My new Wacom Bamboo One graphics tablet just arrived (£40 GBP from Amazon.co.uk), and after a bit of hassle installing drivers it's working. Even without much practice I notice I can enter characters a lot quicker with this compared to a laptop touchpad (as everyone said I would be able to).

Still a little wobbliness and unrecognised strokes, but I think one important thing is that actually writing characters like you would with a pen seems to be a more natural way to do it. I think this will help memorising, I already feel it's testing a different part of my brain.

How does this interface with Skritter? Never used a tablet, but I'm intrigued. Do you press lightly to use it like a mouse, then press harder for a "click"?

Hey Ximeng, glad to hear that you're enjoying your Wacom. We're been talking about it, and do you think users would be interested in buying tablets at the same time as they buy skritter subscriptions? I talked briefly with Wacom a while back about potentially offering tablets through Skritter.com, but we didn't really pursue it.

Oh yeah, apparently you can also get nubs for the stylus that increases the friction of writing, making it more like writing on real paper. I was told about it by an attendee at the IALLT conference, but I haven't been able to find the nubs online. I would be way more interested in a tablet if it was more like writing on paper.

I bought my Wacom tablet shortly after signing up for Skritter. I think it's a great tool for learning Chinese on its own. The software that comes with it allows me to input characters that I don't recognize by following the stroke order. Way cooler and much more efficient than using a dictionary, in my opinion.

Let us know what you find out about the nubs, too. I'd be interested in that as well.

Shenqi - Wacom tablets have a very clever sensing system. To move the cursor around the screen, you hold the pen a bit above the tablet (i.e. the nub isn't touching it). Every position on the tablet corresponds to a definite position on the screen. Touching the tablet with the pen is like a "click". If you move the pen across the tablet, keeping it in contact, that's like moving a mouse with the left button pressed down.

I also bought a Wacom (Bamboo Fun) just after joining Skritter. Much more fun than a mouse, and on my home computer now I actually use the tablet for everything, not just writing Chinese.

George, teaming up with Wacom would be a really good idea (particularly if there were a discount on the tablet), but I'd suggest being careful about how this is presented to new users. You want to stress the fact that Skritter is fun and easy to use with any input system, and avoid making people think that they need to buy an additional unfamiliar piece of hardware in order to use the system.

I agree with jpo. While using Skritter with a touchpad can feel like the opposite of fun, it works great with a mouse, so I wouldn't push Wacom hardware to new users. I love Skritter for its simplicity (including registration)-- i.e. it's not like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0

Perhaps you could have an "Input Hardware" section under "Help" that sets out the options for input, complete with a link to Wacom for a fat commission.

Well I didn't see the benefit of the Wacom until I'd become completely obsessive with Skritter, so it might be good to have an affiliate thing for after you've started a subscription. But the speed compared to a touchpad is great, as is the more realistic feel. It means that I write the characters more accurately than I would with a touchpad as well, as with the touchpad it's too much effort to move the cursor, so I turn sensitivity down and just push out strokes in the general direction. I found a mouse way too much effort in terms of moving wrists, maybe my mouse isn't sensitive enough.

The problem with the tablet is there's no way to try it unless you've got someone around who's got one already. I think a gentle push towards a tablet wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe you could try a few first to make some objective recommendations if you don't want to push just the Wacom. Make it clear if you're getting commission though, otherwise I wouldn't trust your opinion :P

For me the nib doesn't make a massive difference at the moment, although it is pretty scratchy it's not a problem. A paper feel would be good, but I feel I'm most of the way there just having the tablet.

And while you guys still don't have a really distinctive brand, some Skritter decals would be kind of cool to pimp out my tablet...

I would put a Skritter decal on my brand new (had it for about a week) shiny laptop.

Another benefit of using a tablet...

My (Chinese) girlfriend is currently in Chengdu; I'm in New York City. So I take handwriting samples (using Microsoft OneNote), export them to PDF, and email them to her. She corrects my characters in real-time. 《错！》 she says. It's almost as good as having a real Chinese girlfriend, right by your side!

I love my Lenovo X61 Tablet. And yeah, it makes using Skritter a dream...

Skritter bumper sticker and dog tags ftw!

I've just bought a bamboo fun.
I'm using Ubuntu 9.04. I've plugged the tablet and it just worked :)
Now start the fun!

My tablet now has a super-shiny square where I skritter.

If you were going to try to persuade people to get tablets, one way to do it would be to do some comparison timings for different input methods (mouse, touchpad, tablet, brain with skip when mentally imagined).

You could even keep track of these statistics for people if you ask them what they're using, then you'd have pretty compelling evidence for how much quicker a tablet makes you go.

It might also be interesting to keep track of timings for writing characters so that you can let people prioritise writing quickly as well as writing correctly - I'm a little concerned that some characters are coming up rarely (every few weeks or so, say), but I'm still writing them slowly. These are the ones that I have to work out in my head before writing, but that I've never really practised enough to get quick. At the rate of practising once every few weeks, I'm unlikely to get very quick at them. I suspect this may be a hazard of using the Save Me button.

The practice tool data sound useful, and something that would go great in a planned poll widget.

We are planning to include timing data in interval calculation in the next iteration of the kitten, should it prove to be a useful indicator. Maksym has started the analysis of all reviews done on Skritter in preparation for optimizing the scheduling to the max bone, stock.

Quote gattosilvestro: I've just bought a bamboo fun.
I'm using Ubuntu 9.04. I've plugged the tablet and it just worked :)
Now start the fun!

Same :) Worked out of the box!

The windows tutorial CD even ran in Wine, so I could run through it :)

You'll be interested in this app too, gatto: http://www.gtk-apps.org/content/show.php/Wacom+Control+Panel?content=104309

I noticed that our local "Staples" office supply store just added a display with four models of Wacom tablets, so I can save on shipping. They don't really have them set up as a demo, though.

Another happy Bamboo user here. Don't think I'll ever again use a mouse for Skritter if I can avoid it.

I just got a Bamboo for the purpose of using it with Skritter. Anybody knw how to make the pen behave like a brush in Skritter? I know the pen is designed to work as a brush (pressure sensitive) but don't know if Skritter supports that or if so how to do it. I used to practice with a fat felt tip pen, so would like to try to make the characters as little more nuanced in Skritter.

I'm working with a Wacom developer to get browser plugins hooked up. That will enable pressure sensitivity. They are not ready, yet, though, so I'm still waiting. As soon as I get them, we'll integrate the pressure sensitivity into the new Flash code.

The pressure sensitivity makes it look a lot better. It's not going to be totally calligraphic, but you will enjoy it when it's ready!