An Introduction to APE™ Advanced Pen Entry

APE™ Advanced Pen Entry is Unique

It is unlike anything you have ever used before. It is so “different” that your attempts to use it, without at least some introductory help such as this, are quite likely to fail.

The Problem

If I were to draw a short vertical line on a piece of paper, and then ask you if that was the letter “l” or the letter “i” or the number “1” you would not be able to answer that with any certainty. This is a problem that even the best handwriting recognition software would not be able to answer. In order to even make a proper “guess”, any person would need to see the letter placed in some sort of “context”.

The APE solution is that it does not even attempt to recognize handwriting

APE requires you to “draw” the characters in a very specific way on a one inch square 3 x 3 grid. If you follow a few specific rules APE will always “know” exactly which characters you “meant”, and will never “need to guess”. Because APE "requires" you to draw them the same way you have been drawing them since the first grade, APE is very easy to learn!

The APE Grid

The Ape Grid is made up of 3 columns and 3 rows, with the 9 regions numbered from 1 to 9 for references here.

The APE Rules

1. All characters are drawn using a single tap or one continuous stroke. No need to cross the letters t or f or dot the letter i.
2. The letters a to z must all be drawn in their lower case form. (Upper case letters are entered by using the Shift or Caps Lock strokes.)
3. All the letters a to z are drawn in the first 2 columns.
   • Except the wide letters, m and w, which can extend into the 3rd column
   • The narrow letters i and l are drawn entirely in the first column
   • The short letters a,c,e,i,m,n,o,r,s,u,v,w,x,z must be drawn entirely in the bottom two rows of the first and possibly second columns.
   • The tall letters b,d,f,g,h,j,k,l,p,q,t,y must be drawn using all three rows of the first and possibly second columns.
4. The numbers 0 to 9 are drawn in the last two columns
   • Except the "narrow" number 1, which is drawn entirely in the 3rd column
   • All the numbers are "tall" and are drawn three rows tall
5. The Space is a simple tap in the center region #5 in the APE grid above.
6. The Help Stroke is a simple straight line drawn upward from region #8 to #2 in the APE grid above.
   

In summary, the letters are drawn fitted towards the lower left corner of the grid, the numbers are drawn three rows high and fitted towards the right hand side of the grid.

APE, The Problem Solved

The Letter l

• being a letter, is drawn on the left side of the grid
• being a narrow letter, is drawn entirely in column 1
• being a tall letter, is drawn using all three rows
• is drawn as a simple stroke from row region 1 to region 7

The Letter i

• being a letter, is drawn on the left side of the grid
• being a narrow letter, is drawn entirely in column 1
• being a short letter, is drawn using only the bottom two rows
• is drawn as a simple stroke from row region 4 to region 7

The Number 1

• being a number, is drawn on the right side of the grid
• being a narrow number, is drawn entirely in column 3
• all numbers are drawn using all 3 rows
• is drawn as a simple stroke from region 3 to region 9

By following just these few simple rules 1 thru 5, you will be able to quickly and accurately enter over 95% of the characters you normally use in everyday life.

And using rule #6 will provide quick and easy access to learning the rest!

APE is fairly forgiving when it comes to “sloppy handwriting”

But when you do need to correct mistakes made, the full set of cursor movement keys that support auto repeat allow you to quickly and accurately move the cursor, select text by combining cursor movement with the shift or caps lock strokes, and even copy and paste as desired by using the ctrl key modifiers, ctrl c, ctrl x, ctrl v, to copy, cut or paste text. Ctrl a will select all text.

At times it will quicker and easier to move the cursor by touching the screen at the new location, and at other times it will be much quicker and more accurate to move the cursor using the APE cursor movement strokes.

Even More Help

The help provided by the Help Stroke provides much more in the way of Hints and Tips to using using APE successfully and efficiently.

All The Rest

Exactly how to correctly draw the rest of the characters is always readily available by using the Help Stroke. Note how the letters and numbers are almost exactly the way you have been drawing them for years already.

This last set of accented characters allows APE ™ to support the entire English, Spanish, French and German alphabets, including those important characters ¡, ¿, Ñ, ß, Ç Æ, and Œ.

Advanced APE, it is called "Advanced" for a reason

This section describes how to use the Advanced APE features, including Shift and Caps Lock, Control Characters, AutoRepeat, Function Keys and Alt Keys