Surface Pro 3 Pen Button Customization

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.

To be able to configure each button would be a very nice feature. I vote for that!

Answer 2

I absolutely agree. As 3-d animator I basically need this feature.

The whole reason I bought this device was for portable animation

Answer 3

Hello,

I purchased surface pro 3 mainly for drawing purpose. I realized that I can't config the functionalities of the pen buttons. For example, when blending colors, I need to rapidly pick up colors. I need quick access to color picker. On my desktop, I use a wacom tablet, which comes with two pen buttons too. I often config one of the buttons to be the color picker, but I can't do the same to the surface pro 3 pen buttons. This is totally a deal breaker.

in photoshop, for example, the shortcut for color picker is alt+mouse click, so all I need to do is letting one of the pen button to be the alt button. this should be an easy to implement feature. I'm surprised it is missing from surface!

Answer 4

It is probably not configurable now but possibly later.  I would say to keep voicing what option you want on them and some Microsoft people do read these threads and pass that info on.  In fact, that is how the Trackpad Setting app got created.  With that in thought, they may be able to make an app that functions like the Trackpad Settings app to configure the pen.

Answer 5

could you please point me to the trackpad settings app? I do also want to change the multitouch scrolling direction. is it on the windows app store?