Just a few ideas:
A feature suggestion to seize tablet’s space… not sure if it’s technically possible: Being able to set a rectangle of any size (but with same ratio as the tablet) anywhere in the screen and make the tablet only work in that space. For instance holding a hotkey and click-drag with the pen to define the rectangle.
That way the tablet real estate can be “mapped” to smaller areas allowing for much more control on small details.
There could be a hotkey to reset this rectagle to full screen again… or the mouse could be used in other places of the interface while the tablet is focused on the defined area.
OK here is a “practical” request - a calculator / keypad window!!
why? well for example say I want to set the rotation of an object to 90 degrees at frame #101. That is awfully easy to do on the keyboard and awfully difficult to do with a tablet. So every time you have a numeric field you need an easy way to enter data. May I suggest - some place in the window that you have a button you click to open up a pointer clickable keypad along with a cut and paste function. I suppose that we will need some key clicks set to copy and paste function then as well.
Hey wait here is another, even better, idea - a virtual keyboard :yes: ! Now if you want hotkeys you can tap on the “open virtual keyboard” button and then peck away. need a way to do key combos.
May I also put in my request that you put part of your effort into us low end guys, there are many more of us than those that can afford the high end systems. I have a bamboo, costs $60, works fine except for the pen being built for a tiny hand.
Arrgghhh, sorry but the more I think about it the more excited I become, but thought process is often bass ackwards:
The first thing we need is a python script to open a window in Blender that has pen clickable buttons to call other routines/ python scripts. This PenTab window could even go so far as to have a construction set where users could add and drop buttons that call pen related scripts. Wow I think that is a great idea, Gui scripting. Only 30 years behind the times but I’m catching up.
Eclectiel, that’s entirely possible. Tablet events (from the OS) include unscaled absolute coordinates along with the scaled screen coordinates. We could map that to any rectangle. I can imagine this as similar to the floating preview render. That way it can be moved, resized and closed.
But… Blender has integer screen coordinates. That means smaller screens (or subscreens, in your scheme) have less precision. It’s no problem to scale full tablet resolution to a small rect, but the floating-point coordinates we get just get quantized again by the tools (which expect integer x and y).
Changing event coordinates to floating-point would make this possible, and help with some other stuff I’m doing. These changes are widespread, so might be too much for the summer. Or maybe not, we’ll see!
Then by all means, use the keyboard. :eyebrowlift2:
May I also put in my request that you put part of your effort into us low end guys, there are many more of us than those that can afford the high end systems.
Of course. Much of the stuff I’m working on helps the mouse and keyboard crowd too. I’m a low end guy myself, working with my old Graphire and a borrowed Intuos3. I scheduled the fancy Intuos4 stuff for the end, because I won’t have one until after the GSoC midterm payment!
That’s one of the things I love about blender – you don’t need a huge upfront investment to get started.
One of my biggest tablet requests would be a way to move/rotate/scale the view with on screen icons like modo and lightwave have. Its slower to navigate this way, but its more ergonomic because you dont have to hold down modifier keys to work.
That’s beautiful… I was thinking of a fixed rectangle, and redoing it each time, but a resizable/dragable/closable rectangle sounds beautiful.
But… Blender has integer screen coordinates. That means smaller screens (or subscreens, in your scheme) have less precision.
Maybe that’s not too much of a problem for sculpting. I understand what you mean, although I believe that even if translated to integers it would be a nice step. Larger strokes for smaller areas.
QFA
the one’s in lightwave are slow mostly because of their size…
as long as it’s a “click drag” area that’s easy to hit it can be nearly as fast as keyboard + tablet!
the ones in MOI are a thing of beauty! a decent size “hot spot” and transparency adjusted on mouse over so they don’t intrude!
and I’m one of the few that actually like maya’s viewcube…(the problem with the maya one is it doesn’t do “auto perspective”; not a problem for blender!
I wrote a space handler for nav in 2.49… it’s more complex in 2.5
So nobody likes my idea? I still think that the only way to use a tablet efficiently is to never have to use the keyboard.
that’s a noble sentiment, but using a virtual keyboard for shortcuts is the wrong design philosophy! I like what you said about popping up a keypad for numerical entry, and if viewnav were covered then with the current toolboxes (and the rightclick menu addon) then we’re pretty good already…
but a user toolpalette that can be customised by non-scripting users would be a good idea!
Because?:rolleyes:
P. Monk
I agree with everything that you have said here…but…unless a person is one handed, why would using a tablet one handed, ever be more efficient than using a keyboard or equivalent (I use a Belkin Nostromo n52 gamepad for example)? I ask you out of respect, obviously I’m overlooking something.
P. Monk
Sometimes I get RSi… it helps if you change habits often… like only use one hand for a bit…
sometimes I blend on a convertable tablet pc on my sofa… it’s nice to not have to use the keyboard (or put your beer down)…
I like to kick back in my recliner and draw away BUT if you don’t hold the tablets in one hand then you lose a lot of position feedback. Watch vids of really good artists using tablets and the majority like to hold it in one hand while drawing with the stylus. I suppose that a lot is just habit, otoh holding the tablet with my L hand and drawing with my right just feels natural. “Feels natural” is a good thing IMHO.
I’d just want to say one thing to this - if there’s done something just that blender works good with tablet, I’d be very satisfied. I think it really can be besides experimenting with new ‘fancy’ stuff doing some basic things right in the ui. Currently, e.g. normal transforming doesn’t work well as soon as you get out of any view with the pointer(some kind of clever thing to throw the mouse on the other side of screen, but this should detect tablet, where putting cursor somewhere never works.)
Is this different from continuous grab mode?
At first, I didn’t see the point of an on-screen keyboard. But a little numeric keypad like you suggested… yeah, that would actually be useful! Instead of copy/paste, would it be better if it typed directly into numeric fields, just like real keyboard input?
People are like OpenGL – they’re more efficient without a lot of state changes. That’s why I want the buttons and other doo-dads (on some tablets) to play a larger role, so we can keep our hands on the tablet most of the time. You will have to use the keyboard for some things, but yes it should be optional during concentrated tasks. Gestures help with this (though I don’t use them). This would help also:
Though I’m not familiar with modo, and haven’t used Lightwave in ages! Screen shots of their view nav widgets would help!
I think that this is what they are talking about.
P. Monk
Yes…I knew that I was missing something obvious! Face meet palm. 
P. Monk