Making Windows Work with a Pen

Making Windows Work with a Pen

Overview of making windows work with a pen.

Tablet PC form factors use a tablet pen for some or all input. This makes it extremely easy to write ink but requires rethinking of how to perform mouse actions. Microsoft® Windows® XP Tablet PC Edition delivers architecture for pen input that supports a tiered structure of gestures. Gestures and mapping are defined to allow the user to write and invoke advanced gestures on new surfaces, while reserving gestures that invoke traditional mouse messages of other Windows-based applications.

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition introduces two levels of gestures: system gestures, also known as system events, and application gestures. The pen architecture supports both system gestures and application gestures. Both single-stroke and multiple-stroke application gestures are supported.

The following sections detail the uses of system and application gestures.