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]

StuartJames wrote:

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!

- Stuart
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!

You are right of course. Someday I will find someone who will be able to make me take the extra effort

PS: Firefox rulz

[Anonymous]

StuartJames wrote:

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!

Hi,
Still do not get it, what is the work around, to check mark moving when pen is moved?
Thanks,
Joseph

[Anonymous]

Joseph;

When you want to 'offset' from a position on the plan, you're not just 'visually guiding the cursor to 'about' the right place', are you? ... You are taking it to (say) the end of a wall or a hotspot on an object.

At such points, if you shift-alt, you will set a temporary origin. After that, anything you type in the coordinate box works from this new (temporary) origin. Marked by a 'X'.

It is really much harder to explain than do.

HTH - Stuart

[Anonymous]

StuartJames wrote:
Joseph;When you want to 'offset' from a position on the plan, you're not just 'visually guiding the cursor to 'about' the right place', are you? ... You are taking it to (say) the end of a wall or a hotspot on an object.
At such points, if you shift-alt, you will set a temporary origin. After that, anything you type in the coordinate box works from this new (temporary) origin. Marked by a 'X'.
It is really much harder to explain than do.HTH - Stuart

Thanks, it works, no more trying to stop the Mouse from runnimg away from a point! And here comes the Pen
Joseph

[Anonymous]

Joseph wrote:
Thanks, it works, no more trying to stop the Mouse from runnimg away from a point! And here comes the Pen
Joseph

Glad to see you got the hang of it ok ... and the more you use this feature, the more useful it will be!

A pen is (imho) a nicer way to work in all programs, including Archicad. Once you try a pen in a graphic (eg. Photoshop) program you'll wonder how you ever worked without it. AFAIR a Graphire is less than 100$ .... maybe a good New Year present for the computer?

- Stuart

[Anonymous]

StuartJames wrote:

Joseph wrote:
Thanks, it works, no more trying to stop the Mouse from runnimg away from a point! And here comes the Pen
Joseph

Glad to see you got the hang of it ok ... and the more you use this feature, the more useful it will be!
A pen is (imho) a nicer way to work in all programs, including Archicad. Once you try a pen in a graphic (eg. Photoshop) program you'll wonder how you ever worked without it. AFAIR a Graphire is less than 100$ .... maybe a good New Year present for the computer?
- Stuart

Thanks for all the guidance,
I looked at Wacom Intuos3, has 6 programable buttons and pad scroll (wheel) very nice a little pricy but looks great for a 9"x12" size which I will try to get. I hope Bigger is Better.
Thanks,
Joseph

[Richard Morrison]

Joseph:

With tablets and pens, bigger is not necessarily better. You'll be paying for a lot of tablet real estate that you likely will not use. In actual practice you only need a pen area about the size of a business card. The smallest sized tablet has always worked just fine for me and is a lot easier to deal with spacewise on your desk. Others may have different opinions, but personally, I wouldn't rush out to get the biggest tablet you can get.

[Anonymous]

Richard wrote:
Joseph:

With tablets and pens, bigger is not necessarily better. You'll be paying for a lot of tablet real estate that you likely will not use.

Seconded.

The most important thing about a tablet is resolution ... if you had three 45" displays (like our comic Canadian) then a v e r y w i d e tablet would probably be helpful?

However in practice, 'our' Wacom Graphire 2 tablets are (afair) 1024*760 (or something like that) in resolution and I find that I have no problems working on a 1600x1200 display. My 'cursor snap' range is set at 3 pixels. For 'detailed' work (on AC or PShop) I use zoom. I think this is the way most people work?

I believe even Pamela Anderson has recently had 'reverse' surgery. Evidence again that bigger is not always better...

HTH - Stuart

[Anonymous]

Size doesn't matter...but resolution does.
If you put your cursor at the top left corner of your window, then put your left index finger on the table leaning on your rat (...) and then take your cursor to the bottom right corner of your screen, you will see that the rat only traveled about 8 cm. Which would tell you that a 8cm diagonal pen table would be enough.

But if you have more than one screen (the only possible way to work effectively on AC), then you will need a bigger diagonal.

But a too big working area implies arm movement, and we only want wrist movement (quicker and more accurate). So what you really need is more resolution.

I think the cheap ones on Wacom are about 2000dpi currently, so I would say a A6 tablet is just about right for 2 screens side by side, which is the way I work.

[Stephen Dolbee]

Feb. issue of PC World shows Wacom's new Intuos 3 tablet. It has 4 programmable buttons, called ExpressKeys. Also a Touch Strip that works like a mouse wheel. 4x5 is $200, 6x8 is $330, and 9x12 is $450.
This looks interesting (I would have a hard time giving up my mouse-wheel).

Steve