Handwriting recognition as in Webapp - web

I was wondering is there an API or some material on how to implement handwriting recognition to webapp ? As in like you write with stylus and it stores it as font.
It would be awesome if someone has good reading materials on developing ocd webapps.
Thanks in advance.

I think https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/ is the best open source tool, is it's a good starting point.

MyScript Web Components leverage Polymer project components and MyScriptJS, an open source library that speeds up the development of handwriting interfaces for web applications. MyScriptJS supports common tasks involved in implementing the handwriting user interface, including ink capture, rendering, and requests to the MyScript Cloud recognition service. MyScriptJS also manages API calls, using HTTP/REST or WebSocket protocols. Check it out on http://myscriptwebcomponents.github.io/

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How to create a node.js application for desktop, web and mobile with a single codebase?

Is there a way to compile a node.js application for multiple devices? I would like to use Electron for desktop (Chromium), NativeScript for mobile devices and also have a SPA for common browsers. There are many parts of this application that look alike - although those systems are not combatible between each others, there must be a way to share the key parts between each other.
Unfortunately there is not much information on the web about this issue, thanks in advance.
I've voted to close because the question is too broad, but here is some general information to help you develop more specific questions:
There are any number of ways to do what you're asking for. But generally you'll want an API capable of servicing all of your clients (the term API is being used very generally. It may not be a simple REST API you're looking for, depending on what you are trying to do). As for deploying your application to multiple platforms, you'll either need to find a library, framework, language, and/or emulator which supports UIs for all of your desired platforms, or create dedicated clients for each device, or a mix of the two. For simple HTML applications, React is one such front-end library/methodology/framework which can support multiple platforms through its various versions. You could use something such as Electron to pack up your application and make it look like a native app.

How to gather user metrics for an Electron desktop app?

I would like to gather some metrics about usage for an Electron-based cross-platform desktop app. This would consist of basic information on the user's environment (OS, screen size, etc) as well as the ability to track usage, for example track how many times the app is opened or specific actions within the app.
These metrics should be sent to an analytics server, so they can be viewed in aggregate. Ideally I could host the server-side component myself, but would certainly consider a solution hosted by a third party.
There are various analytics solutions for the web (Google Analytics, Piwik), and for mobile apps, as well as solutions for Node.js server-side apps. Is it feasible to adapt one of these solutions for desktop Electron-based apps? How? Or are there any good analytics solutions specifically designed for use with desktop apps which work with Electron / javascript?
Unlike a typical webpage, the user might be using the app offline, so offline actions should be recorded, queued, and sent later when the user comes online. A desktop app is typically loading pages from the file system, not HTTP, so the solution needs to be able to cope with that.
Unlike a Node.js server-side application, there could be a large number of clients rather than just a single (or a few) server instances. Analytics for a desktop app would be user-centric, whereas a server-side Node.js app might not be.
Ease of setup is also a big factor - an ideal solution would just have a few lines of configuration to gather basic metrics, then could be extended as necessary with custom actions/events.
The easiest thing will be to use Google Analytics or a similar offering.
For most you'll have two major issues to solve over hosting on a website:
Electron does not store cookies or state between runs. You have to store this manually
Most analytics libraries ignore file: urls so that they only get hits from the internet
Use an existing library and most of these issues will already be solved for you.

Using MEAN Stack for social media app and service like fiverr

I'm planning for an application that is a social media app with service like fiverr is integrated where user can communicate with each other and ask for advise.
Problem: What should be the best technology stack, weather it should be MEAN(Mongo, Express, Angular 2.x, Node) or MEN(Mongo, Express, React, Node).
Also I want it to be a REST web app, so that I can develop mobile apps later. So should I use some NodeJS framework like KeyStone or some generator like generator-meanjs. And what should be the directory structure or architecture for this.
Thanks
Choosing the best technology stack is up to the expertise of the group who would be working together. Since you are mentioning about MEAN I assume that you are well acquainted with Javascript. The answer to your other question of having the REST web app, Mean JS does provide you with the REST APIs (courtesy ExpressJS) while using CRUD module generators, You get that out of the box if you are going with mean.
Though all these utilities will help you get started from scratch in no time it really depends on the business logic of how you would want to capture the work flows. From what I get fiverr service seems to be a kind of free lancing website where one would show case their skill set and get hired. Unfortunately fiverr doesn't seem to be having an API where you can integrate your service.
Edit1: To build a service like fiverr you have to tie in various aspects not just the technology stack. There is business logic which hsa to be defined on what you'd want your app to acheive. For example let's assume you are doing some thing similar to fiverr, You would have to account for eCommerce stuff that would be happening. You would have to have user management built in to your app.(Mean.js does provide a few aspects of this, user signin/signup social media integration). Every thing else depends on what you'd actually want your service to acheive, All the best :)

Resources/Explanations on Current Web Architecture & Technologies across the stack?

I am building a new web app but i feel i don't have the big picture representation that I wish to have before building it so I am looking for resources to really understanding the web as whole throughout the full stack.
I've been a self-taught web developer since 2006 but I took a long break during university in 2010 and finished in 2014 and came out and the whole picture of web had changed.
I was familiar with the LAMP architecture and back then as long as you understood PHP, JavaScript, JQuery, MySQL, HTML & CSS you were fine; now MEAN is making a lot of noise and i just took a look at what Facebook is built with and it talks of HipHop which I have never heard of before and i feel quite lost with frameworks and languages popping out every other week.
I basically am looking for resources to understand the web as a whole, not just to create web pages so I can make informed decisions about building this and any other web app in the future. I want to know how all these new technologies are fitting into the picture.
Thank you
The big picture is you need a database, a data access layer that talks to that database, something to route the requests and something to display the result to the page.
There are lots of frameworks / technologies. IMO the LAMP stack is a bit old school. Not that it's not fit for purpose, it's just there are faster, better, easier stacks than that.
In terms of development languages and frameworks I would check out
Ruby-on-rails,
Spring-boot (with MVC, JPA, freemarker + mysql),
ASP.NET5
For databases mysql is always really popular because it's free. H2 is a free in memory database, I thinks it's a nice db to get up and running real fast.
Generally these days data access Is done through some sort of 'Object Relational Mapper' framework like Hibernate (if ur using Java), Linq (if ur using ASP.NET) or whatever ruby on rails uses.
For the view technology html, css is obviously standard but lately Bootstrap3 is really popular as a front end UI framework to make things a lot easier. In terms of Javascript, jQuery is basically a defacto standard these days. Something like Knockout.js or Angular.js provides nice data binding between your model and your view to make things a lot easier.
Not to mention as an extra layer these days people are also putting their apps inside Docker containers and deploying them that way for maximum portability. So that is something that is new and to you won't have seen before if you've been away from the game for a while.
Anyway, my favourite is the spring-boot stack. It has an embedded instance of the Tomcat web server and it comes all auto configured.
I believe the main changes that affected the course of current web development scenariois related to cloud based services, like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Virtual Private Servers (VPS).
Now is cheaper and possible to plan and develop a distributed environment to achieve a massive numbers of users. Servers are adapting their technologies to this new scenario and to providing easy webservices endpoints for mobile clients via REST APIs (like Google, Facebook, Soundcloud and almost every other service provider) using JSON for small data transfers between server ans clients.
This is the present and near future of web development. And we can no more close our eyes to mobile. Te mobile first era is comming.
You can use LAMP stack for webdevelopment, with or without frameworks like zend, cakephp and others, but the end product will be a REST or RESTfull service provider and a client to consume the services and integrate with many 3rdParties like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Amazon services to build modern applications.
As for databases, there are now distributed non relacional noSQL hadoop, mongodb, mariadb bring more options to plan robust infra-structure and flexible ajustable for all needs.
To create a great web platform is necessary to know the existence of all this tools and possibilities, but specialize and deep learn only the tools you will choose to develop, because it is impossível learn everything, our brain cant handle :) and all se em to update very fast in this area.
Choose right one is difficult, there is a lot of options, but the main concept will be always the same, there will be a provider and consumer fronts, distributed or non-distributed, and a multi layered development involving UI, integration, business and data (big data) manipulation. But now on the Cloud.
You can find good official material for Php, amazon webservices, nonSQL databases, common 3rdparty APIs like Google Apps, Facebook...REST clients end framework, JSON...and there is a lot of good alternative sources too...get some open-source project example on Github (GIT is another mandatory tool to learn).
I particulary develop in Java now, Linux/MySQL/Tomcat on amazon AWS infra-structure, using Java-JSP for server and web client, and Java for Android..I just have to deal with Java environments and one language for Server (webserver and SO programs) and clients (web and mobile) development.
Well I hope I could help, I dont know if this is exactly the answer also if I made it clear cause my english is basic...
Well, have a nice weekend.
Leo

Is it correct to use voiceXML as a tool in this scenario

I have a telephony scenario in which the following happens:
Customer calls a Voice Gateway
TCL script runs and a code is taken from customer
Authentication is done through a RADIUS server
Customer will hear correct voice menu
The problem is that RADIUS server must connect to a SQL Database and check the credentials. I have currently designed the solution using cisco secure ACS and through managed stored procedures on MS SQL server.
My question is: Is the VoiceXML a better tool to do this job and because some extenstions and wrappers of VoiceXML exists in .net, does it fit in this simple scenario??
Sincerely speaking, I am a little confisued with the technology and looking for a good tutorial on its features as well.
Thanks
In a strict sense, only step 4 is implemented by VoiceXML. Other aspects are handled by the platform or external code. VoiceXML is the standards mechanism for implementing step 4, but if all you are going to do is limited audio output and simple input, it may be overkill depending on the solutions available to you.
The following is just an example of a way to solve your problem and is fairly fictitious given I don't know anything about your environment nor constraints.
Given most VoiceXML platforms, upon receiving of a call your VoiceXML application will be executed. If this is a servlet/ASP based solution, you can perform steps 2 & 3 then generate/return the VoiceXML to play the menu, gather the input and move to the next step. If this is a static VoiceXML 2.1 solution, you can use a Data element call to make an HTTP request to a system that can perform these actions. The system will need to return XML that the Javascript/ECMAScript in VoiceXML application can parse and provide the correct audio output and input processing.
Since you are asking about VoiceXML, I'm assuming your challenge is the telephony aspect of the problem. Unless you have a system already available, choosing and activating a premise or hosted solution is far more complicated than the call flow code involved. Depending on your requirements, there are solutions as low as a single line, analog modem that supports audio output and DTMF input to massively scaled on premise and hosted solutions to handle 10,000s of concurrent calls that implement VoiceXML as well as a wide range of other call flow technologies.
VoiceXML would work fine in this scenario. There is a an open source project called VoiceModel that uses ASP.NET MVC to generate the VoiceXML and therefore integrates nicely with the .NET stack. There are a lot of examples in the project with discussions on how to use the examples in this blog. The examples use Voxeo Prophecy as the VoiceXML platform which has a SIP interface that will connect with a Voice Gateway. You can download two ports for free to try it out.

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