New Tablet

kri · Post by **kri** » March 21st, 2006, 10:21 pm

So I must say that I'm very excited that I got a new drawing tablet for my birthday, and with some graduation money. I like to draw, and have been having problems with mouse use for the past few years. When I overstrain myself, of course I get sore. Having to edit recordings for Librivox seems to not help this either.

I must say that I really enjoyed editing my recording with the new drawing tablet. It could be due to the elation of just using it to do whatever, but it was much easier. My wrist didn't get tired, and...well it was just easier.

I just thought I'd share this. Those who have 100+ to spare, a drawing tablet is a good overall investment

marlodianne · Post by **marlodianne** » March 21st, 2006, 10:32 pm

Isn't it awesome, Kri?

I told you I found it so much easier. Of course, I got it for the digital art and photography, but found it much more comfortable than a mouse, across all applications.

I do crack out the mouse that came with the tablet when I'm webbing though. Nothing will force Firefox to open all links in a new tab, so I'm always having to right click ->new tab. I can't get a right click to work smoothly with the pen.

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » March 22nd, 2006, 12:10 am

Well Happy Birthday, kri!

So what kind of tablet did you get? I've seen a lot of Wacom ads, but haven't ever actually tried one of these things. What size is it? What model? Inquiring minds want to know!

Bronwyn Kate · Post by **Bronwyn Kate** » March 22nd, 2006, 12:28 am

Happy birthday Kri.

Wow.

I wish I could have a tablet too.

I like your handwriting as you showed it in your journal.

kri · Post by **kri** » March 22nd, 2006, 7:20 am

Marlo,
What version of Firefox do you have? I am SURE there's a way to get it to work how you want it to. What kind of tablet do you have, and does it have buttons you can program? Any time I hear someone (in particular my boyfriend) say they wish Firefox did this and that my ears perk up, because I've found there's nearly always a way to work around to get what you want.

I find myself using the pen or mouse that came with it too. I can set it in my lap, which I can't do with my normal mouse. It's much more comfortable. That, and I can draw with it!

Chip,
It's a wacom, and I'm wonderfully happy with it so far. It was so easy to install, which is a good sign in a new piece of equipment. I hate when companies make things complicated, and add 50 steps to get things set up. I plugged it in, and installed the driver with the CD. This is how it SHOULD be. I got an Intuos 4x5, here's the page with all the specs: http://wacom.com/productinfo/4x5.cfm

Thanks Bronwyn, happy birthday to you too

marlodianne · Post by **marlodianne** » March 22nd, 2006, 9:53 am

Firefox 1.5, Kri. I have extensions to fiddle with tabs, but none of them actually go as far, or as smartly, as I want them to.

My tablet is a Wacom Graphire 4. The pen has your standard two buttons, but as I said they don't work smoothly. The tablet itself also has buttons, but you'd never use those, since you're holding the pen. That's why when I need right click, I switch to the mouse. Dang you right click! *shakes fist*

My tablet is on my desk top, right in front on my monitor. I have my right arm of my chair raised so that my elbow can just rest there, keeping my arm level with it.

And yes, digital painting is so sweet, even more so with the tablet. Sure, it's a different kind of fun than getting messy with acrylics, but real life needs an UnDo button. Wait, an UnDo history

kri · Post by **kri** » March 22nd, 2006, 12:53 pm

marlodianne wrote:Wait, an UnDo history

I love the undo history!

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » March 24th, 2006, 4:05 am

I also use a Wacom. Actually I should mention here that I used to work for Wacom (uhm, I was in Product Mgmt and part of the int'l development team and the very first Graphire was one of my 'babies') so I'm not completely un-biased ;)

I'd never used a graphics tablet before joining the company. Everyone in the office there uses tablets just for navigation - Excel is very quick with a pen, for instance, but a lot of the tablets also come with a mouse now so one can switch. I had bad RSI when I joined Wacom and it went away completely after 2-3 weeks of pen use. It's much more ergonomic to hold a pen.

I use the right-click on the pen a lot, but I know some people have problems with it. It's a question of holding it so it's right for your hand. It'll never be as easy as clicking a button on a mouse, of course.

As for the graphics capabilities, well, one can do some really cool things with these tablets... :)

Happy Birthday, Kristin!

Aldark · Post by **Aldark** » March 24th, 2006, 6:06 am

Gesine wrote: <snip>
I'd never used a graphics tablet before joining the company. Everyone in the office there uses tablets just for navigation - Excel is very quick with a pen, for instance, but a lot of the tablets also come with a mouse now so one can switch. I had bad RSI when I joined Wacom and it went away completely after 2-3 weeks of pen use. It's much more ergonomic to hold a pen.

Gesine,
I appreciate hearing this - as I work with people who have disabilities and/or RSI issues that is a nice statement. We used to have a tablet in our office years ago called "the UnMouse." I'm not sure it is even manufactured any longer.

Oh yeah.. Happy B-Day Kri!

kri · Post by **kri** » March 24th, 2006, 7:18 am

Thanks Aldark and Gesine

OK, my progress report of using it for a few days: I still love it! I was thinking the other night, wouldn't it be awesome if I could determine the settings on the button to be different for different applications. For example, I want the buttons to do different things with say Audacity vs. Gimp. I went to look through the settings and found out it does exactly that!. I don't have to manually change the button settings every time!

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » March 24th, 2006, 7:32 am

Of course, I can make no claim on other people's RSI but I have heard from others whom pen use has also helped, or switching between pen and mouse. Just like sitting in the same position all day can cause back and shoulder pain, holding the wrist rigidly in the same position can cause problems. With the pen, the wrist moves around more, and the hand and fingers tend to change grip every now and then, just like with a real pen for writing.

Also, because the tablet uses absolute positioning, the usual jerky movements one needs to make to move the mouse cursor are eliminated. With the tablet, the position on the tablet reflects the position on screen, i.e. you can pick up your pointing device, place it in the middle of the tablet and you're immediately in the middle of the screen with your cursor. To go to the top right corner of the screen, you lift the pen a fraction and put it down in the top right corner of the tablet, and you're there instantly. With a mouse, which uses relative positioning, you need to make several moves to get the cursor to the correct position.

It takes a while to 'unlearn' this mouse movement but once you know how it's done, it's much faster. Children who have never used a normal mouse pick up a tablet device and use it completely intuitively, without explanation.

Because the devices (pen and mouse) get their power from the tablet, they have no cables and no batteries, so there are no problems with running out of power or cleaning mouse balls or anything like that. I can attest to the sturdiness of the products - we used to throw them against te wall at exhibitions to show just that! :)

It's probably worth mentioning that, although Wacom's main line of products used to be for the graphics market, they now also produce a range of lower cost tablets which cater for different applications. For example, they have very small tablets without cables which can be used with laptops just for navigation in software, or for signature, etc.

Of course there are some down-sides to pen use - one of them is that it takes about a week to learn to use it really accurately (mainly because of this 'un-learning' I mentioned above), another is that there is no easy right-click (the pen has switches at the side which can be set to right-click but using the switch, again, takes practise), and the biggest disadvantage perhaps is that, if you put the pen down (to type, for instance), your cursor doesn't remain in the same place - you have to pick up the pen and point it where you want to be. Depending on what you want to do, using a mouse can sometimes be more efficient.

There. Sorry about the rant, but I still love these products. :)

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » March 24th, 2006, 7:34 am

Kri - yes, the software is fantastic, well worth a look - there are so many settings an options, everything is customisable. Very good manual, too, though I haven't looked recently.

Which tablet did you get?

kri · Post by **kri** » March 24th, 2006, 9:11 am

Gesine wrote:Kri - yes, the software is fantastic, well worth a look - there are so many settings an options, everything is customisable. Very good manual, too, though I haven't looked recently.

Which tablet did you get?

Intuos 4x5.

I agree about the learning process. It was a bit difficult to get used to at first, but since I've been using it nearly exclusively for about four days (with some use of the mouse on the tablet) I've gotten used to it already. Although, I draw so I have pretty good control of pen implements when I want to.

Another drawback to using the pen is the difficulty of scrolling. There is a little slider thing that you can slide your finger over to scroll, which is definitely helpful. It's not as easy as using a scroll wheel though, although it's a tradeoff I'm willing to take.

I forgot to mention in my previous post. When I was going through the settings, I noticed that you can also change the orientation of the tablet. I'm left handed, so you can understand how frustrated I was to see that the one set of function buttons on the tablet were on the right. It'd be silly to hold the pen in my left and reach over with my left to the buttons when I need. I figured out how to flip the orientation upside down, and flipped the tablet so the buttons are on the right.

I didn't play with it, but it seemed in the options that I can also set it so that the tablet only works in a mapped portion of the screen. For example, if I wanted to set it to the lower left corner for some reason.

I remember thinking to myself as we were buying it, if they would just get rid of the bundled extra software, that'd probably take a considerable amount of the price. I'm not using the extra software, I've barely looked at it. However, now I feel it was worth the money for the customization in the driver/properties software.

All in all I would definitely recommend a tablet for those with the extra money. If you just want more comfortable navigation, get a less expensive and small-ish one that doesn't have all the features of mine

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » March 24th, 2006, 9:20 am

Yes, Intuos is the line for professional/semi-professional graphics people... or for people who like the extra functionalities. Nice! Hope you'll enjoy using it.

As for scrolling - when I use a pen, I just drag the scroll bar, it's quick and easy. There are some settings that allow you to have a scroll function with the pen, I think it depends on the software... can't quite remember, though.