Hi,

Let me first of all say that I like the concept of skritter a lot. It is by far not as dull as using flash cards and you actually learn to write characters as well, not only to recognise.

Here my question: I understand that the mouse is meant to be the main input device. However it requires a lot of clicks for each character and after using it a while it becomes quite tiresome. For the same reason it is not very practical to us a laptop's touchpad.

In China you can get these small tablet devices that you connect via usb. You can then enter characters by writing on them with a pda style pen. Have you tried if this works with skritter? These things cost way less than RMB 100 here.

I would find this quite interesting since it is a more natural way of writing than using a mouse and also much faster, i.e. I could go through characters quite a bit faster than using a mouse.

Thanks for your feedback.

i use a wacom tablet from america because I couldn't get the Chinese ones to be recognized by my operating system (Linux), but I bought a Chinese one and returned it a couple days later. I would think it would work, as long as you can get it to work as a mouse and not solely with the software provided (which converts strokes to characters). If you have a laptop, you don't even have to risk buying it, just bring it in to the store and you can try it there if it is anything like the computer stores in my area.

I bought a slightly more expensive one, about 300 kuai, and it works so well i cant use skritter with a mouse or a my touchpad anymore because it feels so clumsy. There was no problems installing it, i dint even need the software i just plugged it in and went. i would defiantly recommend it.

I have a genius g-pen tablet which I had bought for $AU40 even before I knew about skritter. Now I use it with the default driver and it works great with Skritter in Windows, although not so successful with the Mac OSX.

I highly recommend a graphics tablet.

We've actually got a reseller agreement worked out with a distribution company here in the US that allows us to resell Wacom products through the site. The only reason we haven't rolled it out yet is it will take a revamping of our pricing system and all of our efforts have been devoted to pinyin and definition practice as late.

The idea will be that when you go to purchase a Skritter subscription you can also buy a Wacom tablet for a reduced price. You'll be able to choose from any Wacom tablet that you prefer, and I just received news that Wacom now has a tablet that support multi touch so you can get that tactile feedback to hold you over until the iPhone app Nick mentioned.

Thank sounds quite encouraging actually. Does anyone have a recommendation for a local China tablet that works well with OS X and Skritter?

Otherwise I might also be tempted by the Wacom ones if they work ok with the described combination.

Do the Wacom ones work with Mac OS X? :)

I've tried the Wacom bamboo one on my girlfriend's Macbook OSX, and it was a bit tricksy when I just plugged it in and gave it a go. There is, however, an up to date driver on the Wacom site (http://www.wacom.com/downloads/drivers.php) - I didn't get round to installing it - and that should make things behave just fine.

Running my Linux machine, the Bamboo One just works the moment I plug it in. No drivers to install, nothing.

Wacom definitely works with OSX - a.) my friend has one to use with photoshop on his macbookpro, b.) it would be the stupidest thing ever if the artsy, edit photos and draw stuff tablet didn't work with the artsy, edit photos and videos (and think you're better than everyone else, jk) OSX.

George - how much of a discount? And even though I just got a subscription, could I still get one? :) Please??

We're not sure on the discounts yet, but they'll cost less than you'd find anywhere else online. I think we'll set it up such that anyone who has purchased a long-enough subscription (maybe 3+ months) can buy a Wacom at any time.

One thing I feel very strongly about; everybody should be using Skritter with a digitizer pad and pen, not a mouse or fingertips. I can’t even imagine having the patience to do the characters by mouse, nor can I imagine a real world situation where you would want to do so for anything more than one or two characters. That said, I think the main reason I want to learn how to write the characters is so that I can read them. I only feel that I really own the character if I can write it from memory.

On a separate note, one of the things that I worry about with Skritter is that the program is too forgiving; I think I might get a false sense of confidence in my ability to write the characters in reasonable proportions. I realize that Skritter is not trying to teach us calligraphy, but having come from the old school method of tracing characters and copying characters I am curious if others have found that their handwriting suffers from learning characters via Skritter as opposed to traditional methods. Personally I have not tried writing the characters I learned on Skritter from memory on paper, and I don’t have a teacher to judge me objectively. Also I have not experimented with adjusting strictness levels. Overall I am highly satisfied with Skritter and its rapid evolution, and plan to stick with it at least until I hit my 1,000 character goal. (Some time before the next 10 years . . )

The graphics tablets are great, yeah. I have seen some pretty efficient Skritter use with the mouse and trackpads, though, so it does work for some.

I agree with you about not really knowing a character until you can write it. And soon you'll be able to measure yourself on how well you know its definition and pinyin, too!

I noticed my Chinese handwriting immediately incorporate the shortcuts that I've started using on Skritter, but the quality hasn't gone down (it was average before and it's still average). I just write a lot faster. It seems to transfer directly between handwriting and Skritter to me (although I do use a Wacom tablet).