[App] Quill - handwritten notes

[Volker1]

Let's make an official xda-thread for Quill ;-)

Handwriting note-taking app for Android tablets (Honeycomb)

A key design goal is quick response to pen strokes and 100% vector graphics. Developed on a Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet.

Features

• Active pen (digitizer) support on ThinkPad Tablet, HTC Jetstream and HTC Flyer.
• Very fast response to pen strokes.
• "Fountain pen" mode supports pen pressure data, more pressure = thicker line.
• Pinch-to-zoom.
• Double-finger tap to zoom.
• Two-finger move gesture.
• Pen strokes are vector art, zoom does not pixelate your writing.
• "Pen only" mode (optional) disables touch input while writing.
• Android 3.x hardware accelerated graphics.
• Open source (GPL), so your notes are not stuck in an opaque file format.
• PDF export (save to SD card, Evernote, Share).
• PNG (raster image) export.
• Can backup/restore your data.
• Ruled/Quad background paper
• Tagging for pages so you can group them together.
• Switch between multiple notebooks.
• Undo/redo.

The n-trig active pen has been tested on the ThinkPad Tablet, HTC Jetstream, and the HTC Flyer (Honeycomb). The basic functionality should work on any Android tablet, but distinguishing pen from finger data and pressure sensitivity might not work on others. Please let me know your results if you try it on another tablet. See also the supported devices wiki.

There is also a thread on the Lenovo forum http://forum.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-slate-tablets.

You can also get the app for free (as in free speech) at http://code.google.com/p/android-quill. Also available on the Android Market.

Reviews

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1yxYXMPXA0
• http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/11/16/lenovo-thinkpad-tablet-review (contains above video)

 

[obscure.detour]

Volker1's app is simply amazing!

I use the TPT for college. I use my ThinkPad Tablet with Quill to take notes in class all the time. Here are some example math notes.

If you haven't already tried it with an n-trig optimized tablet, I suggest doing so immediately as it is simply the best for hand-written notes.

Thanks again, Volker.

 

[darkhandsome18]

Just perfect

Bought the quill app, its simply perfect. Its everything the stock note app isn't as regards palm rejection. And I don't really care for OCR because am an engineering student and the signs, maths and circuit diagrams i work with dont need translation anyway so I recommend it to anyone who just wants to take notes. You wont miss your paper notes...................er except when you run out of juice on your tablet .

My only recommendation to the dev is to allow the collation of pages into pdf books so a whole notebook can be exported at once instead of page by page.

 

[deadday]

Quill is a great note taking application and Volker has been constantly updating it, taking into account suggestions from the board members over at the Lenovo forum.

 

[headdy]

It's a great app with great support which gets better every few days! A must-have for every TPT-owner
Thank you, Volker!

 

[obscure.detour]

Bought the quill app, its simply perfect. Its everything the stock note app isn't as regards palm rejection. And I don't really care for OCR because am an engineering student and the signs, maths and circuit diagrams i work with dont need translation anyway so I recommend it to anyone who just wants to take notes. You wont miss your paper notes...................er except when you run out of juice on your tablet .

My only recommendation to the dev is to allow the collation of pages into pdf books so a whole notebook can be exported at once instead of page by page.

Couldn't agree with you more. However, Volker did add the ability to export a whole notebook/tagged pages into pdf. When you export, there is an option in the Output drop down menu and select either "Whole notebook as PDF" or "Tagged pages to PDF". Hope this helps

Also, Volker; I was wondering if you could add the option to export the whole notebook or tagged pages as PNG. The reason I ask, is because I use the 1080p (HDTV 16:9) canvas, as I like the size and ability to maximize one page of notes. Well, when exporting to PDF, that size isn't an option as PDF is limited I believe.

I tried exporting the notebook to Evernote, but when retrieving the notes through Evernote on my computer, all the images have been resized to a measly 800x450 resolution. So in its current form if you want 1080p output, you're limited to exporting page by page.

Sorry for the lengthy explanation, just wanted to make it clear

Thanks again

 

[darkhandsome18]

@ obscure.detour thanks for the info. I didn't see the option for export whole book as pdf because I was on the HD resolution. Well I guess this just makes the app even better. Cheers to Volker.

 

[Volker1]

Also, Volker; I was wondering if you could add the option to export the whole notebook or tagged pages as PNG. The reason I ask, is because I use the 1080p (HDTV 16:9) canvas, as I like the size and ability to maximize one page of notes. Well, when exporting to PDF, that size isn't an option as PDF is limited I believe.

I tried exporting the notebook to Evernote, but when retrieving the notes through Evernote on my computer, all the images have been resized to a measly 800x450 resolution. So in its current form if you want 1080p output, you're limited to exporting page by page.

I guess I was thinking about portrait only... I'll change the quick Evernote export to be 800px in the smaller dimension. I think thats a good trade-off between file size and readability.

Is there a particular reason why you want to export all pages as png? This would necessarily be as a sequence of multiple files. I would have thought that exporting to PDF is much more useful if you want to send your notes to your desktop. Just trying to understand the rationale behind it.

 

[obscure.detour]

I guess I was thinking about portrait only... I'll change the quick Evernote export to be 800px in the smaller dimension. I think thats a good trade-off between file size and readability.

Is there a particular reason why you want to export all pages as png? This would necessarily be as a sequence of multiple files. I would have thought that exporting to PDF is much more useful if you want to send your notes to your desktop. Just trying to understand the rationale behind it.

Well, I guess the only reason I want PNG, is because when trying to export as PDF, the output option (HDTV 16:9) is unavailable. It'll export, but only the sizes A4/US Letter/Legal are available.

Aha! I selected US Legal as the output option and the PDFs export are no longer cut off. The whole page is now viewable! I guess I haven't tried exporting to PDF in awhile. Sorry. It used to cut off the (HDTV 16:9) pages when exporting as PDF. My mistake..

Thanks again, Volker.

 

[titorez]

Hi, I'm testing this app on an Asus Transformer, very well coded.

I have a couple of suggestions (I know this app was built with active pen in mind so go easy on me )

1) Palm rejection doesn't work (of course) on my tablet (probably because I do not have active pen or similar). A quick fix to make it work on other tablets could be to only draw what comes form the leftmost touch input if I write with the right hand or from the rightmost touch input if I write with the left hand (with of course a setting to choose from left or right handwriting mode). In this scenario (with multiple touch events on the screen like the pen & the hand & probably some finger laying around) the app should recognize the pen and not the hand laying on the screen 97% of the time effectively doing some sort of palm recognition. What do you think ?

2) Some of the setting like thickness and color should be taken out of the menu and put on the main UI for even quickier access.

Thanks for your app and your time

 

[headdy]

[...]
2) Some of the setting like thickness and color should be taken out of the menu and put on the main UI for even quickier access.
[...]

I second that. Maybe something hidden in the corner like the Pen selection menu on the HTC Flyer:

 

[xd2009]

Volker,

I do want to thank you for the amazing app. It really does what I had hoped the stock notes app would do. Quill is so good that I actually would like to ask for a few improvements that would make it perfect for me (and perhaps for others). I am no programmer so I am don't know how much work would it be to implement them

I am a Physics teacher and I use Quill to provide help to my students both, with them and when they email asking for help. I also use to take notes in meetings.

1 - I use wordpress to upload the extra help I provide the students to our class blog. It would be excellent if the option to share with word press was included in the export menu.
2-I need to change color and thickness several times as I color code my explanations (black for forces, blue for components, etc). As someone else has asked, would ne good if these choices were taken away from the menu and placed in the main interface.
3 - I believe this one is a bit of a stretch, is it hard to include the option to import pictures so we can in a meeting or demonstration, take pictures and annotate them?

Please don't take me wrong, I never asked a dev to include specific changes before, but I did like your app and the 1st request seems to be not so hard. The others would benefit several users, I believe.

Thanks

xd2009

 

[Volker1]

I do read the forum, no worries. If I don't reply immediately then that means that I'm busy implementing new features ;-)

If you have the wordpress android app installed then you should be able to "Share file via: Use other Android app". Did you try that?

The rest will be coming in future versions...

 

[xd2009]

Volker,

I tried Export/Use other Android App and the options that I receive are:ArcSync, Bluetooth, Dropbox, Email, Evernote, Gmail.

Thank you very much for your attention.

xd2009

 

[Volker1]

Should be fixed in the next version (export as PNG and share with Wordpress app)

 

[xd2009]

Thank you very much for your attention and for the amazing app.

Yours,

xd2009

 

[mysparkle]

Fan art

Hi, I just felt I needed to tell everyone that Quill is by far the best sketching app for the ThinkPad tablet!
Made some fan art to give some love back

Hope you like it

Ciao,
Lars

 

[obscure.detour]

Hi, I just felt I needed to tell everyone that Quill is by far the best sketching for the ThinkPad tablet!
Made some fan art to give some love back

Hope you like if

That is super rad mysparkle! I like it a lot And yes, Quill is amazing!

Cheers.

Edit: Holy ****! Volker the new update is awesome! Fantastic work!

 

[acebogomir]

Volker great work!!!

I tried a lot handwriting apps in the last week but quite frankly they suck.

I like quill and I think it will fullfill most of the needs I have for the app and my tpt. It's the best app so far.

I used a normal windows tablet with one note and windows journal a lot and still do.
I wish there would be a way to combine them somehow. This would be something for my wishlist

Export to Windows journal
Export as one note file with ink support


Thanks


Sent from my ThinkPad Tablet using xda premium

 

[xd2009]

@ Mysparkle, I wish I had just a little bit of your talent.
@ Volker - Thank you very much for the update. Quill is, at this point, all I needed for note taking. Anything else is wish list.

I am rating Quill 5 stars everywhere.

xd2009