MetaMoji Note: A Digital Pencil & Notebook Replacement Notebook & Pencil are hard to beat when sketching, equations, and writing are required in equal measure. To be sure, there are good digital tools for each of these separately, but not when all three are combined, which is the typical use case when working as an engineer, mathematician, or product designer.
Now there's a new suite of digital freehand tools that are almost good enough to set aside the notebook permanently. The core of this toolkit is a vector-based graphics canvas (software) and an ultra-precise stylus (hardware).
If you use Apple iOS, you may already be using Adobe Ideas, which does the job brilliantly and is free. [1] But Adobe has no plans to release this to either Windows RT or Android, so for the rest of us, that's a showstopper.
Enter MetaMoji Note, a comparable vector-graphic app that works seamlessly across all three major platforms (iOS, Windows RT, and Android) with its free cloud sync feature. There are several attractions. First, Note has that simple, intuitive, easy-to-use interface that starts to rival the simplicity of pen & paper. Additionally, it has virtual whiteboard technology for collaborative work (Share Anytime), and exceptional hand-writing recognition with the mazec3 add-on.
Initial drafts are a snap. Refined editing / re-work is easy. And sprucing up for discovery sessions / presentations is not much more work. I now use Note as my primary digital notepad.
For usability, I combine finger motions on my touchscreen laptop with a precise stylus from Wacom which can also be fitted with a wireless module to go cable free.
The results have been good enough to set aside my notebook & pencil for weeks at a time.
An excellent starting point to freehand diagramming, with tips and examples, is +Simon Raper's article [1] available from Drunks & Lampposts.
Kit List:
+ MetaMoji Note (£5, outstanding) Note Lite (Free, still very good)
+ Wacom Intuos Pen (small)
+ Wacom Wireless Accessory (optional)
+ Touchscreen Laptop with adequate processing power (Intel Core i5 with 6GB RAM is plenty)
+ Windows 8.1
References:
[1] Freehand Diagrams with Adobe Ideas, Jan 2014, Simon Raper, Drunks & Lampposts (blog)
http://drunks-and-lampposts.com/2014/01/13/freehand-diagrams-with-adobe-ideas/
[2] MetaMoji Note (iOS, Windows RT, & Android) (£5)
http://noteanytime.com/en/
[3] Wacom Intuos Pen (CTL-480S) (£49)
http://www.wacom.com/en/de/creative/intuos-pen
[4] Adobe Ideas (iOS only) (Free)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/adobe-ideas/id364617858?mt=8&affId=1503186
[5] Lenovo Flex 2 laptop, with touchscreen display (1920x1080), Intel Core i5-4210P processor with 6GB RAM, 1.7 GHz and 3MB Cache (£429)
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/lenovo/flex/flex-2-14/#tab-tech_specs
#productivity #innovation #technology
Freehand Diagrams with Adobe Ideas
Here's a quick list & a few tips:
* Cloud synch (free storage). This means data safety and accessibility from any device.
* Pen selection: each pen style has particular characteristics.
+ The fountain pen assists with neater handwriting for those with a scrawl.
+ The brush improves annotations.
+ Colours enliven sketches & diagrams.
* Paper selection: lined, graph, boxes, grids, and a variety of others
* Pen Tip size affects your handwriting at different zoom settings.
+ I typically use 5pt for primary writing, one line per ruled line (this keeps the right size for legible print-outs); 3pt for fine annotations / commentary; 10pt for brush annotations (large, e.g. numbering)
* Lasso for partial selection: There are two choices of lasso's - complete selection and partial selection. With a bit of practice, you'll find partial selection is exactly what you need to grab whatever bits you want.
* Rotation, reflection, resize with dynamic thickness, resize without changing thickness
+ Text should be resized dynamically, so when you shrink, the stroke thins and retains legibility, and when you enlarge again, the stroke thickens restoring printability & aesthetics.
* Handwriting recognition (mazec): this is an add-on. Its recognition algorithms are exceptional. So on smaller devices, mazec offers a pretty good alternate input device, comparable to Swype on-screen keyboards.
However, as an add-on for your laptop installation, my feelings are mixed:
Probably worth having if you write faster than you type.
In my case, I can type much faster than I write, and indeed, when I choose to write it is because I want the deliberateness & time that writing gives one to reflect. Furthermore, I want to preserve the visual arrangement that writing / sketching allow uniquely.
As you can see, MetaMoJi Note has much to offer.
Happy exploring!
My model: Intuos Pen Small CTL-480S