AsciiChart is a simple character set and font display utility for Palm OS devices. Use AsciiChart to view the characters available in each of the Palm OS built-in fonts or as a reference for the ASCII character set.

Installation

To install AsciiChart in your Palm OS device, simply download and decompress the AsciiChart archive appropriate for your system, run the Palm Desktop application installation utility to mark the AsciiChart .PRC file for installation, and HotSync your device with your computer to load AsciiChart into the device. See the documentation for your Palm Desktop software for details.

AsciiChart is compatible with Palm OS 1.0 and greater.

How to Use

To view information about a character, simply tap on the character in the chart. AsciiChart will display the character's ASCII value in decimal, octal and hexadecimal, as well as the height and width of the character. Use the scroll buttons to scroll the chart up or down; the hardware scroll buttons scroll by one screen at a time, while the on-screen scroll arrows scroll by one row at a time. To quickly scroll to a given character, simply write the character using Graffiti. To quickly find a character by its ASCII value in decimal, octal or hexadecimal, tap on the currently displayed decimal, octal or hexadecimal value as appropriate, and enter the value in the dialog box that appears. The popup trigger at the upper left of the screen can be used to change the font of the displayed characters. Finally, use the Copy button to copy the currently selected character to the clipboard; this is useful for pasting "Graffiti-less" characters into memos or shortcuts (note that the Copy button only copies the character's value and not its displayed font, so when it is pasted into another application, the character will be displayed in whatever font that application uses). Options are available via the Preferences dialog for changing the numerical base (decimal, octal or hexadecimal) of the row labels, for displaying the name abbreviations of control characters (eg, ESC for the Escape character, decimal value 27), and for appending characters to the clipboard when copied.

History

Version 2.0.4, 01/12/04:

• updated for Palm OS 5
• fixed stupid programming error that caused Euro symbols to reappear in row labels under Palm OS x.0 where x >= 4
• fixed color of (i) button in title bar as well as color of selected character on color devices
• fixed positioning of the (i) button on the HandEra 330 when running in "Scale to Fit" mode

Version 2.0.3, 06/24/00:

• updated for Palm OS 3.5
• fixed a number of memory leaks and corrected form drawing under low memory conditions

Version 2.0.2, 11/17/99:

• Palm OS 3.1 on the Handspring Visor has the same Numerical Space/Euro problem as Palm OS 3.3 on 3Com devices; this is now fixed in 2.0.2.

Version 2.0.1, 10/21/99:

• corrected display of GS (decimal 29) and RS (decimal 30) control codes; these were mistakenly switched in version 2.0
• Palm OS 3.3 changes the location of the Numerical Space character (from decimal 128 to decimal 25) to make room for the Euro character (decimal 128); as a result, the Euro character is displayed in the row labels in AsciiChart (guess what I was using to pad my labels). This is fixed in 2.0.1.

Version 2.0, 1/12/99:

• added display of octal value
• added option to display control characters in text fonts
• added ability to find a character by value, in either decimal, octal or hexadecimal
• added support for LargeBold font and a small icon for Palm OS 3.x
• added option to append character to the clipboard, rather than overwrite it, when copied; useful for building a long string of characters with AsciiChart
• added row labels to chart, which can be displayed in decimal, octal or hexadecimal
• tapping the (i) button in the title bar now displays a Tips screen (the "About" dialog is now accessible from an Options menu)
• fixed odd cell selection and highlighting problem

Version 1.0, 4/13/97:

• character information is now properly updated when changing the font while the selected character is scrolled off the screen
• fixed centering (as much as possible) of Graffiti shift characters in the Symbol font in Palm OS 1.0.x (no fix was needed for the Graffiti shift characters in Palm OS 2.x)
• corrected URL in the "About" dialog and added email address

Version 1.0 alpha 3, 3/23/97:

• initial public release

Known problems

• currently no hi-rez icons or bitmaps are included

Planned additions

• Add support for non-Palm OS character sets and encodings (eg, EBCDIC, ISO-8859-x, MacOS, DOS) via plug-ins.
• Expand chart when Graffiti area is hidden on devices with a virtual Graffiti area.
• Perhaps add a "Details" dialog to display additional character and font information (eg, character name, Graffiti stroke, ascent and descent, etc).

Legal stuff

AsciiChart is Copyright © 1997-2004 by John Valdés.

AsciiChart is freeware. Permission is given for free use and distribution of this program. No warranty is made on this software, nor is the author liable for any damage resulting from the use of this software.

Any questions, comments or suggestions can be emailed to me at john @ NOSPAM valdes.us. The current version of AsciiChart and source code can be found with other Palm OS software at http://www.valdes.us/palm/.

Last modified: Mon Jan 12 08:51:04 CST 2004