Howdy doodly do neighbours

I'm looking for some recommendations for entry level tablets to be used with Inkscape.

I want to try out a good quality tablet for basic drawing and tracing. I haven't used a tablet for twenty years, so I'm hoping they have improved!

I use Inkscape 0.48 on a windows vista laptop, and on a window 7 desktop. I'm guessing that Inkscape works with pretty much any tablet, so I'm really looking for tablet recommendations.

Alrighty then, since no one felt confident enough to post any suggestions I thought I'd write to let y'all know about my first experiences using a tablet with a vector program (only ever used one with CAD before).

I read through a lot of online reviews and decided to plump for the Bamboo Pen tablet. You can get this for less than £40 UK. I was astonished how cheap tablets have become! This is a Wacom tablet, so the build quality is good.

Setting up the tablet is easy - just follow the instructions on the CD.

I had the same problems that others have reported on this forum when trying to use the tablet in Inkscape (0.48.1) under Windows. The program did not recognise that the tablet was connected, so I couldn't switch it on in the Input Devices menu. After starting and shutting down Inkscape six or seven times (as suggested in a previous posting) it suddenly recognised the tablet, and has now recognised it every time since then.

The tablet does just what I most wanted it to do - give my hand a rest from mouse clicking! As you would imagine the big plus is with "gesture" drawing - pencil and calligraphy tools (the pressure control is absolutely superb in Gimp). It's worth getting a tablet just for this. I've struggled sketching with a mouse, but more often than not I've scribbled sketches onto a piece of paper, scanned them and then traced. I hope I'll save time by drawing some things directly.

This brings me to the one area I've had problems when using a tablet. When tracing I've noticed a nasty little delay in recognising the tip click when working with larger files. The problem is that the system continues to recognise pen movement during this delay. This means that if you click the tip to place a node during tracing and then move the pen to the next point the node will be placed at some intermediate point - often off the line you are tracing! I've not noticed this problem when tracing using a wireless mouse, but I guess the mouse movement is not as quick (one reason for trying to trace with the pen).

Could someone post a link to the bug tracking system so I can enter it in as a bug - it's a nasty one 'cos it doesn't always do it and you sometimes miss the error.

I like the tablet, but some things are still better done with a mouse (maybe this will change as I get better with the tablet). My fingers have now recovered, so I'll mix mouse and tablet drawing.

I'm sorry no one did reply. I have a Wacom too, it's cheap, great and everything but let me tell you that, unfortunately, i didn't found a lot of ways to use it with inkscape, other than.. sketching. I'm not really comfortable using the pencil or the calligraphy tool, though.. Too many nodes to handle! If i only need to trace, the pen tool is the way to go.
Tablets, are much more useful for digital painting on programs such as MyPaint.

RM. wrote:I'm not really comfortable using the pencil .... Too many nodes to handle!

This certainly is daunting at first but you just need to set the smoothing a little higher. You don't really want the jagged line anyway.

RM don't worry - I was out on a limb asking for hardware recommendations on a software forum!

I wanted the tablet to give my mouse clicking fingers a rest - it does this a treat (I use the mouse for hours a day and this was getting to be a problem). The tablet can put in more sketch-like stuff, even with the pen tool. The tablet does produce fabulous results with Gimp, but I like the different input style even in Inkscape. I can leave the tablet and mouse plugged in at the same time, so I can pick up whichever one seems the best for a particular bit of a job. But I'm not absolutely sure about tracing with the tablet - dipping the pen tip to place a node often moves the cursor slightly. I have probably found the absolutely best results by using two USB mice - one in each hand. I use the left mouse to click and the right mouse to position only. Once you get used to it it allows you to trace very quickly, as the right hand is relaxed and not tensing when you click (this also helps to limit finger strain). You need to tape over the sensor on the left hand mouse or it will interfere with the right hand mouse positioning.

I agree that you must absolutely use the pen tool when tracing! Sometimes I switch the bezier tool to straight lines only so I don't have to fiddle with curves during tracing. Sometimes I'll leave it and fit curves to the tracing.

Druban - thanks for the tip about setting the smoothing. The file size balloons quite a bit when you have a lot of little scribbles (such as faking the text on a book page in an illustration, or dodging in the twist on some string).

You can submit bugs at Launchpad, Inkscape's bug tracker: https://launchpad.net/inkscape.

To access the Bugs page, you should click on "Bugs" at the top of the page. If you click on "Report a Bug" on the right side, it doesn't work. Also, be sure to first search to see if such a bug has already been reported. Then you could add your own comments to it.

I'm not sure if this issue would be considered a bug with Inkscape, since it only occurs when using Inkscape with a tablet. But I guess the developers can decide how they want to categorize it

brynn wrote:I'm not sure if this issue would be considered a bug with Inkscape, since it only occurs when using Inkscape with a tablet. But I guess the developers can decide how they want to categorize it

Thanks Brynn

I agree - I'm not even sure if the problem lies with Inkscape or with the tablet. I'll have to leave it to the developers to sort out what's going on! It only happens when the file gets large and there is a delay between dipping the pen to click the tip and the node being placed.

I wish I'd thought of trying to adjust the shoothing slider when using the pencil tool. Some of these files would have been a good deal smaller and probably wouldn't have had problems!