Participant

Question

N-Trig Tablet Not Recognized

Forum|Forum|17 years ago
January 29, 2009
40 replies
54665 views

A few other HP and Dell tablet PC users and I have noticed that photoshop does not recognize the pressure sensitivity of the N-trig tablets. I bought this laptop thinking that it was Wacom because I knew it was pressure sensitive (which it is on a couple other programs) so I was a little surprised when I found out that there was more than one type of digitizer pen.

Is there a work around, patch or some other way to get Photoshop and Elements to recognize it?

I contacted N-Trig already and they basically said it's the software's issue.

This topic has been closed for replies.

yuutsumi

Participant

N-Trig has a self extracting DLL add-on available now on 32-bit windows to make their driver work with wintab api...

http://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=Bulletin_Board

it looks like it might only work with photoshop 32-bit... but this might fix it.

JustenRobertson

Participant

To be fair to adobe, I wanted to run Linux anyway. I loathe dual-boot environments, and while I miss some of the features in Adobe's products that don't quite translate into FOSS equivalents, this is the preferred setup for me. I probably would have gone with it even without pressure support, but that was the perk that made me sit down for a weekend and figure out how it's done. Fortunately there are better guides now that Karmic is out of alpha/beta and the patched hid-ntrig driver will be standard in an upcoming kernel (no more custom compiling). So it's far from a workaround for me - I abandoned the idea of using CS on this machine a long time ago. It's just a possible option for those who would like to : ) The really cool thing is pressure support for the apps I'm using in its place - which doesn't even work in Windows. So - about 80% of the functionality, 60% of the usability, and 0% of the cost of a Win/Adobe equivalent setup. Time for MS & Adobe to get on the ball, IMO - they're getting caught up to and surpassed by free software.

Tolouse

Participating Frequently

An update while this unfolds: Paint.net has decided to drop pressure sensitivity in its latest version. This leaves a handful of remaining applications that actually use N-trig brand/Microsoft Ink/non-Wintab/pick-your-poison pressure sensitivity. So, either we're witnessing the coming demise of N-trig for art programs OR ArtRage has just cornered a niche market that Adobe was too slow to move into. The new ArtRage Pro is $80, up from $25 for the last full version. Will this niche market collapse, or grow?

JustenRobertson

Participant

I completely forgot about this thread, heh. Good news - N-Trig is now natively supported in Linux as of kernel version 2.6.30+. For those of you interested, here's a guide on setting it up in (K)Ubuntu 9.04 & 9.10:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1252492

The good news: full pressure sensitivity in *all* linux-native apps - the GIMP, Inkscape, Xournal, Krita, etc. Theoretically it should work in emulated Windows apps too, though I haven't given Photoshop a go in Wine yet as I'm pretty happy with GIMP. This isn't an option for everyone obviously, but I've been running it for 2 months now successfully.

The bad news: it takes a little technical know-how to get it working unfortunately. You'll need to compile your own driver and fiddle around with config files. I have been supplying the compiled drivers on the above-linked thread for 64-bit OS versions for the tx2z. There are still some gaps, too: no right-clicking with your fingertip (but the stylus works fine), and handwriting recognition support is shaky compared to windows' excellent tablet input panel. Also, I personally haven't figured out how to make the side panel buttons work yet, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility. Palm checking on the touchpad is crappy, and you'll have to make yourself a taskbar button to rotate the screen & toggle touch input if you have a habit of resting your hand on it while you draw with the stylus.

Good luck, whichever way you go.

AniDyn

Participant

Oh my goodness, look at us. What kind of freaking work-arounds do we gotta go through just to get a Tablet PC that uses a STANDARD built-into-Windows tablet interface to work in Photoshop!? Seriously, Adobe, if you're taking the stance that the Ink API (or whatever it is) is too new and buggy and supporting it will create a negative experience for your users, how much worse is the experience going to be if we're running Photoshop through Wine in Linux with a custom-written driver that we compiled ourselves, and is still in development by people who are doing this for fun, just for the privilege of using your product?

At least give us the option of a beta, or alpha, something that might work but we know that it's still in testing and we shouldn't expect perfection. Set up a testing program where we have to sign a big disclaimer form to get the plugin, and we agree that we won't sue you if it doesn't work properly. Please don't make us learn C++ and virtual devices to create a wrapper to fool WinTab into thinking it's talking to a Wacom tablet through the TabletPC Ink API, all just to use our perfectly good tablets with your software.

Throw us a bone, here. You're making us choose between loyalty to Adobe and loyalty to, say, Dell. And, seriously, right now, it's a toss-up for me, and Dell's never let me down.

Anonymous

The new etch-n-sketch USB model is pretty cool too.

JustenRobertson

Participant

I think what's being consistently ignored by Chris is that it is legally *impossible* to obtain a license to develop for wintab. My impression is that N-Trig started off cagey about the whole thing but would like to support wintab, they just aren't going to take on the kind of legal liability that could sink their fledgling company by developing for wintab without a license. It was poor of them to pretend that their hardware could support Photoshop when they should have known it could not, but it's still quality hardware for a first release. I'd really like to see you, Chris, address this directly.

That said I completely understand Adobe's position here. I don't forsee a situation where I'll ever want a PC without multitouch support again, and it seems as if the major players in the market cannot legally support wintab. It sucks that people are confronted with a situation where we can have our hardware or our software but not both, but in this situation it's out of the hardware's hands due to legal complications so fair or not the ball is in the software developer's court. Your software is excellent but I can reproduce what I do in it with extra work in much cheaper software that supports my hardware. I hope you guys will understand when I say that I won't be buying any more CS upgrades until you guys get Ink API support or someone comes up with a hacked Wintab driver. Best of luck.

MikeBlount

Participant

Not to beat a dead horse, but has there been any resolution for this (either elsewhere in Adobe, or through support with N-Trig)? I purchased a Tx2z a few monthes ago, and because I heavily use CS4 sent the thing back because of the lack of pressure. I find myself needing a portable tablet again, though, and am shopping again... and N-Trig tech is, unfortunately, about the only thing I can find.

Is there an 'Official' stance Adobe is taking on the matter, outside of the argument presented by Chris? ie, Adobe is not/will not take any action to address this issue?

Chris Cox

Legend

Read the whole topic, especially the most recent posts.

NateDSaint

Participant

i apologize for the terseness and lack of capitalization coming next, i am on my phone as i write this at a fourth of july party. a friend who goes to corel cert every year has said that they recently made a press release about supporting ntrig and multitouch in the upcoming version of painter... though from what i have read they just said at some poiint using windows 7, and didnt commit to the next version. either way it just sounds like we are going to have to suffer some early adapter pains at least until windows 7, probably a bit longer.

arlynxyu

Participating Frequently

hate to break this to you nate, but win7 is here. RTM on July 13th. I've

been using it since October.

NateDSaint

Participant

I'm not talking about the RC, which is not yet fully supported by other software developers per their license agreements, which is officially October 22 2009. Even in the event that someone planned a windows 7-only release of software BEFORE that date, they'd have to finish it first, and from all reports both vendors are still working with both the windows tablet API and NTrig to ensure that these functionalities are complete before release. I realize that the technology already exists to support multi-touch (as per the Dell XT and HP TouchSmart which have both already been released) but the support (or more precisely the legal burden of support) of the integrated use of multi-touch with windows 7 doesn't officially begin until retail launch.

So I'm assuming at the EARLIEST (and I know no one can commit to timelines so they'll probably either ignore or deny this) that it could be released is concurrently with Windows 7 retail in October.

Is that unrealistic, or do you have some insights into either of these companies that leads you to believe they'll have something sooner?

TkIMO

Participant

After reading this thread, as well as many other sites and conversations on this subject, I have only one question for the Adobe staff: Since when does the fact that the newer Tablet APIs are paltry and broken mean that you shouldn't support them?

As a software developer, I have to support garbage that I don't want to all the time, and I feel just as "unprofessional" while doing it as it sounds like you guys would feel about adding this stuff to Photoshop. However, isn't it a bit haughty to simply refuse if you know it would make your customers happy?

Plenty of tablets - Wacom's Graphire and Bamboo lines, for example - don't support tilt features and other such things even *with* Wintab, yet I've seen many users happily employing them in Photoshop. You can't possibly convince me that these crippled new APIs would be completely useless - I think I speak for everyone suffering this problem when I say that we'd rather live with half-baked functionality than have nothing at all.

Purchasing a Tablet PC in 2009 implies compromises: Overpriced hardware, grainy LCD screens, slow OS response times, and built-in digitizers which could never compare to ones bought separately. I'm not exactly going to be upset with your programmers if Photoshop doesn't have the same features it'd have on a five-star PC, because a Tablet PC is the farthest thing from that. For heavens' sake, I'd just like more than bare-bones mouse cursor functionality.

This sort of run-around between companies - "It's the OS's problem!"; "No, it's the software's problem!"; "It's the manufacturer's problem!"; "No, it's the component's problem!" - has been going on for decades, and it only happens because every single company involved is too lazy to do anything about a person's issue. Usually it would only take a minimal effort from one of the companies involved to fix whatever's wrong, but of course nobody does.

Seriously guys, if you don't give a flip then please just say so. However, if Adobe sees any value in being the one company in this chain of excuses that sucked it up and fixed this issue, I think a non-trivial amount of users (consider that almost 200-comment thread, for starters) will remember you for it.

Chris Cox

Legend

"I have only one question for the Adobe staff: Since when does the fact that the newer Tablet APIs are paltry and broken mean that you shouldn't support them?"

I hope that was sarcasm. Really I do.

Look at it this way: Adobe supported the API that every tablet vendor we knew of supported, and an API that worked. Microsoft came up with a new API that didn't do what we needed, didn't support all the features of the tablets that we already supported, and has bugs yet to be solved. Why would anyone waste time supporting the new API until it gets fixed and completed? What possible reason would there be for someone to adopt a new, broken, incomplete API to replace an existing, complete, extensible, working API supported by all known tablet vendors?

(A car analogy: I've got a Prius, why would I replace it with a Yugo? Sure, it's cheaper - but that's all it is.)

Now two vendors don't want to support the commonly used API, knew that not supporting it would mean that their product wouldn't work with professional graphics applications, and knew that they were shortchanging their customers by not supporting it. But those vendors didn't contact the makers of those applications or respond to inquiries from the makers of those applications. How were the software makers to know that the tablet vendors had concerns about the API unless they communicated that to the software makers?

If Adobe had known that this was a problem, maybe we could have helped them in some way. But we didn't know.

I'm really sorry that your tablet hardware vendor shortchanged you. But we can't do anything about that right now. Adding even the working bits of Microsoft's new API is way, way beyond the definition of a dot release change.

For the future, maybe we can do something about it -- but the tablet vendors still need to talk to us.

We're continually talking to Microsoft about their API and getting fixes in place - but that depends on Microsoft's schedule (and probably will get fixed in their current OS version only).

Anonymous

Clearly, it's too late to make it into CS5. Should've been in CS1 at the earliest (Microsoft Tablet API introduced), CS3 at the latest (Wintab tainted). But let bygones be bygones.

If support for the Microsoft Tablet APIs is going to make it into CS6, then Adobe needs to change its attitude pronto. Stop giving us the "run-around", as TkIMO put it.

(1) "... that depends on Microsoft's schedule."

(2) "Microsoft came up with a new API that didn't do what we needed, didn't support all the features of the tablet that we already supported, and has bugs yet to be solved."

No, it doesn't depend on Microsoft's schedule. It depends on Adobe's schedule. You put in whatever imperfect support you can for today's imperfect Tablet API. At some point, Microsoft puts in some bugfixes and upgrades to the Tablet API, and Adobe then picks those up for the *next* version of Photoshop and Illustrator. Walk before you run.

The listing of the Tablet API's faults is true, but totally irrelevant. Did you even bother *reading* any of your customers' posts? It has been amply established that the single most important feature, that accounts for 99% of complaints, is already present and functioning in the Microsoft Tablet APIs: pressure-sensitivity.

In fact, Tolouse attached a pretty nice drawing in the post above, done in a non-Adobe painting program, using exactly this Microsoft Tablet API, which supposedly sucks so badly and is intolerably buggy.

And what's with this prima-donna attitude at Adobe? "Everything must be perfect before we lift a finger." Imagine if the Knoll brothers had said in 1987, "We won't code up Photoshop until everyone has full-color e-ink screens, so that we can exactly replicate the experience of drawing on paper." We'd still be waiting for Photoshop 1.0, twenty-two years later. You work with what you have.

Tolouse

Participating Frequently

I just bought, stupidly, the HP Tx2z, the sales people didn't know what the hardware and software they're selling actually can do and I bought something that won't work with the hundreds of dollars of legacy software I wanted to install on it.

I'm weighing my options right now and unless I get some sign from the N-Trig company that they intend to play nice with Wintab in the near future I'm canceling my order tomorrow afternoon.

I have no problem using my Wacom tablet hooked up to this new Tx2z for a couple months more if they are going to solve this--but if they're not "Hello Lenovo," "Good-bye HP and N-Trig."

So, in trying to find workarounds, I'm learning the following

There are some art programs that that are marketed toward tablets that use the microsoft APIs, Apparently ArtRage supports N-Trig style pressure sensitivity, so I have a low cost digitial painting option, there's even an optimized version for ulltramobile tablets. http://www.ambientdesign.com/index.html

And it actually works like Corel Painter, here's an image a forum user from ambient design did with the program:

I can survive (maybe) until N-Trig plays nice with Wintab--but they need to state they intend to make real progress toward that end or some jovial hacker needs to get this in motion and release some freeware that ignores licensing agreements-- otherwise this laptop sale is getting cancelled.

Message was edited by: Tolouse, after much research

arlynxyu

Participating Frequently

Adobe only supports Wacom's pressure sensitivity, which until last year was the only maker of digitizers. This is an issue Adobe needs to fix. N-Trig supports pressure sensitivity, and the theory that N-Trig doesn't support the Microsoft API and Photoshop uses that and that's why it doesn't work is totally flawed, because pressure sensitivity works flawlessly in microsoft applications. Adobe needs to add support for DuoSense, not the other way around. You guys are insane, just automatically jump to "it's not adobe's fault." "Adobe supported DuoSense long before the technology existed."

Let's hope adobe gets crackin on this. the dell XT's came out a year ago for f's sake.

Chris Cox

Legend

arlynxyu - I'm sorry, but your statements are almost entirely incorrect.

There have been many makers of pressure sensitive tablets, for at least 13 years back (and that's just from my personal collection). You can even search the forum here for reports of problems with some of the other tablet vendors (usually due to driver bugs).

Adobe supports the Windows standard tablet APIs, and works with many tablet brands beyond Wacom.

But Adobe is not in the business of writing hardware support code for third party hardware manufacturers.

N-Trig chose not to support the full tablet APIs on Windows, and chose not to support professional applications that use tablets on Windows.

Only N-Trig can fix their drivers to support the full tablet APIs.

Anonymous

Chris has evidently not heard about the patent lawsuits that have been encumbering Wintab for almost a decade now. Result: those tablet manufacturers going back "at least 13 years" have, one-by-one, been dropping Wintab support. New entrants into the tablet market (Finepoint, N-Trig) don't even want to touch Wintab with a ten-foot pole.

It is also easy to get the wrong impression when Chris says that Wintab is a "Windows standard tablet API" and that "Well, we [Adobe] did work with Microsoft. But it sounds like N-Trig didn't."

Let's be clear. It is not a "Windows standard" (which implies Microsoft involvement). It is a standard that someone else created, "for Windows." Read the WinTab 1.1 specification: "This document is copyright 1991-1996 by LCS/Telegraphics." It was LCS and Wacom who got sued by the patentholder. Not Microsoft.

Any tablet manufacturer that still supports Wintab has either paid ransom money, or is too small to get sued. How can you call it a standard when the graphics tablet hardware industry (except Wacom) is running as fast as they can away from Wintab? Adobe might as well just come right out and say it: "Wacom is our best buddy, and we will only support Wacom tablets."

Talk to Microsoft in 1993 and they'll tell you to use Wintab, because there wasn't anything else available. Talk to Microsoft in 2008 and they'll tell you to use the new tablet APIs, which Microsoft controls and will let you use without charge. N-Trig has talked to Microsoft. Has Adobe?

Chris is right that the new tablet SDKs provide maybe 20% of the functionality of Wintab. But this is a incredibly lame excuse. Among this 20% is pressure sensitivity, which gets you 80% of the way there. People using Graphires, and Tablet PCs, and other low-functionality tablets, won't even notice anything missing. These don't have tilt. They don't have all these extra buttons. Pressure-sensitivity is enough.

Microsoft has done its part to free us from the tyranny of Wintab, by providing us with an alternative API. Finepoint and N-Trig have done their part -- they conformed to the Microsoft API. Where is Adobe? Making excuses. And not even factually-accurate excuses, at that.

Sources:

[1] Email (secondhand) from Finepoint developer. They deliberately avoided Wintab in their driver. They even went so far as to provide an application-specific method for getting pressure sensitivity in Photoshop. This is just ugly, and it's all because Photoshop doesn't support the new Microsoft APIs. Think about it: Finepoint was willing to go that far, just to avoid Wintab. Chris portrayed N-Trig as a clueless new company on the block; clearly Finepoint wasn't clueless about Wintab. http://www.pixolator.com/zbc/showpost.php?p=271492&postcount=7

[2] GTCO owns several tablet companies, many of which have been in the business for over a decade. They used to have Wintab in their drivers, but they removed it in 2004. Again, these are not clueless newbies here. http://www.interworldna.com/GTCO/gtco-drivers.php

[3] LCS, co-defendent with Wacom on the original Wintab lawsuit, gives a short summary of the legal maneuvering here: http://www.pointing.com/Wintab.html Because they settled and then exited the market, this is written up in dry, dispassionate language. But chat up any one of their employees over a beer, and I bet you he'll have have colorful words for the patentholder. Remember, LCS invented Wintab, after all. How would Adobe like it if someone got a patent to key areas of Photoshop, today?

[4] Wintab 1.1 specification, via Wacom (which doesn't mention this mess, since they're sitting pretty, with a license to Wintab that, although perhaps not legally so, is for practical purposes exclusive). http://www.wacomeng.com/devsupport/ibmpc/downloads.html

If anyone is clueless in this sordid Wintab mess, it's Adobe. Why don't you stop blaming the victims, take some responsibility, get together with Microsoft and N-Trig and anyone else trying to make tablets, and help to lead ths industry out of bondage.

David J Wood

Known Participant

Jarem - thanks for mentioning the Lenovo - that's maybe something I should be looking into.

I've posted on the Dell forums at http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19262038/19441981.aspx#19441981 - I wait to see if that brings anything constructive.

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