700t - Wacom pen second button problem

Hi,

I use an Ativ 700t and bought a wacom pen for it (UP-817E) for the second button and ergonomics. It works fine, except for one problem. If I keep the second button pressed I can't draw a stroke. It registers a click when the pen touches the surface and another one when it leaves it, but nothing in between. This means I can't use it as a modifier and the main reason I wanted two buttons was to be able to assing shift and alt to each of them and be able to pan and smooth in zBrush. The button closer to the tip works fine, only the other one has this problem.

Is this a driver problem? Does anyone else have it, or is the pen faulty and should I send it back? And while I'm here, is there a workaround? How do you use zbrush with a 1 button pen?

Thank you.

 

Yeah... that's one of the remaining issues I have with when using the 700t to draw. A way to get it to work is to move the pen out of range, press and hold the second button (which in my case is the eraser/ secondary tool toggle), take it back into range with the button pressed, and then when I'm done with it taking it back out of range to let the button go, resuming normal operations thereafter.

I have multiple penabled styli and this is a universal issue. They had 7 months between driver updates and it still isn't fixed.

 

Thank you for the information and the workaround. Good to know there is no point sending it back :\

 

Unfortunately it doesn't work. Moving it outside of range, pressing the button, moving it in range and drawing places it in eraser mode, which seems to be what you use it for, but it ignores the secondary button setting, in my case alt or shift modifier.

 

Ah... so it was mere coincidence. It's not even a true workaround. Sigh... well... I hope some developer notices. This is a problem that occurs regardless of what driver set I use, be it Samsung's, Fujitsu's (which I used the longest), or Wacom's (the one I'm using now after the update).

I wonder if this is a problem for all windows 8 wacom penabled tablet pcs or just the Ativ.

 

I've been able to trick the wacom preference file utility to save a modified version of the file, but even that doesn't work. So now I have the exact same settings on both buttons, still the upper one behaves as described. I really hope it's a driver issue, but it might be hard coded into the pen itself. Hope not. Anyway, I can't find a way around it. Is there like an onscreen touchpad that I can map modifier keys to maybe? I tend to turn off the touchscreen when drawing, but at the moment I can't use zbrush at all, so having an occasional unintended touch would be better than nothing. (Though I'm afraid, touch rejection would render that unusable, right?) Maybe I need to get one of those gamer keyboards, the small ones, so I could use modifier keys

 

You can get an onscreen toolbar from here. http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/software/47928-photoshop-toolbar.html

Someone probably made one for Zbrush already but worst case scenario all you have to do is customize your own. I've never used one so I don't know how palm rejection or the various touch toggles effect them.

As far as those gaming pads are concerned I use one myself. Beyond the macros and hotkey assignment I chose the Nostromo because it has a scroll wheel that allows customized key binding as well which I find profoundly useful.

 

You could also take a look at these two threads:

PaintDock
how-set-up-your-samsung-series-7-slate-serious-photoshop-work

ArtDock (includes ZBrush panel)
artdock-samsung-series-7-slate

There is an issue using W8 which changed the method of switching on/off touch on the fly. You can still disable the touch function but a reboot is required to change the state. You can use touch input to select options available in the touch panel, when remains touch enabled in the area covered by it.

It's easy to make changes to the panels if you want to add remove or change some of the options in the default panels. If you read through the code it's relatively simple to figure out what's going on. lblb has created a useful pdf document which explains the workings of the scripts which you can download here Instructions_RawInputControl_v3.pdf.

Here is another method of switching the touch on and off for Win8

TGuard Touch On Off Win8

Direct Link: TGuard.zip Website: butimaru blog

 

I use Tguard and it is wonderful. Much more useful than outright disabeling touch controls, which on top of having too many steps introduces a unique set of bugs that Tguard doesn't get as it doesn't disable touch at all. I have no idea how it interacts with the touch panels though.

 

I received my UP-817E earlier today...the two buttons and eraser are all working correctly. Wacom Driver version 7.1.1-12 and ATIV 700T1C fully patched with latest SW updates including the recent bios update running on Win8 Pro 64Bit.

Switch assignments: Lower SW = Right Click >> Upper SW = Ctrl
The spec sheet for the pen states 512 levels of pressure but actually displays 1023 in the Wacom calibration utility - which you can access by holding Ctrl while clicking on the About button.

Tested using the latests WinX versions of GIMP 2.8.4 and MyPaint V1.0. I have been using the eraser end assigned to Airbrush or Erase within the applications which seems quite productive.