Wacom Intuous3 Tablet now working

[plebian]

Moved from "Parallels Desktop for Mac"

I have an Intuous3 graphics tablet and was experiencing the same problem as a few others when trying to pass the USB directly through to a Windows XP guest - it would work but the mouse pointer would not follow the pen input. One workaround was to disable mouse sync but that has drawbacks.

I just stumbled across a much better workaround so I thought I'd share:
Enabling 'Pointer trails' in Windows results in the mouse following the pen movement.


The steps:
1. Go into the Mouse section of the Control Panel
2. Go to the Pointer Options tab
3. Enable 'Display pointer trails'
4. (Optional) Set the slider to Short to make the pointer trails almost invisible - if they annoy you as much as they annoy me.

The normal mouse sync still works, but the pointer now follows the pen. The only caveat is that you can't leave the parallels window using the pen (but seeing as the pen is now wholly owned by the parallels VM that makes perfect sense).

Yay - I now have an option for using the pen pressure in Inkscape :)

Note: This was only tested with the latest RC (3150).

[vince@hijinxstudios.com]

Plebian,

Brilliant solution! I have been trying to get this to work for only a few days. I have been reading many posts from people looking for a solution for months. I will share this workaround with them giving credit to you for this great idea.

Vince

[sallybode]

Actually I have two Graphires and the older one, I've been using at work. So I figured I could install that one just for the VM for Windows XP and it works. The other tablet works fine in MAC OS X. I did try using an Aiptek tablet and whereas I could get it to work, it was sporadic and it wasn't worth the trouble. It's too bad, it does look so cool but it takes up more room on the desk, the small tablet doesn't bother me, but it is nice having the Fkeys. When I am in CorelDRAW in Windows my Fkeys are MAC keys on the F9 and up so I have changed these Fkeys which DRAW uses to Ctrl Fkeys, and that works. So the hubby can use the Aiptek tablet on the PC if he wants to.

At first I thought I should just use both my Graphires, one for the MAC and the other for Windows, but that means I am risking Carpel Tunnel at work not having a tablet at work then, not worth it. Found out that if I am going into Windows and know I will be using my tablet, I just unplug the one Graphire from the MAC for a couple of minutes, that way when I boot into Windows it asks me to connect the USB HID device and I tell it "yes". And the tablet works well. I find if it works with pressure sensitivity in PhotoPaint, I have nothing to worry about, it will work in all other progams too.

When I am done in Windows and want to use the tablet on the MAC side, I just turn off the virtual machine, no unplugging.

I guess what is happening is that when the tablet is plugged in, then MAC makes those drivers available when it is in use. Once it isn't there for a while, it automatically releases that driver. So when you boot to Windows, then Windows can use the same device because MAC forgot about it.