KVR Audio

Improv · Post by **Improv** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:10 pm

pHz wrote:ill give you the scrollwheel warren ... its the only thing i miss when using my tablets as mouse / trackball substitutes ...
slainte rob

My Graphire has a scroll bar on the pad that comes pre-programmed to scroll pages. There are also two other buttons on the tablet for back and forward paging. Don't know about other tablets...

Rock · Post by **Rock** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:15 pm

I wonder how inkscape interacts with a tablet? Great free software.

Rune L-H · Post by **Rune L-H** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:47 pm

My point is that it is not suited to any of that, largely because of the difficulty of double/middle/right-click which have made using a computer so much easier than it used to be. These days i find it difficult even to do without a scroll-wheel. A modern scroll-whell mouse i sfar and away the best tool for interfacing with a computer.

I don't use the middlebutton on my mouse, but I can say that it's no problem whatsoever to rightclick with the tablet. For heavy scroll duties a mouse with a scrollwhell is of course to prefer...so perhaps you can have a point that a mouse is the better for web-browsing due to the fact that web use is pretty much just reading and scrolling with a few click here and there. But when working in larger applications like Cubase, Photoshop or Combustion a tablet is faster for most tasks. So to say a tablet isn't suited for other work than painting is simply not true.

When using your mouse you don't need to also use the keyboard.

I don't quite understand. You must have a very special key-packed mouse there.

Discreet systems - Flint Flame, Inferno, Smoke, Fire and Lustre. They are all very expensive toys for film/TV.

Nice! I used to work as an editor on Avid Composer systems and have been doing some work in Combustion as well. Great stuff. Never had the opportunity to try a Flame system though

Cheers,
Rune

Improv · Post by **Improv** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:13 am

Rock wrote:I wonder how inkscape interacts with a tablet? Great free software.

Works great, no problems here: Inkscape and Wacome Graphire4

rpc9943 · Post by **rpc9943** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 3:16 am

hey i use xara xtreme too i love it!!!! i am left handed too unsure which route to take... i want to get just a tablet and a pen no mouse, i already have a mousepad etc, i just want something i can whip out, plug in usb and sketch something in my lap via my left hand

also some way of you letting it know if you only want to operate on one monitor-- i have dual monitors and only want access to one of them

RonC

sdv · Post by **sdv** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 3:44 am

I use a tablet when creating patches in MetaSynth... mega-cool!!

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 12:37 am

Improv wrote:My Graphire has a scroll bar on the pad that comes pre-programmed to scroll pages. There are also two other buttons on the tablet for back and forward paging. Don't know about other tablets...

So? They are not to hand and I had to disable one side because it was squarely where I rest my hand whilst using the pan/tablet. It seemed like a great idea when I saw one but the reality of using it was quite a disappointment to me.

Rune L-H wrote:I don't use the middlebutton on my mouse, but I can say that it's no problem whatsoever to rightclick with the tablet. For heavy scroll duties a mouse with a scrollwhell is of course to prefer...so perhaps you can have a point that a mouse is the better for web-browsing due to the fact that web use is pretty much just reading and scrolling with a few click here and there. But when working in larger applications like Cubase, Photoshop or Combustion a tablet is faster for most tasks.

Well, speaking as a former Discreet Combustion Specialist I can only tell you that you are not using it to anywhere near its potential if you aren't using the middle mouse button to pan and zoom in your viewport. Same goes for most graphics applications.

When using your mouse you don't need to also use the keyboard.

I don't quite understand. You must have a very special key-packed mouse there.

No, I'm using a proper computer, not a stupid Mac. Combustion runs way better on PC than Mac, although version 4 is a big improvment for Mac.

Nice! I used to work as an editor on Avid Composer systems and have been doing some work in Combustion as well. Great stuff. Never had the opportunity to try a Flame system though

Me neither, I've graduated from Combustion to Toxik. Version 1 worked just like the systems but the last update, 1.1, had huge improvements to the workflow which has made it much more PC-user friendly than it was.

Rune L-H · Post by **Rune L-H** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 1:18 am

BONES wrote: Well, speaking as a former Discreet Combustion Specialist I can only tell you that you are not using it to anywhere near its potential if you aren't using the middle mouse button to pan and zoom in your viewport. Same goes for most graphics applications.

Hmm, I disagree. But I guess it comes down to personal preference then. I work faster using a tablet with one hand and the other hand using the keyboard.

Which leads me too...

BONES wrote:
When using your mouse you don't need to also use the keyboard.

I don't quite understand. You must have a very special key-packed mouse there.
No, I'm using a proper computer, not a stupid Mac. Combustion runs way better on PC than Mac, although version 4 is a big improvment for Mac.

I work on PC's as well, but I still don't see how a mouse should take more activity away from the keyboard than a tablet do. For instance, fast editing work on Avid systems will require using both keyboard and the mouse/tablet...no matter which you use.

Anyways... it's not that important. Again, it's probably a personal thing. But I would definately recommend anyone to give graphic tablets a try.

BONES wrote:
Nice! I used to work as an editor on Avid Composer systems and have been doing some work in Combustion as well. Great stuff. Never had the opportunity to try a Flame system though
Me neither, I've graduated from Combustion to Toxik. Version 1 worked just like the systems but the last update, 1.1, had huge improvements to the workflow which has made it much more PC-user friendly than it was.

Toxik is a stranger to me. I've kind of lost track of Discreets various products, so to me they seem to overlap quite a bit. So do you work with motion graphics, or with a company setting up and servicing Discreet systems? Just curious if you could link to some of your works...

Sorry for the OT.

Improv · Post by **Improv** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:44 am

BONES wrote: So? They are not to hand and I had to disable one side because it was squarely where I rest my hand whilst using the pan/tablet. It seemed like a great idea when I saw one but the reality of using it was quite a disappointment to me.

So? You do realize that the scroll bar and two buttons are positioned at the TOP of the tablet on the Graphire 4? I was talking specifically about the tablet that I own, not tablets in general.

It sounds like you use the tablet upside down if you rest your hand there!

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:50 am

I have a tablet PC and I made sure FL works well with it.

Pro's: easy to draw automation, move sliders & all.

Con's:
-problem with knob tweaking, since tablet devices are absolute, you hit the screen edges

-lack of keys (specific to tablet PC's, not graphic tablets), so ctrl+pen shortcuts are hard to impossible

-hard to support. In theory a tablet supports pressure & coordinates more accurate than mouse/screen ones (would be handy to draw automation events). In practice it's too much work supporting a special API.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 6:13 am

Rune L-H wrote:I still don't see how a mouse should take more activity away from the keyboard than a tablet do.

The only thign zI use my keyboard for is to type in values. I hate using keyboard shortcuts - to me they are an admission of poor GUI design. I use a few with Combustion to trim and move objects so that I don't ever have to go to the Timeline but beyond that I mouse pretty much everything.

So do you work with motion graphics, or with a company setting up and servicing Discreet systems? Just curious if you could link to some of your works...

I am working full-time for Autodesk [Discreet] again so all my work is demo's. Last year I did a fair amount of work for different TV networks in Sydney but nothing I'm sufficiently happy with that I kept a copy. Such is the nature of broadcast that you rarely get time to finish anything properly.

tony tony chopper · Post by **tony tony chopper** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 6:22 am

I hate using keyboard shortcuts - to me they are an admission of poor GUI design

You'd love tablet PC's. You can use them without a keyboard. Maybe someone thought, like you, 'I hate keyboards, they're an admission of poor GUI design'.

..and then you can now hand-write everything. Except that personally I pencil-in a virtual keyboard, because it's faster than hand-writing afterall.

Shortcuts are anything but bad design. They're buttons to which you assign tasks to achieve much faster than using a mouse, and also a good way to use your left hand while mousing.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 7:01 am

I use an Intuos 2 6x8 tablet, mostly for painting. I agree that its next to useless as a mouse substitute. I also use the tablet left handed while mousing right handed, which can make for a more versatile way of working. I've done quite a bit of experimenting with the Wacom as a MIDI controller, and I've come up with a number of interesting Reaktor patches designed specifically for that. Look forward to the release of the Livelab program...

Off topic, but relevant to the previous messages, using a Microsoft Intellimouse with the scrollwheel has completely changed my life when working in 3DSMax. I can't imagine how I ever got along without it!

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 8:23 am

Improv wrote:So? You do realize that the scroll bar and two buttons are positioned at the TOP of the tablet on the Graphire 4?

Mine too, top-left and top-right, just about where I rest my hand whilst accessing a drop-down menu or drawing the lower-right quadrant of a circle. Everyone at work had similar issues so it ain't just me.

tony tony chopper wrote:They're buttons to which you assign tasks to achieve much faster than using a mouse, and also a good way to use your left hand while mousing.

That assumes you are willing to put down your coffee.

Improv · Post by **Improv** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 8:34 am

BONES wrote:
Improv wrote:So? You do realize that the scroll bar and two buttons are positioned at the TOP of the tablet on the Graphire 4?
Mine too, top-left and top-right, just about where I rest my hand whilst accessing a drop-down menu or drawing the lower-right quadrant of a circle. Everyone at work had similar issues so it ain't just me.

Top centre on mine. Here:

http://www.wacom.com/graphire/6x8.cfm

So you don't centre your hand on a mouse pad or tablet? Unless I misunderstood what you said, it sounds like you are saying that you sit your hand on the very top of the tablet?

If so, how could you possibly use the pen from there?

EDIT: Ah, ok, I see the problem, I was specifically talking about the Graphire, you were talking about the Intuos. I see the Intuos buttons are to the top sides:

http://www.wacom.com/productinfo/12x12.cfm

Confusion resolved!

Graphics Tablet