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I recently started a remote scientist job, and its kind of insane that I am the only person among dozens who use a tablet+stylus during meetings. People have su

I recently started a remote scientist job, and its kind of insane that I am the only person among dozens who use a tablet+stylus during meetings. People have such poor discussions, because unlike a irl meeting where multiple people will write stuff on a whiteboard, here people are just communicating verbally (read vaguely) or painfully scratching unintelligible diagrams/equations with their mouse. I think every remote job that sends employees a laptop should also be sending them a wacom tablet.

jon-wood 3y ago
What are you using for note taking? I while back I bought a small Wacom tablet for this very purpose, particularly being able to quickly sketch out diagrams while in in meetings, but ended up giving up because I couldn't get the hang of using the tablet. I'm pretty sure it was a tooling issue rather than the tablet itself, and wouldn't mind taking another punt at it.
- orbital-decay 3y ago
  What's your OS? On Windows, Nebo is pretty good. Rnote is the best of FOSS, but it lacks handwriting recognition if you need it, at least for now. For hybrid workflows (tablet + keyboard) Obsidian also has something to offer, Excalidraw plugin in particular. >I'm pretty sure it was a tooling issue Depends on whether you want shape/diagram recognition or not. If the only thing you need is free-form drawing, you can use just about anything.
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    I just tried Rnote. Seems quite decent. But on MacOS, it seems to be bugged. Instead of a tiny pointer/eraser/other tool showing as the pointer, it continues to show the OS mouse pointer. I will try it on linux later. Hopefully it will work there. My initial gripe is that there are three different toolbars, all separated from each other. I want to change tools and their settings quickly, not move my hand across the entire screen. For example, select brush tool on bottom toolbar, select size on the left toolbar, then select color on the top toolbar.
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  I have the medium Wacom. I think the small size would be uncomfortable. When I was a prof, I used the Wacom on linux with OpenBoard [1] to teach online for two years of the pandemic. My work gave me a Macbooks, but OpenBoard has some weird bugs on MacOS. So I am using GoodNotes, which is very annoying, but the best of what I tried. In another life, I would dedicate a few years of my life writing a decent note taking app. [1] https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard Edit: Besides the software, I think it takes a few weeks of writing on it daily where it becomes natural.
  - quectophoton 3y ago
    > I have the medium Wacom. I think the small size would be uncomfortable. I have a Wacom Intuos S. Sample size 1, but I haven't been inconvenienced by its size, even while handwriting or drawing at Krita. On one hand, I don't think a thought like "this would be easier with a bigger tablet" has ever crossed my mind; but on the other hand, it's also true that I haven't tried anything bigger, so my only point of comparison is tablet vs mouse or tablet vs whiteboard/notebook.
    - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
      I haven't also tried the S one. But my intuition is the following. The surface of the tablet is mapped to your screen in terms of input. The Intuos M is just a bit smaller than 13 inch laptop screens. So what you see on the screen is roughly the same size as what you draw with your hand. Additionally, while writing at normal pen/paper size, my hand moves comfortably from the left of the tablet to the right as I write across the whole screen. If I had to use a Intuos S, then I imagine, I would have to write a lot smaller with my hand, but then have it appear as bigger on the screen. But my hand would not move a lot, and making tiny characters would tire my hand out faster. I think my brain would get used to it, but it will still be a jump.
      - justinclift 3y ago
        > The surface of the tablet is mapped to your screen in terms of input. Only in absolute mode though. If you switch it to relative mode though, then it's a bit more flexible.
- syntheweave 3y ago
  It's just a need to train hand-eye coordination. Practice blind contour[0] on the tablet for a few minutes a day for two weeks and it'll come around. Contour drawing is not taught in primary education, and it really should be: it generalizes on how you learned to write by learning some muscle memory and then playing it back to make a mark. Nobody who can write should be going around saying "I'm untalented at art, I can't even draw a straight line". [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_contour_drawing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_contour_drawing
- RunSet 3y ago
  https://xournalpp.github.io/ https://xournalpp.github.io/
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    I looked into it, and its actually quite good. I didn't like the old xournal but this one really is ++. Best thing is that they have a plugin architecture that can do some basic customization.
- gnosek 3y ago
  https://rnote.flxzt.net/ https://rnote.flxzt.net/ is pretty nice on Linux (for one-off drawings, not really for organizing them I think)
dataflow 3y ago
> I think every remote job that sends employees a laptop should also be sending them a wacom tablet. It's so annoying dealing with a separate tablet just for the sake of writing. Why not a tablet PC or such?
- dharmab 3y ago
  Wacom style devices are extremely affordable. I have a $30 drawing tablet which I use for digital art and works very well.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - callalex 3y ago
    The most expensive part of having tablet input is the real estate square footage required for a larger desk to accommodate it.
    - adrian_b 3y ago
      Which is not larger than a mouse pad. Tablets need extra space only when replacing the embedded touchpads or trackpoints of laptops. For someone who uses a desktop or who prefers mice to touchpads, a tablet does not need any extra space, it just replaces the mouse and the mouse pad with the stylus and the tablet. There are big tablets too, but for replacing a mouse and for simple drawings a small tablet like Wacom Intuos S is perfect.
    - dharmab 3y ago
      Mine is about the size if a greeting card
- dvdkon 3y ago
  I have one, and flipping it from "laptop mode" to "tablet mode" adds noticeable friction, especially if you have e.g. a dock connected. Then again, so does having to carry around a tablet. For an office job I'd take the external tablet, since my laptop would likely be plugged in all the time. You could also keep it permanently in tablet mode and use an external monitor, mouse, and keyboard. Just don't underestimate the mode change.
quectophoton 3y ago
People look at me like I'm crazy because I use a wacom tablet as mouse. I'm using a "cheap" one (I think it was like 80 EUR), and it's mind blowing how convenient it is despite its small size. Now trying to use a physical whiteboard for brainstorming, feels the same way as trying to use pen and paper for programming: technically doable, but I curse internally because the inconvenience. Just being able to select stuff and move it around, or undo with a quick Ctrl+Z, or rotate things, makes all the difference. Sure, I love using a paper notebook for my notes, and the feel of writing with a pencil on paper is really nice; and I would use it for drawing quick stuff if I don't have anything else at hand. But if I think I'm going to be erasing a lot, or that I will be doing the kind of stuff that is usually done with a whiteboard, a drawing tablet is (to me) a vastly superior option.
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  Yup. Writing on paper with a nice fountain pen or pencil is primal love. So satisfying. But digital tablets are so much superior for that messy kind of work, you just have to use them.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Terr_ 3y ago
  Not really a solution as much as an alternative form of attack: Tools like graphviz where I can type certain limited types of diagrams into a text editor and xdot well instantly display the render. There are also some online ones, although I'm not sure how well they work in a multi-editor situation. Might not be flexible enough for a really open brainstorming, but enough for stuff like figuring out domain concepts.
  - Twirrim 3y ago
    I'm the same with: PlantUML - quick and simple text representation of diagrams, really easy to iterate on and see changes reflected live. reveal.js - Quick and simple slide creation, I can reorder slides with ease, tweak wording, don't waste time faffing about with fonts, text box sizing etc. All reflected live in a browser.
c0nfused 3y ago
I have been really tempted to sit down and write a ot version of edotor.net so more than one person could edit a graph at the same time in a meeting/ discussion. We have been trialing using it to draw graphviz graphs for discussion and it has been working very well both as an in meeting tool and as a reference later on. Would be interested to go the Wacom route but my my handwriting is very bad and only getting worse
- djbusby 3y ago
  Draw with the pen. Then double tap in the text area and use kbd input. Works in the Google drawing thing (Drive)
dotnet00 3y ago
Agreed, I have ended up prioritizing stylus support so much that now every computing device I use supports one (although it started as a digital art thing). At my desktop I have a 22" pen display (a Huion kamvas, the wacom displays are pretty overpriced), my phone, tablet and laptop all support S pens, and I have a couple of older non-display pentabs too. The impetus was from wanting to be able to practice digital art in free time regardless of where I am, but it has ended up being extremely convenient as anything can be quickly drawn up or written, easily shared with everyone else and does is trivially retained.
- JadeNB 3y ago
  > At my desktop I have a 22" pen display (a Huion kamvas, the wacom displays are pretty overpriced), my phone, tablet and laptop all support S pens, and I have a couple of older non-display pentabs too. What laptop do you recommend with S Pen support?
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    I'm using a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360. Personally I love it, the large screen and large touch pad makes it great for note taking and coding. Makes it as tolerable as it gets to not be at the triple monitor desktop setup at my desk (particularly when using the S8Ultra as a second screen). The battery life has also been more than sufficient for my needs (but since it's basically for web browsing, document editing, note taking, amateur level drawing and light client for SSH'd vscode, it isn't doing much). My main criticism would be it feels a bit delicate. I had also tried the regular Galaxy Book 3 360 for a day, but I felt the screen was a bit small and not as sharp as I'd like. That said, since EMR pens also work in-place of S pens, I'd guess that S pens will work on any device that supports EMR pens (minus the bluetooth air gestures, those aren't available on windows laptops). For me the value was the 'ecosystem' with my other devices which also happen to be from Samsung, including the ability to share the stylus between everything.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
Much too high learning curve for a wacom tablet. Getting used to writing "blind" while looking at a screen definitely takes time to get used to. Give them something with a screen instead (e.g. cintiq knock-offs, ipads, samsung tablet, surface) or a webcam mounted to record a whiteboard/blackboard or mounted overhead to record a sheet of paper. That might also help to get better audio at the same time. Side-note: When remote meetings became necessary in recent years, lots of software/hardware solutions were improvised, not great, but workable and with a hope that better solutions will become available later. Somehow that did not happen and people are still "scratching unintelligible diagrams/equations with their mouse" because there is no standard, widely available software and hardware that makes this easy.
1letterunixname 3y ago
Yes, exactly. And/or perhaps a Quest Pro. (I'm not kidding.) In VR, you can point, draw, and share virtual desktops. Otherwise, no one knows what the hell anyone is talking about, and perhaps get the wrong impression about one another. I strongly disagree with RTO as ass-in-seat-mentality for knowledge work jobs that don't design or manufacture physical items. I've been part of fully WFH companies since ~2000 spanning up to 8 time zones. The quality of discussions requires the ubiquity of tools for expressiveness.

jon-wood 3y ago

What are you using for note taking? I while back I bought a small Wacom tablet for this very purpose, particularly being able to quickly sketch out diagrams while in in meetings, but ended up giving up because I couldn't get the hang of using the tablet. I'm pretty sure it was a tooling issue rather than the tablet itself, and wouldn't mind taking another punt at it.

orbital-decay 3y ago
What's your OS? On Windows, Nebo is pretty good. Rnote is the best of FOSS, but it lacks handwriting recognition if you need it, at least for now. For hybrid workflows (tablet + keyboard) Obsidian also has something to offer, Excalidraw plugin in particular. >I'm pretty sure it was a tooling issue Depends on whether you want shape/diagram recognition or not. If the only thing you need is free-form drawing, you can use just about anything.
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  I just tried Rnote. Seems quite decent. But on MacOS, it seems to be bugged. Instead of a tiny pointer/eraser/other tool showing as the pointer, it continues to show the OS mouse pointer. I will try it on linux later. Hopefully it will work there. My initial gripe is that there are three different toolbars, all separated from each other. I want to change tools and their settings quickly, not move my hand across the entire screen. For example, select brush tool on bottom toolbar, select size on the left toolbar, then select color on the top toolbar.
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
I have the medium Wacom. I think the small size would be uncomfortable. When I was a prof, I used the Wacom on linux with OpenBoard [1] to teach online for two years of the pandemic. My work gave me a Macbooks, but OpenBoard has some weird bugs on MacOS. So I am using GoodNotes, which is very annoying, but the best of what I tried. In another life, I would dedicate a few years of my life writing a decent note taking app. [1] https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard https://github.com/OpenBoard-org/OpenBoard Edit: Besides the software, I think it takes a few weeks of writing on it daily where it becomes natural.
- quectophoton 3y ago
  > I have the medium Wacom. I think the small size would be uncomfortable. I have a Wacom Intuos S. Sample size 1, but I haven't been inconvenienced by its size, even while handwriting or drawing at Krita. On one hand, I don't think a thought like "this would be easier with a bigger tablet" has ever crossed my mind; but on the other hand, it's also true that I haven't tried anything bigger, so my only point of comparison is tablet vs mouse or tablet vs whiteboard/notebook.
  - abdullahkhalids 3y ago
    I haven't also tried the S one. But my intuition is the following. The surface of the tablet is mapped to your screen in terms of input. The Intuos M is just a bit smaller than 13 inch laptop screens. So what you see on the screen is roughly the same size as what you draw with your hand. Additionally, while writing at normal pen/paper size, my hand moves comfortably from the left of the tablet to the right as I write across the whole screen. If I had to use a Intuos S, then I imagine, I would have to write a lot smaller with my hand, but then have it appear as bigger on the screen. But my hand would not move a lot, and making tiny characters would tire my hand out faster. I think my brain would get used to it, but it will still be a jump.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      > The surface of the tablet is mapped to your screen in terms of input. Only in absolute mode though. If you switch it to relative mode though, then it's a bit more flexible.
syntheweave 3y ago
It's just a need to train hand-eye coordination. Practice blind contour[0] on the tablet for a few minutes a day for two weeks and it'll come around. Contour drawing is not taught in primary education, and it really should be: it generalizes on how you learned to write by learning some muscle memory and then playing it back to make a mark. Nobody who can write should be going around saying "I'm untalented at art, I can't even draw a straight line". [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_contour_drawing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_contour_drawing
RunSet 3y ago
https://xournalpp.github.io/ https://xournalpp.github.io/
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago
  I looked into it, and its actually quite good. I didn't like the old xournal but this one really is ++. Best thing is that they have a plugin architecture that can do some basic customization.
gnosek 3y ago
https://rnote.flxzt.net/ https://rnote.flxzt.net/ is pretty nice on Linux (for one-off drawings, not really for organizing them I think)

dataflow 3y ago

> I think every remote job that sends employees a laptop should also be sending them a wacom tablet. It's so annoying dealing with a separate tablet just for the sake of writing. Why not a tablet PC or such?

dharmab 3y ago
Wacom style devices are extremely affordable. I have a $30 drawing tablet which I use for digital art and works very well.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- callalex 3y ago
  The most expensive part of having tablet input is the real estate square footage required for a larger desk to accommodate it.
  - adrian_b 3y ago
    Which is not larger than a mouse pad. Tablets need extra space only when replacing the embedded touchpads or trackpoints of laptops. For someone who uses a desktop or who prefers mice to touchpads, a tablet does not need any extra space, it just replaces the mouse and the mouse pad with the stylus and the tablet. There are big tablets too, but for replacing a mouse and for simple drawings a small tablet like Wacom Intuos S is perfect.
  - dharmab 3y ago
    Mine is about the size if a greeting card
dvdkon 3y ago
I have one, and flipping it from "laptop mode" to "tablet mode" adds noticeable friction, especially if you have e.g. a dock connected. Then again, so does having to carry around a tablet. For an office job I'd take the external tablet, since my laptop would likely be plugged in all the time. You could also keep it permanently in tablet mode and use an external monitor, mouse, and keyboard. Just don't underestimate the mode change.

quectophoton 3y ago

People look at me like I'm crazy because I use a wacom tablet as mouse. I'm using a "cheap" one (I think it was like 80 EUR), and it's mind blowing how convenient it is despite its small size. Now trying to use a physical whiteboard for brainstorming, feels the same way as trying to use pen and paper for programming: technically doable, but I curse internally because the inconvenience. Just being able to select stuff and move it around, or undo with a quick Ctrl+Z, or rotate things, makes all the difference. Sure, I love using a paper notebook for my notes, and the feel of writing with a pencil on paper is really nice; and I would use it for drawing quick stuff if I don't have anything else at hand. But if I think I'm going to be erasing a lot, or that I will be doing the kind of stuff that is usually done with a whiteboard, a drawing tablet is (to me) a vastly superior option.

abdullahkhalids 3y ago
Yup. Writing on paper with a nice fountain pen or pencil is primal love. So satisfying. But digital tablets are so much superior for that messy kind of work, you just have to use them.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Terr_ 3y ago
Not really a solution as much as an alternative form of attack: Tools like graphviz where I can type certain limited types of diagrams into a text editor and xdot well instantly display the render. There are also some online ones, although I'm not sure how well they work in a multi-editor situation. Might not be flexible enough for a really open brainstorming, but enough for stuff like figuring out domain concepts.
- Twirrim 3y ago
  I'm the same with: PlantUML - quick and simple text representation of diagrams, really easy to iterate on and see changes reflected live. reveal.js - Quick and simple slide creation, I can reorder slides with ease, tweak wording, don't waste time faffing about with fonts, text box sizing etc. All reflected live in a browser.

c0nfused 3y ago

I have been really tempted to sit down and write a ot version of edotor.net so more than one person could edit a graph at the same time in a meeting/ discussion. We have been trialing using it to draw graphviz graphs for discussion and it has been working very well both as an in meeting tool and as a reference later on. Would be interested to go the Wacom route but my my handwriting is very bad and only getting worse

djbusby 3y ago
Draw with the pen. Then double tap in the text area and use kbd input. Works in the Google drawing thing (Drive)

dotnet00 3y ago

Agreed, I have ended up prioritizing stylus support so much that now every computing device I use supports one (although it started as a digital art thing). At my desktop I have a 22" pen display (a Huion kamvas, the wacom displays are pretty overpriced), my phone, tablet and laptop all support S pens, and I have a couple of older non-display pentabs too. The impetus was from wanting to be able to practice digital art in free time regardless of where I am, but it has ended up being extremely convenient as anything can be quickly drawn up or written, easily shared with everyone else and does is trivially retained.

JadeNB 3y ago
> At my desktop I have a 22" pen display (a Huion kamvas, the wacom displays are pretty overpriced), my phone, tablet and laptop all support S pens, and I have a couple of older non-display pentabs too. What laptop do you recommend with S Pen support?
- dotnet00 3y ago
  I'm using a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360. Personally I love it, the large screen and large touch pad makes it great for note taking and coding. Makes it as tolerable as it gets to not be at the triple monitor desktop setup at my desk (particularly when using the S8Ultra as a second screen). The battery life has also been more than sufficient for my needs (but since it's basically for web browsing, document editing, note taking, amateur level drawing and light client for SSH'd vscode, it isn't doing much). My main criticism would be it feels a bit delicate. I had also tried the regular Galaxy Book 3 360 for a day, but I felt the screen was a bit small and not as sharp as I'd like. That said, since EMR pens also work in-place of S pens, I'd guess that S pens will work on any device that supports EMR pens (minus the bluetooth air gestures, those aren't available on windows laptops). For me the value was the 'ecosystem' with my other devices which also happen to be from Samsung, including the ability to share the stylus between everything.

diffeomorphism 3y ago

Much too high learning curve for a wacom tablet. Getting used to writing "blind" while looking at a screen definitely takes time to get used to. Give them something with a screen instead (e.g. cintiq knock-offs, ipads, samsung tablet, surface) or a webcam mounted to record a whiteboard/blackboard or mounted overhead to record a sheet of paper. That might also help to get better audio at the same time. Side-note: When remote meetings became necessary in recent years, lots of software/hardware solutions were improvised, not great, but workable and with a hope that better solutions will become available later. Somehow that did not happen and people are still "scratching unintelligible diagrams/equations with their mouse" because there is no standard, widely available software and hardware that makes this easy.

1letterunixname 3y ago

Yes, exactly. And/or perhaps a Quest Pro. (I'm not kidding.) In VR, you can point, draw, and share virtual desktops. Otherwise, no one knows what the hell anyone is talking about, and perhaps get the wrong impression about one another. I strongly disagree with RTO as ass-in-seat-mentality for knowledge work jobs that don't design or manufacture physical items. I've been part of fully WFH companies since ~2000 spanning up to 8 time zones. The quality of discussions requires the ubiquity of tools for expressiveness.