by selecting the phrase and then tapping on Delete, or edit the phrase (including moving it to a different folder) by selectingthe phrase and then tapping Edit. If you select a folder, rather than an individual item, tapping on Delete (and answering OK when asked if you are sure you want to proceed) will delete that folder and all the items in it. If you don't want to delete the individual items, you need to Edit them and move them to another folder before deleting the folder.

Note that, within each folder, phrases are always sorted and displayed alphabetically. However the folders are sorted and displayed in the order you create them, so you may want to put the more important ones at the top (that is, create them first).

Also note that there is only one level of folders; you cannot create folders within folders.

Some additional functions are found by tapping on the Menu bar, which will reveal these menu options:

You can select a phrase and then beam it to another Palm with another copy of TextMaster, clear all the saved phrases (leaving the folders intact), or clear the entire database (all the phrases and folders). For the latter two options, you will actually be asked not once but twice to confirm that that's what you really want to do. Since the software preconfigures itself with a number of sample phrases, after you get the "lay of the land," you can either delete all those starting phrases before entering your own, or you can simply edit the ones that are there, and delete the one or two you don't like individually.

This version of TextMaster doesn't allow you to beam entire folders or the entire "phrasebook" from one Palm to another; we may add that capability in a future version if there seems to be a demand.However, you can transfer the entire database of stored folders and phrases from one Palm to another in another way. In the "Backup" folder on your desktop (inside your Palm user folder), you will find the file TextMasterDB.pdb. This is the file containing all your saved phrases, and it is a file that can simply be installed, using the standard Palm "Install Tool," in another Palm (presumably one also running TextMaster, since otherwise it will be of no value).

Using the software

Once you have configured TextMaster, and entered the phrases you want to store in your phrase list, you can start using it from any application in which you see a blinking cursor. When you do, push the right navigator button and/or use the command stroke method, as you have configured the software. If you have TextMaster configured to popup the phrase list, you'll see something like this:

You see three different kind of things on the menu. On the top are two special items. Keyboard will popup the onscreen keyboard. Clipboard, which will only appear on the list if there is something on the clipboard, allows you to insert the contents of the clipboard, identical to using the Paste command from the standard Edit menu (but you'll find this access more convenient). After the special items, you see the various folders you have created, indicated with the right arrow next to them. And finally, at the bottom of the list, items in the "MAIN" menu, i.e., at the top level and not in any folder. So in this example, tapping on "Company Name" will insert the text associated with that item (presumably your company name), and tapping on "My Name" will insert that text. Tapping on any of the folder items (or, equivalently, using the center or Select button in the 5-way navigator), will bring up a sub-menu showing the items in that folder:

Here, note that there are no folders (because there are no second level folders), only three special items and then the phrases in that folder. The one new special item is Back, which, as should be obvious, takes you back to the main (top-level) menu.

You should be aware that, when the popup list appears, you can select the desired item using the stylus, but you can also use the 5-way navigator to select items from the list. The up/down buttons move the selection up and down, and the "select" button (the center button) selects the highlighted choice. Note that if you are looking at the top-level menu, and want to select a folder item with a right-facing arrow, you still select that with the "select" button, not the right button. Likewise if you are looking a second-level menu, and want to select "Back" with it's left-facing arrow, you still select that with the "select" button and not with the left button.

One subtle feature to note about inserting text using TextMaster. TextMaster does not use the standard Palm "clipboard," even when you tap on Clipboard on the menu. The positive aspect of this is that using TextMaster will never disturb the contents of the clipboard. There is a negative aspect, which is that "UnDo" doesn't undo any actions performed by TextMaster. However, this isn't really a major problem, since TextMaster only inserts text, never deletes it. So "undo"ing it is something you can do pretty easily just by selecting the text and hitting a backspace.

Application-Specific Phrases

You can create any folder names you want using TextMaster. However, if the folder name matches exactly (case-sensitive) to the name of an application as displayed on the "Home" screen of the Palm, then when you invoke a TextMaster popup list, TextMaster will start by displaying the contents of that folder, instead of displaying the "top-level" menu and then requiring you to select the correct folder to get to the list of phrases appropriate for that application. Of course, if you want a phrase in another folder, or one of the "top-level" phrases, you just need to tap Back to get back to the main menu.

Note that, because of limitations on the Home screen, the name of an application displayed on the Home screen is sometimes different than the "actual name" of the application. For example, Stevens Creek Software has a POS application named "Take An Order!" However, that name is too long for the Home screen, so on the Home screen it is labelled "TakeOrder". Even though "Take An Order!" is the "real" name of the application, a user of that software would need to name a TextMaster folder "TakeOrder" for this feature to work. Sometimes, long names on the Home screen are truncated and followed by "..."; this is actually the case with TextMaster itself (if you are in the "Icon" view and not the "List" view, which displays more characters. If you aren't sure about the name, use the Info menu from the Home screen to display a list of application names, which has more space for information and thus is less likely to truncate the name of the application which you need to use in TextMaster.

Word To Go and WordSmith

Word To Go (part of Documents to Go) and WordSmith are two word processing programs which support "rich-text" input, that is, text input which can have different fonts, plain, bold, or italic, etc. Because of this, neither of these programs uses standard Palm "fields" in standard ways. They also support "multiple undos" which leads to one of them, Word To Go, also using the Palm "clipboard" in non-standard ways. Starting with version 2.3, TextMaster now works with both of these programs, but with some limitations which do not apply to using TextMaster in conjunction with other programs:

• In Word To Go, TextMaster works normally, until and unless you use the standard clipboard functions (Cut, Copy, or Paste) from within Word To Go. Let's say you copy the text "Abc" onto the clipboard. From that point on, any use of TextMaster to select a phrase will insert "Abc" rather than the desired text. If you do not use the clipboard, you're fine. If you do, to restore functionality to TextMaster you need to exit and re-enter Word To Go.
• WordSmith grabs the "right" button of the 5-way navigator, so even if you have that enabled in TextMaster, it will not pop up the phrase list. The only method of activation for TextMaster within WordSmith is the command bar method (or, once you invoke the on-screen keyboard, the "menu bar tap" method as well).
• In both Word To Go and WordSmith, because TextMaster has no way of "reading" what's on the screen,the "Add leading space" feature of TextMaster does not function.
• Unlike all other programs, when used within Word To Go or WordSmith, TextMaster functions by putting its text into the normal Palm "clipboard" (when TextMaster is used with other programs, the clipboard is left undisturbed so that you can use it for "normally").

The above comments apply only to the main text entry/editing screen in Word To Go and WordSmith. On all other screens in those applications (the Save As screen, just to name one), TextMaster should function normally.

Note: the comments above apply only to WordSmith version 2.2.21 or higher, or Word To Go version 6.002 or higher. Earlier versions have not been tested, although it is known that much earlier versions of WordSmith will not work at all.

Date-Time Stamps

Normally, the text contained in a TextMaster phrase is inserted exactly as shown when you select it. However, there is one special notation, which you can use to insert Date, Time, and Date/Time stamps. This notation uses the special "double-bracket" character which is found on the lower-right hand corner of the Int'l portion of the popup keyboard, as seen here:

The five special notations you can use are these (and here, in this manual, we use two "regular" less than and greater than symbols instead of the single special "double-less than" and "double-greater than" symbols, only because of the way they reproduce in HTML and PDF formats, but when using TextMaster you must use the special characters):

<<DS>> Date Stamp (e.g., 3/4/04)
<<LDS>> Long Date Stamp (e.g., Mar. 4, 2004)
<<TS>> Time Stamp (e.g., 11:45)
<<DTS>> Date/Time Stamp (e.g., 3/4/04, 11:45)
<<LDTS>> Long Date/Time Stamp (e.g., Mar. 4, 2004, 11:45)

So adding one of these special items will look like this:

The exact format that the dates and times appear are controlled by you using the Formats screen in the Palm Prefs application.

In addition to the "fixed formats" described above, there is a more complex method, which allows user specification of the format string (similar, but definitely not identical, to the way it is done in Unix). This method as well uses the special "double-less than" and "double-greater than" symbols to bracket the content, but within those brackets is a "format string" which you compose yourself. Within that string, days, months, and years are specified by groups of three characters. The first character is always a percent character, "%". The second character is a number specifying what is being described - 0 represents the day number (0-31), 1 represents the day name (Monday, Tuesday,...), 2 represents the month name (January, February...), 3 represents the month number (1-12), and 4 represents the year (yes, 0 and 1 are not consistent with 2 and 3; blame Palm!) The third character is either "s" for "short," "r" for "regular," "l" for "long", or "z" for "leading zero." The resulting output looks like this:

Any characters which are not part of this set, or which fall into a spot in this table marked "n.a.", are simply printed as is. For example entering <<%1l, %2l %0r, %4r>> will produce an output of "Tuesday, November 2, 2004" (on that day; other output on other days!). Note how the spaces and commas are simply copied to the output. As another example, <<%4r-%3z%0z>> will produce an output of "2004-07-09" on July 9, 2004. Note that, unlike the formats several paragraphs above, these formats are independent of the formats you have set up in your Prefs application.

If you simply get an "echo" of your format string, that means you have done something incorrectly. Again, remember that the "<<" and ">>" are each one character, which is found on the lower-right hand corner of the Int'l portion of the popup keyboard (in "normal" and "shift" modes, respectively).

For Support

If you have any problems using TextMaster, you can contact Stevens Creek Software in one of the following ways:

If you lose your serial number, you can obtain a reminder online on our support page.If the serial number you were provided is incorrect, DO NOT CALL. First visit the support web page above, which will be the quickest way to solve your problem; as an alternative, email supportmail@stevenscreek.com with your request.