Can I do this in WINE?

[Bret Comstock Waldow]

John Klehm wrote:
> On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 8:17 AM, Bret Comstock Waldow <bcw1000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
>> I have a Tablet PC, running Kubuntu, and I have just released a project
>> on sourceforge to allow me to use the Microsoft hand writing
>> recognition. The current approach uses a .NET server in IIS running on
>> Tablet XP to provide the recognition. I would prefer to write a classic
>> Windows program that accepts the polyline ink strokes, accesses the
>> Tablet SDK & .dlls to recognize ink, and run that program in WINE
>> directly in Linux without IIS and network connections.
>>
>>     
>
> There is the very tiniest skeleton of inkobj.dll which unfortunately
> is no where near enough to even let an ms ink program run let alone do
> handwriting recognition.  Also I'm unsure of how doable it is to run
> .Net apps in wine yet.
>
> wintab32 works alright though, so perhaps you would be able to write a
> wintab app which integrated with one of the open source handwriting
> recognition programs (ocropus and others ill try and dig up the links
> later if you are interested).
>   
I will be very interested in looking at any open source handwriting
recognition programs you can point me at.

In order to be generally useful, the program must be able to recognize
cursive handwriting, as then it can be used with a general note-taking
application, such as the Tablet enabled PIMs (which is why I got
interested in the first place) or an open source equivalent of OneNote.

Xstroke uses the libstroke library to provide recognition of
single-stroke characters, and while many of those glyphs look like their
actual character, not all can.  A person could learn to write a page
full of individual glyphs (and read it), and then a program could use
libstroke later to interpret (and thus search through) such pages of
notes, but that's not the best solution.

We need cursive natural handwriting recognition, and I have that in the
licensed Tablet XP I have on my machine.  There are many examples of
"ink-on-the-web" published by Microsoft and their MVPs, and the license
states I can connect to my copy of XP over the network to consume
services provided by IIS, so I'm comfortable with my current solution.

But it's not the most useful - it requires a virtualized copy of Tablet
XP (or Vista) and that VM makes it cumbersome.

There is apparently a legal basis for me to use WINE to run Notepad off
my Windows partition.  I want to write a Windows COM (Automation) app -
no .NET - that I can install on my copy of Windows and then run via
WINE, just as I do Notepad or Solitaire.  The Tablet PC SDK appears at
first look to allow such.

If there is already a usable open source cursive handwriting recognition
program, I'll be happy to use that and ditch Windows entirely.

Otherwise, I need to know about the legality, and practicality, of a
scheme such as I am proposing above.  I'm hoping for comment, pointers,
and perhaps help about writing it.

Cheers,
Bret