Comments on: Great Wacom Tablet Scrolling Software For Mac OS X: Smart Scroll X

By: Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators at Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:46:51 +0000

[...] has been released, adding a basic version of this functionality! But be sure to read why I think Smart Scroll X still has potential in your workflow (I use it [...]

By: George

George — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 23:02:26 +0000

Mattias,

This sounds pretty sweet, and I would love to give it a test run once you have the code polished up.

I am curious how the left-button mode you speak of would work - assuming that if you weren’t in a scrollable area, it would just work as a normal left click? That might be really cool.

Have you thought about contacting the developer of Smart Scroll X about this?

Thanks for the feedback, this sounds promising and as I mentioned I’d love to try it out.

By: Matthias Fripp

Matthias Fripp — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 22:38:58 +0000

I use a Wacom tablet on OS X as a more ergonomically friendly alternative to the mouse — if I use the pen tip for clicking, then I never need to use small finger movements to click, and I can hold my hand rotated at a more natural angle than I can with a mouse. Nearly ideal ergonomics, but … no scroll wheel! And I really like a scroll wheel, since I read a lot of web pages and PDFs, and it’s always fiddly to have to use the scroll bar.

So I came up with a nifty workaround. I know it’s possible to use Smart Scroll X or the new Wacom software to drag-scroll using a side button on the pen, but I find it’s ergonomically weird to click those buttons a lot (I have friends who gave up on Wacom tablets because they were getting new forms of RSI from the buttons). Instead, I wrote a special program (really just a few lines of code), that reinterprets the eraser end of the pen as a button number 5. Then I use Smart Scroll X and tell it to do a grab-scroll whenever I use button number 5. The result — amazing, intuitive, inertial scrolling, just by dragging the eraser anywhere in the window! It’s super-friendly to the wrist, and makes the interaction with the page much more natural and “real” than anything else I’ve tried.

I haven’t polished up the button-5 code much (I’d like to add a preference panel and get it to act like a left mouse button when I move windows, use menus, click on links, etc.), but I could put it out there if there’s interest.