Wacom has just updated their graphics tablet driver software for Macintosh and the release notes PDF tells us that a new feature has been introduced, “Scroll Click” (my nickname for it). This is an awesome new feature that allows the user to set a pen button to the “scroll click”, and then when pressing that button, you can drag the pen on the tablet to activate scrolling. In addition to this being very cool, it’s a feature that I suggested to the tech & PR departments a few weeks ago, I can’t help but assume this was implemented due to that request. I was initially given a not-so-encouraging response, basically because the Intuos line of tablets has the Touch Strips srcoll/zoom hardware touch-sensitive areas. Of course, their other tablets do not have these.
If you’ve read my glowing review of the Wacom Intuos tablets, you would have read that my only beef with them was the fact that it reintroduces two-handed usage when scrolling, which was made obsolete by mousing devices that have scroll balls or wheels, such as the now-standard Apple Mighty Mouse among gazillions of others.
I had found some shareware solutions, such as Smart Scroll X, but unfortunately it didn’t play well with Camino, the web browser I use instead of Safari, and also had issues with NetNewsWire, my RSS app of choice. Smart Scroll X has some extra features that might appeal to some users, such as smooth scrolling and coasting (you’ll have to try it to understand), but as Imentioned it doesn’t work in all apps, and it’s not free.
Hello!
Thanks for the posts. They’re a bit old but since you seem to be a kindred spirit perhaps you can help me figure out if the following is possible:
I want to smooth zoom in Photoshop CS4 with my wacom pen.
I have an Intuos 3 and I cannot, after hours of researching and playing, figure out a way.
I have the Pan/Scroll option in my prefs but it only pans the image. I can’t get the pen movement to translate to a pure scroll wheel which would do the trick.
If you can figure this out I will send you a cupcake.
-Len
I’m not sure zooming with just the pen is possible. I assume zooming via the Touch Strip isn’t what you want? You might try the software utility xGestures, it allows you to apply keystrokes to mouse gestures. However, I have experienced issues in the Creative Suite apps with xGestures in the past and stopped using it because of that. Otherwise it’s a really cool app.
I’d say assigning zooming to the Touch Strip and using the pen in the Touch Strip is probably the only solution. Let me know if that works or if you figure something else out.