Talryyn Games

Update2: This will work on the Bamboo Pen, Bamboo Pen & Touch, Bamboo Fun, Graphire4, Graphire Bluetooth, Graphire3, etc. This will not work for the Bamboo Touch, as it acts like a mouse in simple terms. The Bamboo Touch stores its data in an xml file that can be modified; however, I have not played with this yet. The other data is stored in a dat file. On the Bamboo Pen & Touch for example, you can switch screens only for the pen, and the touch portion still works on both screens.

The Intuos4 line of Wacom tablets will allow you to switch monitors at the press of a button that you defined in the setup, it is great. But it is a pricey tablet, and I really do not want to wear mine out by using it daily. Years of not typing correctly has caused me to already have wrist pain, so I like to use the tablets pen as a mouse. It is more comfortable to hold, more natural, and frankly for me just easier even while editing code or browsing the internet. I borrowed a Wacom Graphire (old model) and it did not switch monitors like my Intuos4 would, so I thought well maybe a Bamboo will do it. Ran out and got a Bamboo, unwrapped it, nope would not do it. Keep reading after the jump to see how to make it all work.

However, both the Graphire and Bamboo will let you run a batch file (from a button that you specify), so I wondered if I can make it switch monitors that way!? Yes we can actually. Not only that, if you have more than one tablet plugged in. For example a Graphire and a Bamboo, even though they both keep the setup data in the same file you can make them both work together keeping separate profiles for each. To explain better, in my setup I put the Graphire to work across both monitors while the Bamboo is set to switch monitors when I press a button or express key. When I press the button that I defined on the Bamboo to make it switch monitors, it does not change anything on the Graphire.

The Intuos4 is using a different file, so it does not get bothered. I have only tested this on what you see above, but I reckon any of the tablets that use driver 5.1.1-1 or higher should work in the same way. What you need to do first is find your Pen_Tablet.dat file - this will usually be somewhere like "c:\Users\Your_windows_user_name_here\AppData\Roaming\WTablet" Your windows user name could be home, your name, or whatever you have setup for that profile. Important: To be on the safe side, check for the latest drivers for your tablet at http://www.wacom.com/downloads/drivers.php -- As of writing it is driver 5.1.1-1

Also make sure you setup both tablets, while they use the same program, it will default to the last tablet used for the setup screens. Then go ahead and make a copy of your "Pen_Tablet.dat" file and then rename the copy something like "Important_Never_Delete_Me_I_Am_Your_Only_Backup_Of_Pen_Tablet.dat" or better still just name it "Pen_Tablet_Backup.dat" or even "Pen_Tablet.bak". Just in case you need the file for any reason. Although there is a program provided by Wacom that will delete the file, and then you just setup the tablets again. If you have a complex setup though, it might be a pain to redo them all again. --- First go ahead and open your tablets configuration program - usually called "Pen Tablet" under All Programs in the startmenu. Next you will need to setup which monitor you want to use, display "1" for purposes of this tutorial. This is usually under the Pen settings under "Details". You can setup the mouse in the same manner.

Depending on your tablet the screen might look a tad different. Click "ok" once you have it set to monitor 1, close the program. If you have another tablet that uses the same driver, make sure you repeat the same steps for that tablet. Basically, using the tablet you want to make the changes to, open the configuration tool. If you try to open it with the mouse it seems to default to the last tablet that was used. You can setup the other tablet to use both monitors, a portion of the screen etc. But if you want it to use monitor 1, make sure they are both on monitor 1. --- Now open Notepad if you have not used this program before it is under "Accessories" on the start menu. Or you can even type "notepad" without the " " into the search box on the start menu, the program will open. You will need to change the drive path to match where your files are located. Copy and paste the following into your notepad.

@echo off NET STOP "TabletServicePen"
C: cd C:\Users\"Change Here"\AppData\Roaming\WTablet
rename Pen_Tablet.dat NextRotation.dat
rename Pen_Tablet_Switch.dat Pen_Tablet.dat
NET START "TabletServicePen"
rename NextRotation.dat Pen_Tablet_Switch.dat

Make sure you change both drive letters to match where your windows install is, and change the "Change Here" to match the correct path to your file. Maybe it will be F:\Users\Home\AppData\Roaming\WTablet for example. What this file will do is simply rename your current configuration file into a file named "NextRotation.dat", it will then rename "Pen_Tablet_Switch.dat" which contains the other monitor number to "Pen_Tablet.dat". It does this while the service is stopped, and once the service has restarted it renames the "NextRotation.dat" file back into "Pen_Tablet_Switch.dat" each time it renames the file, the original is lost basically. We could use two batch files to copy and delete files, but this batch file will run a bit faster, and it only requires the one batch file. Once you are done, save the file as "displayswitch.bat" in your C:\Users\"Change Here"\AppData\Roaming\WTablet directory. --- Now that the file is created we need to setup the tablets to run the file. Using the tablet you want to use this for, setup the button/express key that you wish to use. Set it to Open/Run and then browse to the file we just created above "displayswitch.bat" and hit "Ok".

Close the program and repeat on any additional tablets. --- Now in your file explorer copy the "Pen_Tablet.dat" to a new filename called "Pen_Tablet_Switch.dat", and then go back into the tablet setup again and change the monitors to 2. Make sure you do this again for any tablet that needs the change. So now what we have done is created a file "Pen_Tablet_Switch.dat" that contains the required settings for the pen to display on Monitor 1, now when you click on your button/express key it should switch monitors.

It might not be a bad idea to backup both files, copy and rename them something else so you know what they are. You will notice the command box opens when you press the button/express key, it should close once it is done. On some systems it might be faster than others. On my system it takes 3-4 seconds to switch, not as snappy as my Intuos4 but now at least they all switch monitors and I can keep working.

You could even use this to have a different setup, if you want the tablet to default to settings you might use in Blender, and then switch back to a normal setup for whatever. So even if you only have one monitor you can use this. You could expand on this, and each profile would call a different batch file, so you could cycle through many different setups in this manner. --- Please let me know if something is not clear, and I will update the post. Hope this helps!