Hi I've just managed to get my hands on a writing tablet, one that is specifically used for writing Chinese characters. The brand is Hanvon.

The drivers installed fine but the software itself will not install as it says it can only be installed on Traditional Chinese Windows rather than English.

It seems to work fine moving the mouse cursor around and selecting things... I was just wondering how to get this to work with Scritter. Or will only certain types work?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers!

You shouldn't really need to install software (other than drivers).

I take it you're not able to simply press down and write the character in Skritter then?

Hi Byzanti,

At the moment it's acting the same way a mouse would. I was hoping it would act more like a pen.

I can write characters but it currently involves:

1: position the cursor
2: press and hold down the button on the tablet (same as left click on a mouse)
3: write the first stroke
4: stop pressing the button
5: position the cursor ready for the second stroke
6: press the button
7: write the second stroke

and so on....

as you can see it's not very efficient and using a mouse is a lot faster.

I've seen my Chinese friends use these things before (although not with Scritter) and they act the same way as a pen would.. no need to reposition the cursor etc.
You just write.

Hope it's possible! :)

Hm.

It could be a driver issue. Tried new ones from the site? Or it could be that your tablet just isn't designed well. I once bought a hopeless tablet in China, and quickly binned it. Still, you should be able to click using the pen itself, surely?? Otherwise what would be the point - unless it only works with their own proprietary software?

At the moment I'm using a Wacom tablet. To 'move' the mouse as it were, I hover the pen above the tablet itself. To left click, I touch the pen on the tablet. So writing on Skritter's easy - there's no extra button I have to hold down, as in your case... Just write.

Sorry, that's not much help...

Hi Byzanti,

After spending a lot of time mucking around with it I think it must be that it only works with their proprietary software.
It was a gift from a friend who knew I was learning Chinese, from Hong Kong computer markets.

It appears to be pressure sensored, so it only registers anything when the pen is in contact with the pad.
I doubt it cost much ;)

Anyway I might need to look into investing in a Wacom in the future.

Thanks for the help!

The Wacom is awesome. I have an old Graphire which I use for Skritter, and it works great. If you don't want to spend a lot of money, I'm sure you can find one cheap since they're so old.

My wife used to steal the tablet from me all the time to use with Photoshop, so I bought her an Intuos (one of the professional-grade Wacom tablets) for Christmas and gave it to her early. Problem solved. ;)

James

I bought a cheapie Chinese-only writing pad that worked in the same way you described (I had to change my code page to Chinese to get it to work, ugg). I eventually returned it and went back to the wacom-enabled tablet pc (my wife took the laptop for a trip to the U.S. and I was suffering pen-skritter-withdrawl).

Try the AppLocale Utility from Microsoft ( http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/apploc.mspx )

Did work for me.