Hello Everyone,
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, I wondered if I had done the right thing installing the new Wacom driver; today, I am glad I did. OMGosh, the new driver can make custom palettes…actually they are like the radial menu, but I believe that the users will embrace the new way to create radial menus more than they did previously. But, first…let’s talk about other stuff I discovered today.
First thing I did was uninstall the driver I had installed yesterday. Then I downloaded the driver directly from Wacom. BTW, the legacy drivers have not been updated…just the Cintiqs, Cintiq Companion products, Intuos Pro and Intuos. You can download the driver from Wacom Drivers. I didn’t have the trouble with the installation, so, if you plan on updating, I would suggest uninstalling your current driver, disconnect your tablet from your computer, install the new driver, and finishing, then reconnect your tablet.
Unfortunately, some of the issues I saw yesterday were still there this morning. I talked with my mate, Tim Shelbourne in England, and we met via G2M and had a great deal of fun sorting it all out. This first video talks about some of the stuff we discovered and what I needed to do to correct any problems that occurred yesterday. If you are not interested in that, but want to find out about the Custom Palettes, skip to the next video.
In the next video I talk about a really neat function available with the new driver. You can now display the radial menu in single column, double column, single row, or double row. It seems more familiar than the radial method and reminds me a great deal of the way Painter handles custom palettes. I think Painter users will love it. In the video I wasn’t so sure, but I have changed my mind. And, I think Photoshop users are going to really love it the most because this will be the first time they can make custom palettes. Remember, it is the same as the radial menu, but that configuration never caught the public’s eye. I think the new method will. Here is the video…enjoy.
Give the new driver a try and let me know if you like the new way of doing the Radial Menu. Don’t forget, you can go back a few posts and get my custom shortcut keys for Painter and for the Wacom.
Enjoy,
Skip
Thanks for the video, Skip. These palettes will be really cool for Photoshop. Like you, I think I’ll stick with Painter’s custom palettes.
Thanks, Skip! You are such an inspiration & a very giving teacher!
All the best, Cheryl
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Thank you Cheryl and please keep coming back.
Enjoy,
Skip
Thank you Skip – You are always so generous with your knowledge – you are one of my heros!!
Gosh Rich…your comment is so kind. I love your paintings and books.
Thank you Skip – That means a great deal to me..
Whoops! I read and commented on your first email without realizing you had sent a follow-up!
I’ll check out the video regarding the Radial menu ASAP.
I believe you were speaking about the first installation you had made when you said that you did still have some persistent anomalies for which you had yet to successfully remove.
If you in fact, were referring to the download/installation of the 2nd driver you got from Wacom, please let me know. I won’t install any until I’m sure.
Thanks,
Rich
Hey again Rich,
I am very pleased with the driver. When I installed the driver the second day, I uninstalled first and then installed the downloaded driver from Wacom’s site. All went well and I was finally able to start understanding what was new with the driver. I’m still learning stuff. 🙂
Skip, have you figured out a way to change the name that appears on the radial menu itself when you first pull it up? If it says Radial_20 when you pull it up you might have changed the name to FILE and that will come up once you pull it up but I can’t see anyway to change the name that appears on the radial menu itself. Oh I did call wacom help and they were of no help in this case. Thanks Sip!!
Hi Barb,
I am having the same issue. The name will change on the bar above the radial menu or on-screen control, but not on the menu itself. The same is true whether it is in radial, column, or row format. I guess this is one of the bugs Wacom will have to fix…soon I hope. At the moment, I kind of remember where things are, but it was so much easier when we could actually see the name of each slice of the pie. I have been looking everyday for an update, but so far nothing. Also, I cannot find anything about the new driver. I would think it would be talked about at the community site. If it is, I haven’t found it. Wish I could be more help. I do really like this driver and will love it when it is fixed. Enjoy, Skip
Thanks for the videos on the new Wacom driver. Inspired by them, I tried it. I found the following:
1. I also have the problem with not being able to read the panel names with my text size set to 125%, which is the default BTW. There is actually enough room there to print enough of the name to make it more useful than it is. As a workaround, if you select Edit, you can see the full name.
2. I changed the names to something more readable than Radial Menu_1_0. It still continues to show the Radial Menu_1_0 name in menus, but not in Wacom Properties. Based on your videos with many such non-mnemonic names in your menus, I assume you haven’t fixed it either. If you look at the .wacomprefs file you can save and restore, you will see that there is a Panel ID and a PanelName. Wacom is apparently using the ID, when it should be using the name. It isn’t clear which it is using in the On-screen Controls tab in Wacom Properties.
I was actually able to fix it to having good names in the menus by changing the IDs in the .wacomprefs file from things like Radial Menu_1_0 to Painter Panel (or whatever). I doubt that it cares what the IDs are, as long as they are unique. You can do this in a test.wacomprefs file and restore that, if you don’t want to mess with what Save in Save/Restore gives you. The things you want to change are surrounded by angle brackets, e.g. >Radial Menu_1_0< (if you want to do a global replace without clobbering something else). I expect future Save/Restore's will work OK with the new IDs. The ones there, like Radial Menu_1_0, were probably just generated in the conversion from the old file format.
3. I also tried duplicating a panel and giving it a (good) name as a way of getting around the problem. This crashed the driver. Fortunately restoring my saved preferences brings it back.
I submitted these as bugs to Wacom support, but based on past history, I don't expect much.
BTW Save/Restore is done in PrefUtil.exe. You (at least I) don't need the rest of the Wacom desktop, and I have set it to not Auto Load. I have a link to PrefUtil on my desktop. I have to restore every time I turn off my Cintiq (because I am not using it) and then turn it back on. I also made a Wacom menu item to run it, so I can save from within Wacom Properties (or at least close by). I once suggested they put Save/Restore in the Wacom Properties, but it was a waste of time.
HTH
Hey Ken…
I can’t wait to give this a try. I’ll get back with you tomorrow. I hope this works!!!
Skip
So I never did hear if you tried it. There is now a new version, 6.3.15. It doesn’t seem to fix any of the interface problems, but my work-arounds above seem to still work. I am able to save and restore without screwing it up, and it uses my more meaningful names.
Hi Kenneth, I did try it and never could get it to work…even with the new driver. OMGosh, I just saw there was a new driver for my product dated 10/8/2015. I announce the one for the Mac that was done on Oct 7th, but I missed the one for the PC. I have been checking with Wacom Desktop Center and it keeps telling me that there are no new drivers…go figure. Anyway, I followed your suggestions and was able to change the titles for the panels, but then they wouldn’t open. I tried to figure out where I was going wrong, but never did. Someone told me with the driver before the one on the 8th, would work provided you started from scratch again, which I haven’t wanted to do. Hopefully I can get some time tomorrow and I’ll send you a private email about what I did do and the results. Thanks for checking back. I would love to fix mine. Skip
It’s working for me fine. I did not start from scratch. Just simple find/replace. If you can’t make it work, send me your file, and I’ll look at it.
That is exactly what I did…a simple find and replace. I’ll try it again tomorrow. Skip
OMGosh Kenneth,
It worked. I didn’t do anything but replace the driver and then was about to start the process of replacing the panel names, but thought I would take a look at what was showing so I would get the names correct…and they were correct. No need to fix anything so apparently Wacom fixed the issue. I’m thrilled. skip
Hmm. I still had some of the old names left (that I wasn’t using) and they are still there. These names were generated when migrating to the previous version. AFAICT they are arbitrary. The problem is that the comfiguration had two names associated with it, and they were using the wrong one. Maybe that got fixed. I changed everything so both names are the same and that worked with the old version and also the new one, perhaps for different reasons. What they didn’t fix is that I see only the first 2 characters of the name followed by … even though there is room for much more. Bottom line: great that it is working. It is a nice feature.
I just took a look at your website and was blown away by all that you do. A true Renaissance man. I loved your photographs, especially the fall color ones from 2011. I know you must have tons more now. Put them all up…wonderful stuff.
Thanks. I’m blown away by all that YOU do.
Thanks Skip for this very thorough video. It helped me a lot in understanding the new functionality of the Radial Menu. Oddly enough, there’s hardly any information on the Wacom website itself about this.
There seems to be one thing I can no longer do, though, and that’s assign different Radial menus to different applications. Or am I missing something?
Hi Piet,
I don’t know of a way to assign a radial menu only to a different application, but you can assign the all the settings to different applications. Open Painter. Then open your Wacom Tablet Properties and look at the first three rows. The third one says Application. Look to the far right of the applications row and you will see a plus. Click on the plus and Add Application for Custom Settings window will open. Select Painter 2016 x64 from the list and click OK. That will add the Painter icon to the applications row. With it highlighted, create your radial menu and any other settings that you want. Then when you use Painter 2016, your tablet will default to the settings from Painter 2016. Hope this helps, skip
Hi Piet,
I just noticed your post on the Wacom Forum asking if you can assign the radial menu to different applications. I may not see the answer. If someone does answer your question, will you please let me know. Thanks, Skip