From the early returns, people seem to be excited about InkSeine's floating Tool Ring. This semi-transparent palette floats on top of all your windows. It lets you scroll by circling the pen, or take a snapshot by tapping the camera icon:

For example, here is a comment that "Hari" posted in the GottaBeMobile.com forum about InkSeine:

Search capabilities, stroke-friendly menus and the toolring: to me these are the three most innovative and powerful features of InkSeine.

I am already addicted to the toolring and strive to use it in all other applications.

Since people seem to like the Tool Ring, they often suggest additional features it could support:

• I wish i had your kool pie-menu on it to cut, copy, paste, get a keybord or ever better: run keystrokes I configured!
• Any thoughts on giving the Tool Ring an Auto-Hide option?
• It's such a great input device; why not make it available even when InkSeine is not running?

What features do YOU want to see on there? One of these? Maybe something to flip through applications - kind of like an Alt-Tab replacement? Something else?

Well, I was just pondering that question myself when another email floated into my inbox, from a user who had already figured out how to make the Tool Ring available when InkSeine is not running, all on his own!

Anyway, the part i love the most is the tool ring. Soooooo koooool! scrolling on anything with the pen is just addictive!

It is such a good tool i put it to run at startup.

Now that's a great idea! Heck, why didn't we ever think of that!

The Tool Ring lives as its own little application called ScrollControl.exe that is completely independent of the rest of InkSeine. If you run ScrollControl.exe without InkSeine active, it still lets you scroll, and it places any snapshots you take on the system clipboard.

If you want to make your tablet setup as cool as this user's, here's how to add InkSeine's Tool Ring to your Startup folder:

1. Open the InkSeine install folder, which defaults to:
   C:\Program Files\Microsoft Research\InkSeine
   
   
2. Right-click on ScrollControl.exe and choose the Create Shortcut command:

3. Under Windows XP, the shortcut will be created in the same folder. Under Vista, you'll receive a prompt; tap Yes to create the shortcut on the desktop instead.
   
   
4. Now we need locate the Startup folder so you can put the ScrollControl.exe shortcut in there.
• If you've got your whole hard disk indexed with Vista Search / Windows Desktop Search, you can use InkSeine's Personal Search command to quicly locate that Startup folder. Here, I've also tapped on the folder filter in the bottom right corner of the search panel to narrow my results down:
  
  
  
  
• Otherwise, you can take the old-fashioned slow way and plow through your folders to find the Startup folder:
  Vista: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
  XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
  
  
5. Once you've got your Startup folder opened, just drag the ScrollControl shortcut into it:
   
   
   
   
6. The next time you log on, the Tool Ring (a.k.a. ScrollControl.exe) will appear, without InkSeine in the background.

Raman, InkSeine developer par excellence, mentioned this tip to another user who wrote to us about the scroll ring, and we received this reply back:

Raman,

That's a great tip!  Thanks. I've added it to my quick launch.

Well there's another great idea! You can put it in your quick launch so you can fire up that Tool Ring at any time with one tap of your pen. Once you've created a shortcut to ScrollControl.exe in steps 1-3 above, all you have to do is drag it to your quick launch area. This illustration shows how I did this from my Windows XP tablet:

So there you have it. May these tips make the Tool Ring your constant companion in all your Tablet PC travels!

 

Posts in the Tool Ring Shenanigans series:

• Kick Start that Tool Ring!
• Flick that Tool Ring!
• Zoom that Tool Ring!