m210

Enable-disable tablet

Asked by Giannis Avramopoulos

Thank you tuos!
Your application is user-friendly and very helpful.

But I'm not sure I understand the function of enabling or disabling tablet.
When the tablet is enabled, the pointer responds if the pen is pressed on the paper, or any surface, but nothing is recorded in the base unit of m210. I make this assumption, because if I save the notes, I see nothing new added in them.

When tablet is disabled, the pointer doesn't respond neither to the movement of the pen nor when the pen is pressed against the paper.

I thank you again for your time and effort. I wish I could help in a more productive way, not just making questions, but my programming knowledge and skills are way below the average.
Regards

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
m210 Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Giannis Avramopoulos
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
a (tuomasjjrasanen) said : 		#1

M210-devices can operate in 3 different modes: Mobile, Tablet, XY.

Mobile mode is activated when the device is unplugged. In other words, when the device is *not* connected to a computer via USB. It can store notes *only* in this mode.

Tablet and XY modes are usable when the device is plugged to a computer via USB. Tablet and XY modes are more less equal, and that's why I've decided to leave XY-mode unimplemented in M210-project for now (I might implement it later though, I need to investigate it a bit more and think how it should be represented in the UI and handled by the system).

So, Tablet mode is active when the device is plugged in via USB. During Tablet mode, movements of the pen are converted to pointer movements on the system. The size of the area where the pen moves can be configured with tablet size option. Tablet orientation corresponds to the orientation of the M210-device. Tablet mode is meant to be used for example in drawing software (Inkscape, Gimp..). And enabling/disabling, like you noticed, just enables/disables the pointer movement.

Revision history for this message
Giannis Avramopoulos (johnavramo) said : 		#2

Thank you for your response.
I understand that tablet mode doesn't work properly in my machine (Lucid Lynx).

When tablet mode is activated, the pointer does not respond to any movement of the pen, unless the pen is pressed against the paper, like when you want to click or check something.

My pen behaves in the same manner When Inkscape for example is open. No response to any movement unless the pen touches the paper and when it does and moves on it, it does not sketch anything, just defines a parallelogram like the one we make to select a group of objects. No objects are selected of course, because there aren't any.

Revision history for this message
a (tuomasjjrasanen) said : 		#3

Hello and thanks for your contributions! I think many users are pondering these same questions and now that you ask them, others can see our conversation too.

Currently, the input capabilities of the pen are handled solely by the generic USB-HID driver, assigned to the device by Linux kernel. M210d does not do anything regarding the pen movements. M210d allows only to enable/disable the kernel driver (that is enabling/disabling the motion).

However, I agree, that the pen should work better: it should move the pointer regardless of whether the pen is pressed down or not and emitting mouse clicks when the pen is pressed and released. I'm going to address this probably in the next release.

What do you think, should the default behavior be:
- move pointer when the pen moves, regardless of whether the pen is pressed or not
- emit mouse press, when the pen is pressed

About that Inkscape-issue, you just need to select for example pen tool. Then drawing with the pen (pressing and moving) draws
a path in Inkscape document.

Revision history for this message
Giannis Avramopoulos (johnavramo) said : 		#4

Ok, everything is clear now.

I had falsely understood that the pen would have a "mouse-like" behavior when in Tablet mode, so I thought that something was wrong with my installation of m210.

I would prefer the pointer to move when the pen moves, regardless of whether the pen is pressed, but as you wrote, this is something that is controlled by the kernel driver. It would be great if your application could change this in a future release.

Thank you again and I think your answer solved my problem.