Microsoft Lonestar to improve Tablet PC

Microsoft is hedging its bets that the "Lonestar" upgrade to its Tablet PC series will shine. We certainly hope so as Tablet PC sales have never set any sort of records.

The Lonestar release of the Tablet PC operating system is composed of three pillars: improved ink to text, integration with Office 2003 and a newer, more advanced SDK for developers.

The upgrade will ship mid-2004 free of cost to existing users, and be preinstalled on new systems.

 One of the main areas of attention in the development of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2004 is inking. There is less disconnect between the tablet input panel (TIP) and applications, while TIP itself has been significantly overhauled based upon user feedback.

Rather than be hidden away in the quick launch bar, TIP is now integrated into the input fields of applications. Users click an icon that brings up the panel proximate to wherever it is supposed to be.

The new TIP has, “a clever understanding of the active window,” Tablet PC General Manager Peter Loforte told BetaNews. Existing programs do not have to be re-coded to take advantage of this new behavior.

A common gripe reported by users of the current Tablet PC release is that text recognition previously did not reveal its outcome — for better or worse — prior to being submitted to an application. One year later, Microsoft has remedied this complaint by having converted text reveal itself instantaneously the moment a stylus contacts the screen.

In addition, the TIP window also grows as a user’s handwriting requires more space, and will display commonly used prefixes such as “www” for convenience’s sake.

Read more of this story at BetaNews