Overview of Instant Text.

Purpose of Instant Text.

Instant Text is a software program for very fast text entry.
Using Instant Text,  you type abbreviations that are tailored to the subject of your current text.  So you end up typing a much smaller number of characters.  Once you are familiar with the product,  a slow typist will type comfortably fast.  A fast one, faster than speech.

How this works.

To understand how this works, the key concepts of Instant Text are explained hereafter:
* 	Word Abbreviations
* 	Phrase abbreviations
* 	Markers
* 	Custom Glossaries
* 	Advisories
* 	Continuations

Finally, this overview concludes by a review of:
* 	Working with Instant Text


Word Abbreviations.

A  word abbreviation starts with the first letter of a word and includes one or more other letters of the word in the order in which they appear.
For example,  some possible abbreviations for the word engineering appear below in the column labeled Short:
	
As this example shows, there is a  complete freedom in the choice of abbreviations and many possible forms: You do not have to remember a particular form and you do not need to be consistent and use always  the same abbreviation.
(The fact that you do not have to memorize a given abbreviation for a given word is a significant improvement over previous glossary facilities offered by word processors and similar tools.)
Another example illustrates the kind of abbreviations you might want to use for the word "characteristics":
	
As the above examples show, abbreviations can be quite arbitrary.  The only thing that matters is that the letters you include in an abbreviation must be in the same order as in the word you abbreviate.

Phrase abbreviations.

A  phrase abbreviation includes the initial letters of some or all words of the phrase, starting with the initials of its first word.
For example, the following abbreviations can be used for the phrase "one of the" (one of the most frequent phrases of the English language):
	
Similarly, if your organization deals with contracts, the following phrase may occur frequently and you may abbreviate it as indicated in the column labeled Short:
	
As in the case of word abbreviations,  Instant Text does not require that you remember precise abbreviations. The only thing that matters is that the initials you include in an abbreviation must be in the same order as in the phrase you abbreviate.


Markers.

So we typed "chat" in the input box,and you may  wonder how the system can decide whether to expand this to the word  "characteristics", the phrase "Consultant hereby agrees ...", or to consider that this is the word "chat".
Markers are part of the answer.  You use a marker after an abbreviation to tell Instant Text which form of expansion to use. For example, we use the marker [ to tell Instant Text that what precedes is a* phrase abbreviation:
	
Similarly, we use the marker /  to tell Instant Text of a word abbreviation:
	
And, of course, if you just want the word "chat", you put a space after the word as usual.
This*  example has used the single characters [ and /  as markers but Instant Text*  allows you to select your*  other single characters as your own markers.  On a pen system, a click in a given area of the screen will play the role of using* a marker.


Custom Glossaries.

Glossaries are another part of the answer to abbreviations.
Consider for example the abbreviation "fpt[".  In the text of a contract, this could be an abbreviation for the phrase  "from payments thereafter" whereas, in a technical document dealing with numerical operations, it could abbreviate the phrase "floating point type",  or the phrase "for products that" in a text describing products.
Clearly, if we were to consider all possible domains of knowledge, we could end up with hundreds of phrases that abbreviate to "fpt[" and this would not be usable. The Instant Text solution is to do an automatic glossary compilation to produce glossaries that correspond to different subjects.  Then, when you  type, you work with several active glossaries that reflect the subjects in your text. One of them, called the current glossary, is used for expansion of abbreviations as you type.

We now explain these three terms:
* 	Glossary Compilation
* 	Active Glossaries
* 	The Current Glossary


Glossary compilation.

Instant Text compiles glossaries for specific subjects by analyzing all words and phrases that appear in corresponding texts.  This process is called Glossary compilation and is entirely automatic.  It allows you to obtain glossaries that reflect the subjects on which you are writing, with their frequent terms and phrases.
For example, you may ask Instant Text to scan the files in a directory that contains contracts to compile a corresponding Contract glossary.  Similarly, the files of a directory of financial documents to produce a glossary of frequent words and phrases in financial texts.


Active Glossaries.

You can have up to eight glossaries active at a given time. The list of all active glossaries appears in a glossary list*:

In this example, the list includes a glossary called Address with a list of addresses, a glossary Contract for contract terms, and a glossary Business*  with usual terms.  Contact is highlighted and is therefore the Current Glossary.
Instant Text offers commands to open a glossary - thereby making it active - and to save the list of active glossaries so that these glossaries are automatically opened again the next time you use Instant Text.  The interest of the active list is that switching to another active glossary is instantaneous (whereas opening a glossary that is not active takes a few seconds).


Current Glossary.

The current glossary is one of the active glossaries.  You select the current glossary by a function key or from the active glossariy list*.

Abbreviations are always interpreted within the words and phrases of the current glossary.


Advisories.

Even within a given domain of knowledge, you may find that more than one  phrase correspond to a proposed abbreviation.  To resolve such situations, Instant Text lists the possible choices within a table called an Advisory.  For example, using a contracts glossary, the  letters "ic" will correspond to many possible phrases, and the possible choices will be reflected in the Phrase Advisory as  follows:

As you see, the abbreviations are listed in the left column - under the label Short - and the corresponding expansions on the right - under the label Phrases.  Should you like the first choice (in the highlighted row) you select it by typing the marker [ or, on a pen system, by pointing to the row.  Thus you typed "ic[" and this expanded into "If Contractor is required".

But suppose now that you want to type one of the later phrases.  You can select it by moving down the highlight with the arrow keys or the shift key (or by pointing with a pen).  Alternatively,  you can add one or more letters to restrict the choice.  So if you type the additional letter "w" the advisory gets updated as follows:

and after typing an additional "p":

Similar help is provided by the Word Advisory for word abbreviations.  For example, assume you know nothing about word abbreviations and start typing "appropriately" in a normal fashion.  After "app" the word advisory appears as follows:

As you can see, "appropriately" appears at the bottom row and we can select it by pressing the control key or by adding another letter: typing a "p" leads to the following:

and, finally, typing a "y" leaves only one choice:

For that matter, we can actually  come to the same selection by typing only "appy" or even (depending on the glossary) "apy".
This ability to abbreviate words can save time* significantly for long words: we typed five characters "appy/" instead of fourteen (the full word plus a space).  This is most useful for subjects such as medical texts an other texts referring to products that have long complicated names.  For example, typing the abbreviations "hcp/"  or "hxcp/" for the word "Hexachlorocyclopentadiene" means that you typed four or five letters instead of twenty-five.


Continuations.

Continuations come as a final bonus when typing documents that used standard clauses as is often the case in contractual and technical documents. The key idea in continuations is that once you have typed the beginning of a frequent phrase, Instant Text will often be able to suggest its continuation.  In the example that follows we assume that we are using our Contract glossary.  So after typing "ico", the Phrase Advisory appears as follows:

Let us select the highlighted phrase "In consideration of" by typing the marker [ and a new list of phrases will appear in the Phrase Advisory:

Essentially, the advisory contains the most likely continuations for the phrase "In consideration of".   So we select again the first phrase by typing the marker [ (or touching the row with a pen) and the advisory now contains continuations for "In consideration of the mutual":

and likewise, after selecting the first row, another list of possible phrases will appear:

followed by another:

and finally:

To summarize, we have typed "ico[[[[[[" and obtained the expansion "In consideration of the mutual covenants and other good and valuable consideration". This did not require us to remember any abbreviation and the choices were made step by step at the speed of a glimpse (which is quite fast).

Working with Instant Text

To conclude this overview, let us review the way you work with Instant Text. 

Start with glossary compilation

First you will allow Instant Text to compile glossaries for each of the different subjects for which you normally have texts.  You may already have directories that correspond to different subjects (for example, a directory for contracts, one for sales, one for administrative, another for windsurfing...).  So compiling a glossary for each such directory may be an easy step.  

In other cases, you will want Instant Text to compile a glossary for a complete set of texts that have a common subject. These may be texts that you have produced in-house or texts that you obtained from a data base, some  CD-ROM, or some electronic bulletin board.  You may also use some of the glossaries supplied with Instant Text but you are likely to outgrow them soon because glossaries that are customized to your practice will tend to be more effective.

Then select a glossary

that corresponds to the subject that you want to address.  

You can now start typing in the Input box.  As you type, the advisories will show you what abbreviations are available: this means that you never need to remember abbreviations.  If you type an abbreviation, it will be expanded in the Expansion window:

Of course, any normal word (that is, other than an  abbreviation) is sent as is to the expansion window.  If the subject of your document changes, you can switch instantaneously to another glossary of the list of active glossaries.

In practice, there are three major ways for using Instant Text.

Instant Text can be used as a Stand-Alone Editor

For example, for taking notes.  In such a case, the expansion window will be somewhat large and it will be usable as a simple text editor - similar to Windows Notepad - but with a powerful abbreviation expansion ability. If you are recording minutes of a meeting, you may also want to consult the Tape to double-check what you typed. 
This is also the mode that you are likely to adopt if your primary word processor is a DOS product.  After finishing a text-entry session, you can copy the contents of the Expansion window with the Copy All command (or its equivalent shortcut Ctrl+A) and paste it into the DOS word processor.

Instant Text can be used with a Word Processor

In such a case, you will use Instant Text mainly for its abbreviation expansion ability while other usual editing and formatting functions will be done with your word processor.  In this mode, you reconfigure Instant Text to occupy the bottom part of the screen, leaving the upper part of the screen to the word processor:

This reconfiguration is achieved by clicking on the Switch button (on the left of the 
Input box): 

Then you link Instant Text to the word processor by clicking on the Link button (on the right of the Input box): 
and by selecting the word processor in the Link dialog box that appears when you click on this button.  From then on, the word processor plays the role of the Expansion window and it receives everything you type in the Input box, most importantly, the expansion of abbreviations.Instant 
Text can be used on a Pen Computer

The abbreviation capabilities of Instant Text are especially valuable for text entry on pen computers where all input is done with the pen (in the absence of a keyboard).  
The pen turns out to be a very efficient device for selecting words and phrases in advisories.  A single tap on the desired advisory line is all that is needed to select the corresponding expansion.  No marker is needed and there is no need for direction keys to move the highlight.
These abbreviation capabilities are supplemented by an on-screen keyboard, called the One-Finger Keyboard or the FITALY keyboard1, and designed for entry with a single finger or with a pen: 

Unlike on-screen replications of the QWERTY keyboard, input on the FITALY keyboard is possible without hand movements: resting the hand on the surface of the computer and moving only the fingers holding the pen.  

Moreover, this keyboard layout is designed to minimize pen (or finger) travel.  The consequence of this optimization is that the key you tap next is most often a key that is adjacent to the last key you typed.  For example, try to type "do it with a pen" and you will see that this can be achieved with very limited pen travel. (Try this also on the QWERTY on-screen keyboard where the pen travel will be almost three times larger).
