Surface Pro 3 Pen Button Customization

Anonymous
2014-06-21T18:20:54+00:00

I am a previous owner of a Surface Pro 2, and loved the capability it provided of customizing the button commands per program through the Wacom drivers. As a new owner of the surface Pro 3, I a very disappointed to discover that the same functionality is not available in the N-trig driver options. As an artist, the primary use of my surface is for drawing inside of programs like Adobe Photoshop. Not being able to customize the button functions on the new pen is detrimental to my efficiency as a digital artist. Without the ease of having quick access to specific commands through the pen buttons, I am forced to either dig through the menus and submenus of the program to execute a simple command, or connect a keyboard to use hotkeys. One of the greatest features of the surface is the ability to draw inside of photoshop as if it were a paper notebook, freeing me from my desktop work space and removing the requirement of the mouse and keyboard. Without the customization of these pen buttons, I lose that freedom.

I spoke to a Microsoft support tech this morning who informed me that "hopefully" in the next month or two, this feature will be added to the pen drivers. While this is a new product, and I understand that some features are still in development, this feature is crucial in the workflow of any artist using this device. I already own a desktop computer and a laptop; so again, the primary function of the Surface Pro 3 for me is drawing inside of programs like Photoshop without the need for a mouse and keyboard. 

I don't know if any Microsoft representatives read these discussions, but if there is a way I could be included in any sort of pre-release developmental versions of drivers that introduce this capability, I would love to be a part of it and am happy to provide feedback from an artist's perspective. 

Thanks for reading.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-12-04T02:44:33+00:00

    Thanks for the detailed reply Mike - This seems to solve the biggest issue with the Surface, the lack of a middle-click on the pen.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-12-04T00:09:13+00:00

    Bumping this in hopes Microsoft sees.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-12-03T19:36:58+00:00

    I can confirm this. The radial menu allows you to customize each application you're in. In other words, each application you open will have it's own uniquely customizable radial menu and will change depending on the currently active application. If you're in Chrome you may have a back,forward, bookmark option, etc. In word, it could be undo, redo, bold, italicize, etc. 

    HOWEVER, the remapping of the surface size buttons seems limited to only a GLOBAL view. Meaning that it is NOT customizable per application (yet) and will perform the same no matter where you are. The ONLY options that this will allow for is remapping the two side buttons (eraser and right click buttons) to these three options.

    -right click

    -middle click

    -radial menu (pops up the radial menu when you hold down the button and touch the screen)

    This is good for the application but very limited for any other purposes. One of the SP3's buttons already IS a right click, making this a silly choice to remap, the radial menu could be useful assuming you want to use that application. The middle click is not necessarily useful, but could have interesting functionality. For instance, if you're an Autohotkey user I think you could set up a script to do something like...

    ...

    IF you're in (specific application)

        AND you hit the "middle click" button

        THEN (using autohotkey) remap middle click to keypress of your choice

    ELSE 

         just perform normal middle click

    This autohotkey concept is just speculation, and I have no need to try it out, but so long as the radial menu truly remaps it to a recognizable middle click, then there shouldn't be any reason why you couldn't remap it. Recognize, however, that you only have ONE programmable button since Autohotkey doesn't have access to the radial menu and therefore can't detect it's triggering, and while the middle click may be able to be remapped, in virtually every application you need to use the right click at some point, making it something you wouldn't want to remap.

    Just sptiballing here, but yes, you can remap the two side buttons to middle click.

    -Mike

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-12-03T10:29:52+00:00

    Can someone who has a SP3 actually confirm if this radial menu app lets you use middle-click and right-click on the stylus in an application like Maya or Mudbox? I haven't got one so I can't confirm it, but would like to buy one specifically for these apps (and Photoshop)

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-12-03T07:19:49+00:00

    The middle mouse button is useful for applications like Autodesk Maya. It acts as a modifier to interactively move camera, which you typically do constantly. So that's a great option!

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