News Microsoft looks to bring back the light pen

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/07/23/microsoft-light-pen/1

 

This wouldn't be a bad idea given their tablet launch plans, why not - if it was a MS device then they wouldn't just dump any driver support when Windows 9 rolled around, quite the opposite judging by all their other peripherals.

 

sounds to me like MS are almost admitting that Metro is crap with kb & mouse, which seems to be the general opinion anyway.

 

Am I the only one that though of this?

 

No sadly you weren't. I used to have a magic pencil but it stopped working after trying to sharpen it.

 

Wouldn't this be really tiring compared to kb & mouse in long sessions?

 

You know... I am using Windows 8 on my 24inch screen, and I like very much the start screen. I am starting to prefer it over the Start Menu. All you have to do, is add folders to it, and organize the layout and make groups, and you are set for a comfortable experience.

 

[OFF TOPIC]
I'd like to see a more structured way of deploying the front end to the OS - actually split out the front end from the engine room and give the users some choice, as well as eliminating this bull$s1t approach to OS's of copying the competitor, but worse, while simultaneously ignoring and thus alienating the existing user base.
[OFF TOPIC/]

I'd love to see a light pen, be great if it could capture the functionality of this too:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/346983145/Digital_handwriting_mouse_pen_handwriting_capture.html

 

Please, God, NO. Light pens were bad enough first time round. Also "positioning information encoded in the blue pixels - blue being chosen to minimise the image disruption perceived by the human eye" sounds like a recipe for maximising the image disruption for the one in ten white males who are red-green colour-blind.

 

Sounds like further efforts are underway to enable round object to fit square hole!

 

Or just don't bother and use the type-to-search that they introduced in Win7. It still works like a dream, and with the whole screen for results it's faster than ever to use in Win8

 

So, essentially, how Linux does it.

X11 (or is it Xorg now?) is the drawing system. On top of that you have your "Window manager", which actually provides the window decoration, movement, resizing and other parts.

 

This is overlooking one very major problem: my screen currently sits at arm's length from my chair - so using a light pen for any significant period of time would create all kinds of back & shoulder problems.

How difficult is it to tweak the Metro UI so it's easier to use with the mouse? Surely that's got to be better than reinventing the wheel with a horrible kludge to force people to do something which they have already decided that they're not going to like (whether or not they've actually tried the Win8 preview)?

 

Am I the only one who can see thousands of damaged TFT monitors?

 

I don't think it was designed to be long term use... this is good for small things, and I think this is the idea. Example, you want to write a math formula. Just write it in Windows Math input , and it converts it into a nice text ready to copy as text or image, and past into the software if your choice, like Word, Microsoft Mathematics, MathLab and Maple, among others. Or to draw something small.

Metro is perfectly usable with mouse and keyboard, I am using it now as we speak on my big screen. I am working on my website for my software.

If you guys want to see great Metro apps, check out:
- CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) news
- National Film Board of Canada (all content free.. and no it's not Netflix.. it's more artsy videos)
- Toms Hardware

I am really surprised to see the 2 first one mentioned, on an OS that isn't even released... let alone a governmental agency being high-tech with a very well done, and well very well optimized Metro app.

 

If you don't have a glossy screen, nor press hard with the pen, you should be good.

 

Forget light pen, bring back light gun! I wouldn't mind shooting Windows 8 all day long ;P

 

They don't work on LCD's

 

Ditto. People are too quick to dismiss...especially on Bit-Tech. I don't think I'll ever understand why so many people on a tech/pc-enthusiast forum are so resistant to change when they _should_ be the ones on the frontlines championing the latest tech.