Windows 7 : Gadgets and Other Supplied Accessories - Exploring the Other Accessories (part 2)

Character Map

Character Map is a utility program that lets you examine every character in a given font and choose and easily insert into your documents special characters, such as trademark (™ and ®) and copyright symbols (©); foreign currency symbols (such as ¥), accented letters, and nonalphabetic symbols (such as fractions, ¾); DOS line-drawing characters (+), items from specialized fonts such as Symbol and Wingdings; or the common arrow symbols (←, →, ↑, and ↓). Some fonts include characters not mapped to the keyboard. Character Map lets you choose them, too, from its graphical display. The Program Map displays Unicode, DOS, and Windows fonts’ characters. You can choose the character set, rearrange the items in a font (such as grouping all currency types together) to eliminate hunting, and search for a given character. Character Map works through the Windows Clipboard. You simply choose a character you want to use, click Copy, and it moves onto the Clipboard. Switch to your destination application (typically a word processing file), position the cursor, and choose Paste. To reach Character Map, click Start and in the Search box, type Character Map. Then, in the list of results, double-click Character Map.

Paint

This is another perennial Windows accessory that, like Calculator and WordPad, Microsoft finally realized either had to be updated or put out to pasture. With so many free pixel editing programs around, one wonders why it is necessary to keep Paint out of the pasture, but perhaps it’s to show off the new “ribbon” interface and help Windows 7 look more unified. The ribbon was introduced and popularized by Office 2007. We personally dislike the ribbon because it uses up increasingly precious vertical screen real estate (as we see more wide screens on laptops and monitors) and because it rearranges itself and messes with what was a good thing—menus and commands that stay put. But alas. The version of ribbon integrated into Paint and WordPad with Windows 7 is called the “Scenic Ribbon.”

Essentially, Paint is a simple drawing program that creates and edits bitmapped images in a variety of formats. Using free-form drawing tools, text, and special effects, you can create projects such as invitations, maps, signs, and wallpaper for your desktop, and you can edit images linked into documents created by other programs. Paint is called a bitmapped image editor. Your computer’s screen is divided into small dots (pixels or pels) that are controlled by the smallest division of computer information—bits. A bitmap is a collection of bits of information that creates an image when assigned (mapped) to dots on the screen. This bitmap is similar to one of those giant electronic billboards in sports arenas that can display the score, a message, or even a picture by turning on and off specific light bulbs in the grid.

Being a bitmapped drawing program, rather than an object-oriented drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, Paint has some significant limitations to keep in mind—also some advantages. After you paint a shape, you can’t move it independently. You can use the computer to remove an area of the painting and place it somewhere else—as if you were cutting out a piece of the canvas and pasting it elsewhere. But all the dots in the area get moved, not just the ones in the shape you’re interested in. Paint can store output in a variety of formats: BMP, DIB, JPG, TIF, GIF, and PNG.

Paint for Windows 7 is the tenth iteration of Paint included in a Windows OS (originally called Microsoft Windows Paint in Windows 1.0) though it is dubbed version 6.1. (Vista’s version was 6.0.) In addition to the new toolbar previously mentioned, including a configurable Quick Access Toolbar (QAT), Paint now also has full PNG alpha channel compatibility. People who work with transparent color channels in PNG files will appreciate this, perhaps eliminating the need for an additional image editing program in their software suites. There are also now 9 brush types instead of 12 (as in the XP and Vista versions) but those brushes are much more expressive. Whereas they used to be just shapes, now they are textures such as waterbrush, crayon, oil brush, highlighter, and pencil. There are now 23 predefined smooth-drawing shapes instead of just 4. Figure 5 shows a screenshot of Paint.

Figure 5. The new Paint version 6.1 further promotes the Microsoft “ribbon” user interface and adds a few useful and expressive features.

Notepad

Notepad is a simple, no-frills text editor that does no fancy formatting (though it does enable you to change the display font) and is popular for composing “clean” ASCII (.txt) files. I use Notepad to jot down quick notes. You could say Notepad is a text editor, whereas WordPad (see the following discussion of WordPad) is a word processor. Unlike WordPad, Notepad cannot view or edit Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) files. It’s a perfect tool to call up whenever you need to view a simple README.TXT file or fine-tune some program code (programmers like this tool). Although they’re visually boring and lackluster, text files do have some important advantages over formatted text documents. Most importantly, they are the lowest common denominator for exchanging text between different programs and even between different types of computers. Literally any kind of word processor and many other types of programs, from email tools to databases, can share textual information using simple text files, regardless of computer type or operating system. To be sure your recipients who are using other kinds of computers can read a text email attachment or a text file on a disk, stick with the simple text files such as the ones Notepad creates. Windows recognizes any file with a .txt extension as a text file and opens it in Notepad when you click it.

Sticky Notes

Using Sticky Notes is analogous to using physical Post-It Notes. You might take their function for granted because they look like simple Post-It Notes. However, they are quite sophisticated and can be a boon to Tablet users. As of Windows 7, Sticky Notes works with pen input (write directly on the notepad) as well as keyboard typing. When you reach the edge of the note using the stylus, the note will enlarge as necessary to accept your handwriting or drawing. Scratchout gestures have been implemented as well. Sticky Notes can be organized as a stacked pad of notes. So, instead of having many different notes stuck on your physical desk or on the edges of your computer monitor, you have just one little pad and can easily scroll through all the notes. This enables you to write whatever you want and even draw a small picture. Take Sticky Notes into consideration the next time you need to jot down a list of important items, such as a grocery list. Click the Sticky Notes icon on the taskbar to alternate between showing and hiding all your notes.

Another neat feature of Sticky Notes is its capability to record a sound. This sound is stored by the Sticky Note and can be played as many times as you want or need. Little verbal reminders can be a great way to keep you updated. To leave a short verbal reminder, click the red Record dot and Sticky Notes will start recording. Click the stop button when you are done recording or when the time of recording has run out.

To play the sound, click the Play button. The recording will be deleted only when you delete the note or record over the sound.

WordPad

For more capable word processing than Notepad can accomplish, you can use WordPad. Many people think they need to purchase Microsoft Office (which includes Microsoft Word) to do serious word processing, and Microsoft would love you to do so, but it is not necessary. Though it’s not Microsoft Word, WordPad works fine for most everyday writing chores. And now with the updated Windows 7 version that includes some tasty additions, this is even truer. As mentioned elsewhere in the book, WordPad also now includes the Scenic Ribbon that debuted with Office 2007, supposedly easing use.

WordPad offers most of the formatting tools people need for typical writing projects, and the price is right. You can edit documents of virtually any length, it supports drag-and-drop editing, and it can accept graphics pasted into it from the Windows Clipboard. WordPad enables you to do standard character formatting of font, style, and size; paragraph formatting of line spacing, indents and margins, bullets, justification, and right and left alignment; adjust tab stops; search and replace; and insert headers and footers. It has pagination control, lets you insert and edit graphics, and has Undo and Print Preview.

WordPad doesn’t do tables, columns, indexes, or master documents; it also doesn’t have outline view or legal line numbering. Go get Word or WordPerfect if you have that level of word processing needs. WordPad can open and save documents in Rich Text Format, text files such as Notepad creates, Unicode, Word for Windows (.doc and now .docx files from Office 2007), and Windows Write format (.wri). WordPad correctly opens even incorrectly named (wrong extension) RTF and Word 6 files if you select the All Documents option in the Files of Type area in the Open dialog box or type the document’s full name. If WordPad doesn’t detect a file’s format, it opens it as a text-only file. Note that if a document contains formatting information created by another application, it will likely appear as garbage characters mixed with the document’s normal text.

As of Windows 7 (WordPad 6.1) it is now easier to insert pictures by simply clicking a Picture button on the Home ribbon. See Figure 6. However, the more-extensive Insert menu of version 6.0 is gone. In the old WordPad it was possible to easily insert all kinds of object items such as PowerPoint slides, Excel spreadsheets and charts, Word documents (if you had Office installed, obviously), and other OLE objects right into a WordPad document. With WordPad 6.1 your options (at least via the ribbon and menu) are limited to pictures and date/time, although the Paint Drawing button on the ribbon makes it very easy to cook up a graphic right there in your document. Just click the button, do your drawing in Paint, and click the red X to close the Paint window. Your image is dropped into the WordPad document. Resize and reposition as necessary.

Figure 6. WordPad 6.1 features the Scenic Ribbon and makes dropping in or creating pictures easier. But it still has its limitations.