Change Wacom properties with hotkeys ?

[ak_]

Here's my problem : during work, i always need to change Wacom's pen sensitivity. At first, i did it through the Wacom control panel, which was a real pain in the toochie and a loss of time. Then i made some dirty ahk script to send some clicks to the control panel and change the pressure sensitivity. I gained some time, but it's not very satisfying : i need to open the control panel and go to right tab to make it work, sometimes it doesn't work and after a sensitivity change the pressure is disabled until i click somewhere.

So my question is : do you think there's a way to change Wacom properties directly, without going through the control panel ? Maybe by changing a ini file or a registry entry, i don't know.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ampa]

Same problem (most commonly I want to change which of my two screens the pen uses).

Same solution (akh script automates the clicks)

Same frustration (it isn't very good)

Same question (anyone got a better solution?)

[ak_]

Pleeaase, anyone, any idea ? Even vague.

[ak_]

Ok well, i didn't completely solve my problem but i've made some progress so i post here because it might be interesting to Ampa (and maybe others).

I found a cleaner way to change the pen pressure (even if i still need to open Wacom properties and get to right tab for the script to work) :

Code

SendMessage 0x405, 0x00000001, 0xffff800?, , ahk_id 0x90b66

...where ? is the position on the slider (from 1 to 7).

0x405 is the type of message i send, TBM_SETPOS, which is a message specific to sliders to (yes) set its position.
0x00000001 is the lParam value, which i found using Winspector.
0xffff800? is the wParam value.
0x90b66 is the HWND of the "Pen pressure" slider.

I hope these values will work on other systems.

I'll keep trying to improve this

EDIT> ok, looks like i got enthousiast too fast. It changes the cursor's position but it doesn't actually change the pen pressure. It's like moving the cursor without "validating" its position. So it doesn't work

EDIT AGAIN> also, i was confused about HWND, i didn't realized it wasn't permanent, so of course my script was all wrong.

Now i use this and it works fine even if it's not really as clean as i'd like it to be :

Pressure at 7 (max) :

Code

Controlsend, msctls_trackbar322,{End}, Propriétés de la tablette Wacom

Pressure at 5 :

Code

Controlsend, msctls_trackbar322,{End}{Left}{Left}, Propriétés de la tablette Wacom

Of course here i use the french window title "Propriétés de la tablette Wacom".

[cthorpe]

In XP, the settings seem to be saved in C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\WTablet\Wacom_Tablet.dat

Could you write a quick script that stops the Wacom service, switches out config files, and then restarts the service?  That way your hotkey doesn't need to be able to actually modify anything for it to work.  Just make a collection of config files that have all the possible sensitivities you might want and switch them out as needed.

edit...

Even better... the dat file is plain text.  Stop the service, change the file out or edit it somehow, then restart the service.


Ok, so this is all with batch files.  I am certain you can do something better with ahk or some other scripting language, but that's not my thing.  I did soft, mid, and firm settings for this example.  I opened the control panel and changed the setting to full soft, then closed it and copied the dat file to Wacom_TabletSoft.dat.  Then I did the same for firm and mid, copying the dat files to Wacom_TabletFirm and Wacom_TabletMid.  I then made three separate batch files in the same folder like this:

Code

net stop tabletservicewacom
copy /Y Wacom_TabletFirm.dat Wacom_Tablet.dat
net start tabletservicewacom

Code

net stop tabletservicewacom
copy /Y Wacom_TabletSoft.dat Wacom_Tablet.dat
net start tabletservicewacom

Code

net stop tabletservicewacom
copy /Y Wacom_TabletMid.dat Wacom_Tablet.dat
net start tabletservicewacom

Running a batch file changes the settings and they are immediately usable in tablet aware apps (you have to close the app and reopen it first).

[ak_]

Thanks a lot cthorpe, i'll take a look at this.

My only concern is :

(you have to close the app and reopen it first)

I really can't do that, i switch pressure senstivity all the time while i'm drawing so i can't close and reopen Photoshop every time.

[mikiem]

IF you want to monitor everything, Sys Internals' [now part of Microsoft] Process Monitor will do this for you. I'd advise turning off everything you can 1st though, because it will log everything, and even something relatively minor like the Intelipoint software for your mouse will generate a lot of clutter. There's a pretty good filtering setup, & you can save logs which definitely helps, but it's hard to not be overwhelmed by the amount of data to look thru.

That said, doesn't P/Shop & other graphic apps store your pen settings? I no longer use Wacom [can't afford it now that their monopoly is over] but AFAIK there are a bunch of settings, often per brush, that can be saved in many image editing apps. Would that serve the same purpose?

Again AFAIK, the pen/tablet are initialized when plugged in/activated. There are utilities that disconnect USB devices. Rather than restarting P/Shop, wouldn't it work to *in effect* unplug & plug in your tablet with P/shop still running? Be easy enough to try out by manually unplugging etc., and the disconnect/connect should be able to be managed I'd think.

[Ampa]

I need to assign my Wacom Graphire pen to either the left or right screen of my dual monitor setup, and was relying on an AHK script, which was very slow.

Found two interesting utils today, neither is working quite how I want it to as yet, but I hope with a bit of fiddling things will work out...

http://www.tvpaint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=753
http://wacomswitch.illusoft.com/