How to use the Real-time stylus

The Real-Time Stylus (RTS) is a Tablet PC SDK feature that simplifies customized rendering of Stylus output, enables access to powerful hardware-level information for strokes and points, and grants access to ink-related events. The RTS works by using plug-ins that are added to via an interface that enables you to customize how the SDK is interpreting and using pen input.

Part 1: Setting up the Project

You will be creating a simple project that just has a just a dialog and an InkPicture control. This is described in previous blog entries here.

Part 2: A Very Simple Example Using the Dynamic Renderer RTS plug-in

The following code demonstrates a simple way to use the Dynamic renderer plug-in, provided by Microsoft, to have a higher level of control over ink-based controls. At this point, you shouldI have created a pretty straightforward project that has a dialog with only an InkPicture control in it. The real-time stylus interface is attached to the ink control and then the ink control relinquishes various aspects of ink rendering and so on to the plug-ins that are then added to the real-time stylus.

First, you will need to declare pointers for the Real-time stylus interface and a rendering plug-in.

// Some global COM interface pointers

CComPtr<IRealTimeStylus> g_pRealTimeStylus;

CComPtr<IDynamicRenderer> g_pDynamicRenderer;

CWnd* g_hInkArea;

After that you will need to attach the stylus to the ink control.

(inside of InitDialog)

    g_hInkArea = this->GetDlgItem(IDC_INKPICTURE);

    // TODO: Add extra initialization here

    // Create the IRealTimeStylus object

    HRESULT hr = g_pRealTimeStylus.CoCreateInstance(CLSID_RealTimeStylus);

    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))

    {

        // This both sets the m_gbRTSArea member to the

        hr = g_pRealTimeStylus->put_HWND(

          reinterpret_cast<HANDLE_PTR>(g_hInkArea->m_hWnd)

        );

    }

    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))

    {

        // This both sets the m_gbRTSArea member to the

        hr = g_pRealTimeStylus->put_Enabled(TRUE);

    }

Finally, you will need to add a plug-in to the real-time stylus control and you will be good to go.

    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))

    {

        // Create an IDynamicRenderer object to demonstrate RTS plug-ins

        hr = g_pDynamicRenderer.CoCreateInstance(CLSID_DynamicRenderer);

    }

    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))

    {

        // Retrieve the sync version of the dynamic renderer plug-in

        CComPtr<IStylusSyncPlugin> spSyncPlugin;

        hr = g_pDynamicRenderer.QueryInterface(&spSyncPlugin);

    }

    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))

    {

        // relenquish control of the HWND to the real-time stylus

    hr = g_pDynamicRenderer->put_HWND(

          reinterpret_cast<HANDLE_PTR>(g_hInkArea->m_hWnd)

        );

    }

    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))

    {

        // Add to the plug-in collection

        g_pRealTimeStylus->AddStylusSyncPlugin(0, spSyncPlugin);

    }

    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))

    {

        // Enable the plug-in

        hr = g_pDynamicRenderer->put_Enabled(TRUE);

    }

Conclusion

So there you have it, in summary to use the RTS, all you need to do is create the interfaces, attach them to an Ink Overlay or a control that uses an Ink Overlay, and then add the plugins that you want.