The Pebbles Project is researching a wide variety of applications using a PalmOS or PocketPC and a PC at the same time. This version works with BlueTooth, Network and USB connections, word prediction in RemoteCommander.

Included in this distribution are:

* Remote Commander
* Chat
* Scribble
* Shortcutter

The ZIP contains the required Windows and Palm components. See the developer's site for additional material.

Note: The two optional RmtCmdWords files have been reported as growing VERY large (over 3MB each) on the original Treo 650 with the "NVFS bug".

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Features

Remote Commander
The Remote Commander allows PDAs to be used as if they were the PC's cursor and keyboard. From the handheld, Remote Commander transmits to the PC the movements and taps of the stylus and characters entered into the PDA. From the PC, through a plugin in PebblesPC, Remote Commander inserts signals received from the PDA as mouse and keyboard events into the event stream. This allows the PDA to mimic everything that can be performed with a mouse or keyboard.

Pebbles Chat:
Sometimes in a meeting, it would be useful for attendees to be able to send side messages to each other, without necessarily interrupting the meeting. As an example, an attendee might ask the meeting facilitator to tell the current speaker to finish. The PebblesChat application allows users to communicate with other PDA users connected to the same PC. Messages are composed using the regular text input mechanisms on the PDA, and will appear in a scrolling text area on the PDAs of the sender and recipients as in conventional PC-based "chat" programs. In this case, the PC is just serving as a conduit, and does not display any evidence of the chat messages.
Note that for PebblesChat to be useful, multiple PalmOS devices must be attached to the same PC. This is easy with Wi-Fi (802.11) but tricky with BlueTooth or wired connections.

Pebbles Scribbles
Sometimes in a meeting, it would be convenient for each user to be able to independently point and highlight areas of the screen, without interfering with the one real cursor and real applications.
Scribble allows each user on the PDA to "scribble" directly on the PC's screen. Each user has a separate cursor on the screen, which is a unique shape and color. These cursors are not connected to the real PC's cursor, and cannot be used for operating any Windows application--in fact, Windows doesn't even know they are there. Instead, these cursors are used to point on the screen. The ink drawn when the PDA user draws using Scribble is as if it is drawn directly on the screen, on top of all the windows and applications. The intention is that this ink be ephemeral and not an important drawing, because it can easily be messed up by any application actions (like scrolling or redrawing).

Shortcutter
Shortcutter allows you to draw panels of controls (buttons, scroll bars, knobs and other widgets) on the handheld and then use them to control any PC application. The buttons can be big enough to hit with a finger, or tiny so that many will fit on a screen. Key features of Shortcutter include that it can provide customizable interfaces on the PDA even for applications that do not have a customization facility on the PC. You can use Shortcutter to build custom extensions to applications. Since these are on the PDA, you can take them with you and use them even on other people's computers.
For the newest PDAs that have rechargeable batteries, you are supposed to leave the device connected to the PC whenever the user is next to the PC since it is recharged in the cradle. Therefore, using Shortcutter to create panels of controls that might be useful for the PC's applications makes even more sense.