The pen is mightier than the rat...I mean, mouse

[Anonymous]

Having been asked in the What to do with your left hand... A Very Strange Device Forum about the use of a (graphic pad) pen, here is my humble opinion:

A rat...sorry, mouse... is a device that people who do programing and text editing came up with, so they could now and again click on something on the screen.

This is ok, because most of the time you are typing, and only sometimes your right (or left) hand wanders over to this innocent looking device.

But if you are in the CAD business, you end up holding your pointer 8 hours in a row. Ergo, carpal tunnel syndrome and worse.

But hey, there is a pointing device that has been around for quite some time: the pen.

This device has a long Darwinian history, so it most certainly fits the job. It is easy to hold, it allows your wrist to stay straight, even you back end up thanking you.

Having seen designers use this pen (designers are usually faster than architects on experimenting with new stuff) I gave it a try.

Sure enough, it gets some using to. About one or two sessions. But it is like learning to ride a bike. You fall off a lot, and suddenly you are riding it. Click. Off, on. And the you are flying.

As I said, I have been using it for some 4 years now, and am currently on my 4th model. Once, when a pen crashed, I had to work for 2 weeks with the mouse.

I found out you can still work perfectly well with a mouse after working with a pen. If you learn to drive a car, you don't forget how to drive a bike. But after 3 days of working with that d*** rat, I started to have back, shoulder and neck aches.

The rat doesn't only mess up your wrist. As your whole upper body has to rotate slightly, after 8 h in this position there is bound to be some damage!

I still work with a small rat on my laptop, but never for a long time, and it is not harder to do. But boy, I would never go back to that pesky animal, after learning to use the pen.

As for brands, my advice is, go for Wacom. It is the only one I know off (may be others of course) that doesn't use batteries, so the pen is lighter and it never ever crashes. Never!

Graphire 3 classic http://www.my-graphire.com/main.asp?lang=1 is quite enough for us (it doesn't have a tilt sensitivity, which we don't need). It is a small size tablet (A6), which is great for us. Designers need bigger tablets, as to be able to do hand drawings with arm movements, but ours is a precision work, so A6 works fine even with 2 monitors (currently with 2000 dpi sensitivity, opposed to 800 dpi from most rats).

Another important feature is it must have two buttons. One you program as a right rat button, the other as a left double click (double clicking with your wrist can be difficult).

And for those guys who cant live without a scroll weel (I personally hate it) you can always take you favorite rodent, extract the sphere, and use it in your left hand.

Or better still, buy a Sidewinder Strategic Commander, but thats a whole different forum

Have fun guys

[Anonymous]

Great I am sold, but what about the programable buttons on the mouse. I can not live with out them, as you know I am on Mac so Sidewinder is out of question. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
joseph

[Anonymous]

Joseph wrote:
Great I am sold, but what about the programable buttons on the mouse. I can not live with out them, as you know I am on Mac so Sidewinder is out of question. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
joseph

You can always use the mouse with the other hand, provided you don't move it around. Pen and rat work simultaneously.
One way not to move it around is to remove the ball.
If it is a ball-less rat (!) you can stick a small paper against the sensor, this way it doesn't know you are moving it

[Anonymous]

Thanks,
Just thought of track ball with 10 buttons, then some how disable the ball, that is it and closest to Sidewinder. I think Kingston has one.
Thanks,
Joseph

[Aussie John]

I've tried a pen and could never get around this issue.
With a mouse i can click on a point, remove my hand and the cursor will remain in the same place. i can then type coordinates to extend the element to its new location.

Since the pen works in the magnetic space hovering above the tablet I cant get the accuracy. Is there a trick with the pen i am missing?

[Anonymous]

Aussie wrote:
Since the pen works in the magnetic space hovering above the tablet I cant get the accuracy. Is there a trick with the pen i am missing?

This is a must,
Is there a way?
Thanks,
Joseph

[Anonymous]

Aussie wrote:
I've tried a pen and could never get around this issue.
With a mouse i can click on a point, remove my hand and the cursor will remain in the same place. i can then type coordinates to extend the element to its new location.

Since the pen works in the magnetic space hovering above the tablet I cant get the accuracy. Is there a trick with the pen i am missing?

This is, as far as I know, THE only problem with the pen.
As time goes by, you get quite nifty with taking the pen off the field without disturbing the cursor too much. But most of the time it just jumps a bit off.
My "trick" is: have a regular mouse switched on and handy - mine is over the keyboard - so you can do some adjustment when you need it. As you never take the pen off your hand, this is not as slow as it may seem. And because you don't have to do this as often as it would seem likely, it doesn't slow you down enough to make you want to dump the pen.

[Anonymous]

Is there any advantaging to 'clicking' on a point over alt-shifting (temporary origin) to a point??

[Anonymous]

StuartJames wrote:
Is there any advantaging to 'clicking' on a point over alt-shifting (temporary origin) to a point??

Goog question. I, for one, never move the temp origin around.
Maybe I'm missing something important

[Anonymous]

Krippahl wrote:
Goog question. I, for one, never move the temp origin around.
Maybe I'm missing something important

... probably best answered with _your_ earlier sentences!

Krippahl wrote:
... as time goes by, you get quite nifty moving the temp origin. Sure enough, it takes some getting used to. About one or two sessions. But it is like learning to ride a bike. You fall off a lot, and then suddenly you are riding it. Alt-shift Click. And then you are flying.

- Stuart

PS. You will notice I do have a Graphire 2 .... loyal (and faithful) user since 2002.
PPS. On the subject of 'new'; my Opera started crashing occasionally. Rather than uninstall/reinstall (a painful process with Opera) I decided to download (at last) Mozilla. Hmmm - nearly as user-friendly as Opera and much faster to start up!