io - General Discussion

[dripple]

First, a big "thank you" to Bry!!!! He is a valuable ressource for this board and keeps everything up.

Second, to clarify:
Logitech's Software supports a number of EasyBooks from scratch. But you have to know that there two series of books. Oxford was producing a series called "EasyBook" which are similar to the Logitech-Book (paperback, 90gr/sm paper and so on).

Most of you asking Bry for PAD-Files have bought EasyBook "M:3" (note the M:3). These books, like the EasyBook TASKAMANAGER and DIARY, are only supported by Oxfords DENOS Software. I tryed to use the PADs from DENOS with Logitech, but they aren't supported.

By the way: if you have a chance to switch over to Oxford/DENOS, I would suggest you should. DENOS 3.0 runs fine with Windows XP and 3.1 is specially designed for Vista. The price for the "Paper Starter Kit" incl. software and 3 book (A4 squared, A5 lined, A7 notebook) is about 50€. Unfortunatly, theres no manual handwriting-training like Logitech, but the software it much faster and has more features than the IO2-Tool.

[Nigel2007]

Hi dripple

I think your post is partly misleading, as the PAD file I modified and supplied to Bry supports the following Easybook M3:

IO2_EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.18.1-128.pad - A4 lined 6mm - TC:4198.506.22843, Bar Code 001962

This is the current versions of the Easybook M3 A4 6mm lined, as supplied in the UK. Using this PAD file enables the Logitech software to support this Easybook. The 5mm quad Easybook M3 (A4 or A5) doesn't seem to be available any more.

BTW Does the Denos software work with the current Logitech notebooks (the red/green/grey ones)? If so then I would consider changing to Denos.

Kind regards,

Nigel

Message Edited by Nigel2007 on 04-21-2008 05:56 PM

Message Edited by Nigel2007 on 04-22-2008 10:54 AM

[dripple]

Hi Nigel,

maybe I'm wrong or missing something, but I didn't find any way to get the M3 books working with Logitech IO2. I'm using the A4 6mm lined, A4 5mm squared, A5 5mm sqaured and also the small A6 lined notebook. In germany, some sellers have this books on stock and even Berlin's KaDeWe sells this books in their paper store.

I didn't tried the Logitech books with Denos, I'll give them a try when I'm back at home on the end of week.

[Jeroth]

Thanks BRY  for sending the files (and Nigel2007!).  I have posted them on http://io2.jeroth.com

Dripple, using the above files I am now using my Logitech IO2 with M3 pads.  I can now use the A4, as well as the A6 and the pocket pad,  which already worked.  All transfer and read ok.  Although I have not yet tried all the functionality.

Jeroth

[HrGuru]

Hello Bry
If you can supply the easybook PAD files I'd be grateful- what about vista support?

[BRY]

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HrGuru wrote:
Hello Bry
If you can supply the easybook PAD files I'd be grateful- what about vista support?

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I need an email address to send them to!
Vista instructions included.

[Alianmac]

I wonder if someone can help me please?

I have 3 Easybook M3 notepads:

TC: 2777.506.72465 Bar coded: 3 020120 019628
TC: 4198.506.18490 Bar coded: 3 020120 019628

TC: 2785.506.72487 Bar coded: 3 020120 019819

The first two are A4 6mm lined. The last one is a pocket book that came with an original Denos pack. It is approximately one sixth A4 size. The A4 pad TC: 2777.506.72465 came with the same pack.

I use a Logitech Bluetooth pen but mainly use it with a docking station.

Everything worked fine until I bought a pack of replacement books. They are of the TC: 4198.506.18490 variety. They would not work with my Logitech software (which is version 4.1.852.1). I managed to find this thread - which appears to be the only information and expertise available on the subject - and installed the new PAD files as per instructions. To be precise, I installed EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.17.1-128.pad, EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.19.1-128.pad, EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.20.1-128.pad and IO2_EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.18.1-128.pad.

The result was that the new book worked fine but the other two stopped working. Having compared numbers, etc. I discovered that I had removed several PAD files that were numbered before the ones that I had just installed - EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.12.1-128.pad to EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.16.1-128.pad - so I returned those to the same folder to see what happened.

This meant that the old A4 book started working but the small notebook still does not. My Io2 software now generates a warning that "my pen contains pages written on unknown paper" - which I guess is the page from the small notebook.

The mystery is why it should do this when I have only added old pen files back. I.e. it didn't generate this message when the files EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.12.1-128.pad to EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.16.1-128.pad were not in the PAD File folder. Neither did it do so when all the original PAD files were in the folder (at which point the Io2 software recognised the small notepad just fine).

Any advice will be welcome but I suspect that the thing that would help me most is a definitive list of EasyBook M3 TC numbers and barcodes, together with a mapping to the appropriate PAD files. Does such a thing exist anywhere? If not, could we reverse engineer one?

Also, could someone explain how to find the address of the particular book from the book itself? Is there an explanation of how the addressing works anywhere?

Thanks in advance.

[Nigel2007]

Hi Alianmac

You have asked some interesting questions. I don't have all the answers, but I can share what I have learned. I have not seen any detailed explanations of how the addressing works. Nor any list of which PAD files are used for which notebook. However, when I started using an A4 6mm lined Easybook M3, I found that it did not work properly with the IO2 software. This was because the page address range had been changed since the software was issued, so the PAD file didn't match any more. I was able to edit the PAD file to make it correspond to the new Easybook. This is where the file IO2_EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.18.1-128.pad comes from. Here are some notes about what I found along the way.

As you probably know, the dots on the Anoto paper encode for a unique position. Each book consists of a set of pages, and each page has a range of unique locations across it. A PAD file corresponds to the set of pages within a book. The page addresses resolve to a four number sequence, a bit like a URL. For example 33.2.18 is the address of your new Easybook, and 33.2.18.1 is the address of page one in that book. The name of the PAD file usually tells you what range of pages the PAD file applies to. For example IO2_EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.18.1-128.pad is the PAD file for your new Easybook (33.2.18) and that PAD file describes pages 1 to 128 (i.e. all the pages in that book.

To find out which PAD file corresponds to which book, you need to know the address range of the pages in the book. You can find this by looking in the Transaction Log of the IO2 software. By default this is hidden. You can force it to display by right-clicking on the IO2 software tray icon & selecting "IO2 Pen Settings". Then select the "Transaction Log" tab. Set "Displaying Transaction Log" to Always. Form then on, whenever you download data from your pen, the transaction log should open. The top half of the log displays a list of the pages downloaded, and the bottom half displays details for the page selected. Select a page and the details will show you the page address. It is in the format "33.2.18.p#b", where the first three numbers are the address of the book, "p" is the page number, and "b" is the book number. The book number will increment each time you check the "New notebook" pidget for the same book type.

Once you know the address ranges your books are using you can tell which PAD files they relate to, by finding that address in the PAD file name.

The PAD files are in XML. You can open them in any text editor and read the contents. Each PAD file contains an entry that gives you the name of the notepad to which it belongs. For example:

"application_info name="notepad_name" value="Smarties_A4_lined6mm_001962""

For some (historic) reason the Easybooks are called "smarties". This example is for the A4 6mm lined Easybook. So by looking in each PAD file you can see which type of notebook it belongs to.

If you want to edit your own PAD files, then be aware that the files use UTF-8 character encoding. So you have to use a text editor that preserves the encoding. I learned the hard way that Windows Notepad does not, so it corrupts the PAD files & they become useless. Alternatively, since the file is in XML, you can use an editor like Microsoft XML Notepad, which you can download from here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/xml/bb291062.aspx, to explore and edit the PAD files.

I agree that we should compile a list of which notebooks require which PAD files. The only Easybook I have access to is the 6mm lined Easybook M3, for which I created the following PAD file.

IO2_EASYBOOK_M3_33.2.18.1-128.pad - A4 lined 6mm - TC:4198.506.22843, Bar Code 001962

It's interesting that you have a book with the same bar code, but a different TC number. The critical thing for identifying the right PAD file to use with a notebook is the address range of the pages in the notebook. You can use the Transaction Log to discover this, as described above.

I hope these notes are of some help. I would be interested in pursuing this further.

Kind regards,

Nigel

[Alianmac]

Hi Nigel,

Thanks for the comprehensive reply.

That is a lot to think about.

As to a way forward, do you think that collectively we (but mainly you ) know enough to create PAD and PNG files or should we be building a PAD file database a bit like some of the driver databases?

Regards,

Malcolm

[Nigel2007]

Hi  Malcolm

There are other people in these forums that are much better placed than me to develop new PAD files, as they are Anoto development partners and have access to dev kits and technical documentation & support.

I think it would be difficult (for me) to create new PAD files from scratch. But I have see that it is possible to modify existing PAD files to get them to work with new notebooks, as I have done this myself. However, I found it needed a lot of testing to iron-out the bugs. Since I only have access to the Easybook M3 A4 6mm lined notebooks, this is the only PAD file I have modified. I also use the Logitech IO2 notepads, but these work fine as is. I might be induced to modify PAD files for use with other notepads if someone could supply me with blank notepads, which I could use for testing. Creating the PNG files is possible, but a bit fiddley. I reused the original Easybook PNGs, but had to scale them to get the page image to line up with the downloaded writing. Where there are no such PNG files, it would be possible to scan pages from the notebook & scale them to fit.

I think the easiest way to start would be to identify which of the existing PAD files work with which notebooks. Probably the quickest way to start this would be to extract the notebook names and page address ranges from the PAD files, as I explained in my previous post. People who have examples of the notebooks could then add more details, such as TC numbers and bar code numbers. This sounds like a job for a table, or spread sheet, that we could edit collectively. I don't think there is any facility for keeping files like that on the forum. Maybe we could use something like Google docs for this?

Once we've identified which notebooks are and are not supported by the existing PAD files, then we could look at which additional notebooks people need PAD file support for - There's no point doing work unless someone benefits from it.

Kind regards,

Nigel