A technique is disclosed for detecting an in-air gesture made by a digitizing pen above a digitizing writing surface. When the digitizing pen is determined to be in motion above the digitizing writing surface, positional information of the digitizing pen with respect to the surface of the digitizing writing surface is recorded within a moving buffer. The moving buffer records a predetermined amount of positional information spanning a predetermined amount of time while the digitizing pen is in motion above the digitizing writing surface. When the digitizing pen has stopped motion, positional information recorded in the moving buffer is evaluated for determining whether the recorded information corresponds to a predetermined in-air gesture. A predetermined user interface panel is displayed when the positional information recorded in the moving buffer corresponds to a predetermined in-air gesture.