Touchpad stylus mode

[Bert Freudenberg]

On Mar 18, 2007, at 20:47 , Owen Williams wrote:

> On Sat, 2007-03-17 at 23:16 -0400, Albert Cahalan wrote:
>
>> Upon mode switch to stylus mode, one might draw an outline of
>> the stylus device on the screen.
>
>
> It would be cool if, upon switching from GS to TP mode, the y value of
> the mouse cursor could be used to initialize the location of the
> outline.  So if my mouse was at the bottom in GS mode, the pen mode
> would be at the bottom.

That might work for sketching, when you start an entirely new drawing  
and do not care for matching up with pre-existing content. In my  
scheme both the x and y of the mouse cursor would be used. To take  
your example, if you want to draw somewhere about bottom-center of  
the screen, you would place the mouse cursor with your finger where  
the first stroke should be, and then start drawing with the pen in  
about the same location on the tablet. This would essentially be the  
same behavior as what you suggest, but it would be more precise.

I agree this proposed behavior might be a little unexpected for  
anyone who worked with a graphics tablet before, but I imagine it to  
be easy to get used to.

> It would also be cool if the grabby-hand buttons could be used  
> here.  if
> I hold down the grabby-hand button and use a stylus, it would move the
> stylus outline up and down.

Involving the grabby-hand keys is a nice idea. However, I'd rather  
let it scroll the "virtual paper" you are drawing on. This would be  
consistent with the normal use of the grab keys, and give you a  
virtually unlimited scroll area. Moving the outline would be limited  
by the screen size.

- Bert -