OffStroke is a program that allows you to turn off your Palm OS5+ PDA with a simple pen stroke. It's similar in concept to SleepStroke (which doesn't work on Palm OS 5 and higher) and Sleep OS5. I have only personally tested OffStroke on the Palm Tungsten E and the Tungsten T3; it really is one of those "scratch-an-itch" projects, so it comes with no promises of support or bug fixes. Still, I've found it useful, so I distribute it in the hope that others might as well. I borrowed heavily from McPhling in the writing of OffStroke, and like the former, OffStroke is distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), Version 2.

From this page, you can download the OffStroke executable program for your Palm OS PDA, as well as the source code in zip format. This program shows up in your Palm Preferences application ("Prefs"), not in the application launcher. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at 1l73sg602@sneakemail.com.

Would you like to show your support? If you have recently bought a new Palm, and would like to show your appreciation for OffStroke, I'd welcome you to register your Palm under my account at PalmPaysBack! You'll need the UPC code and the Palm ID Code from the sleeve of the software CD that came with your Palm. Thanks!

Revision history

• 0.9 (May 26, 2005)
  • tweak the T3 hack (which was sometimes activating when it wasn't supposed to).
• 0.8 (January 10, 2005)
  • fix typo in About screen
  • add a little hack: on T3, when DIA is hidden, OffStroke now activates on strokes from status bar to screen (in Portrait mode only) if preferences are set to "From: Right/Left Top" and "To: Screen".
• 0.7 (May 11, 2004)
  • fix Sony Clie HotSync/Palm Simulator crash
  • use vchrHardPower instead of vchrPowerOff/vchrLock in order to properly support auto-lock
• 0.6 (May 1, 2004)
  • Critical crash fix for PalmOS 5 (Sony Clie) users
• 0.5 (April 30, 2004)
  • more Preferences panel tweaks (for old-style Preferences with popup in upper right-hand corner)
• 0.4 (April 29, 2004)
  • Change to Preferences panel to reduce Launcher clutter
• 0.3 (November 20, 2003)
  • Respect Security preference for auto-lock on power off
• 0.2 (November 13, 2003)
  • Added "Screen Tap" feature (anyone want to draw some icons?)
• 0.1 (November 11, 2003)
  • Initial pre-release (still needs icons)

Software I recommend

This section contains a little more: other folks' software I use and recommend!

• Freeware
  • FuelLog is a program to log fuel and mileage for your automobile. Good for the OCD folks among us.
  • HappyDays is a great application for keeping track of birthdays and anniversaries.
  • SiEd is a simple text editor, especially useful with a Palm keyboard of some sort.
  • Bible+ is an excellent Bible program for the Palm. I use it for viewing the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, but there are also a variety of other English and international translations available.
• Shareware/Commercial
  • McPhling allows you to quickly switch from your current application to the previous one with a quick swipe. In addition, a different swipe from will pop up a list of your most recently used applications (application list) for you to select. This is perhaps the most useful utility on my Palm!
  • MiniFlash is a flashcard program, especially good for learning biblical Greek and Hebrew. No Vis-Ed cards for me!
  • DateBk5 is an alternative to the built-in Calendar/Datebook application. It's well worth the money, if only for the ability to create floating events (I've never needed the ToDo application as a result).
  • MyBible is an excellent commercial Bible program for the Palm, with built-in word search and a fast navigation system. I have three translations for use with MyBible (ESV, NASB, NIV) on my Palm.

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