Unit tests are of course really useful to make sure your code works and continues to work. I use JUnit for writing unit tests, but if you throw them into your ‘src’ directory, they get bundled into the penlet itself!  Not very desirable. Having a quick look at the ant script invoked to deploy a […]

A common thing for a LiveScribe pen penlet (pen application) to do is require the user to draw a button that they can later tap on.  Its sort of funky in a way – making the printed page “active”.  The standard “piano” application is one example of this (tap notes to play a tune) and […]

This is a quick post on timers in a LiveScribe pen penlet (pen application).  I had asked in the forums about how to track the pen position as it moved across the page.  The following is my take on the response I got. Sample Code In this case, I am going to start with code […]

A common question that comes up on the forum is how to wait for user input.  The answer is Penlets don’t wait for more input – they react to events. (The following post is a massaged version of this thread on the forums.) Consider a simple penlet where you want to ask the user to […]

I originally thought the LiveScribe pen could only play one note at a time. However, what I did not realize at the time was the pen supports JSR-135, which is a MIDI interface. MIDI is how computers can talk to devices like digital pianos, keyboards, drum kits etc. Using MIDI, chords can be played on […]

The LiveScribe pulse pen has built in handwriting recognition software.  Unfortunately its not very good unless your pen application (penlet) gives it a lexicon.  With a lexicon, it works pretty well – however when my lexicon reached 50,000+ lines I found out about a currently undocumented feature, Ludef files.  Ludef files are a grammar file […]

The LiveScribe pen allows penlets (pen applications) to be written in J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) and deployed onto the pen.  There are not a lot of penlets around yet, so I thought I would share a few personal opinions on how to structure penlets well, based on early penlet writing experience (and years of […]

LiveScribe just had a developer day where LiveScribe talked to a number of topics.  Slides of the presentation are available here.  Highlights are: Partial results from a survey of LiveScribe users More details on on competition Roadmap of future features They even had a special guest – James Gosling of Java fame.  Applications on the […]

Well, it looks like the LiveScribe online store (where you can buy apps for your digital LiveScribe pen) is a step closer. If you go to livescribe.com, there is a “beta” application store now there. It said I needed to upgrade to the 2.0 desktop to use it (note: my 1.7 desktop did not report […]