macOS: touch input fails to work on a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet #86223

New Issue

Corbin Dunn · 2021-03-03T03:55:42+01:00

Corbin Dunn commented

2021-03-03 03:55:42 +01:00

System Information
Operating system: macOS 11.1 Big Sur build 20C69
Graphics card: n/a

Blender Version
Broken: Top of tree git pull from today
Worked: probably never since 2.8

Short description of error
Wacom Intuos Pro tablets support touch in addition to pen entry. When using touch, two fingers will scroll up and down. In Blender, two finger touch should work like an Apple touch pad or Apple magic mouse: two finger movement will orbit the view; holding down command zooms, holding down shift pans. Instead, it simply does nothing.

Exact steps for others to reproduce the error
Blender.app, default cube. Place two fingers down on a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet and move them around; it should orbit, but nothing happens. Well, the bottom status bar flickers back and forth as though command/shift or alt is pressed.

There are two reasons why this happens.

Blender has incorrect Cocoa/AppKit code. I worked on AppKit for ~13 years at Apple. Below is a diff that addresses some of the issues. The code attempts to keep track of m_multiTouchScroll, but this isn't needed. It should key off of hasPreciseScrollingDeltas instead. I tested this diff with: Apple Magic Mouse, old school Apple scroll wheel mouse, Wacom tablet; all things work the same (except Wacom, which has the bug I'm reporting fixed). There is also a comment about intuos5, but that seems to be incorrect and outdated, but I don't have an Intuos 5 to test with.

0001-Fix-scrolling-with-wacom-tablets-using-them-as-a-tou.patch

Wacom's tablet touch drivers do link-checked behavior based on the bundle identifier "org.blenderfoundation.blender". In other words: they change the touch behavior when they see the target application is Blender. Wacom needs to fix this, but I'm not sure how to log a bug report for them.

To prove this, I created the sample application:

TabletTest.zip

The sample application has the blender bundle identifier set, as seen in this screen shot:

In ViewTest.m I log the flagsChanged:

{
NSLog(@"%@", event);
}

If you run the app and do a two finger scroll in the window you will see some flagsChanged logged, which is very strange because Shift/Alt/Cmd have not been pressed! Wacom is faking them for some reason, and changing the scrolling data, which messes up Blender.

Change the applications's bundle identifier to "org.blenderfoundationXX.blender" (you can simply edit the info.plist) and run it again; it will then behave correctly.

I don't know how to fix item 2 for Blender; I'm fixing it in my own build of Blender by changing the bundle identifier to org.blenderfoundation.bl3nder after it is built. I looked into identifying the events, and I can could identify the source as coming from the wacom driver but I can't fix them.

I'm trying to find a contact at Wacom to have them fix this, but once it is fixed we still need item 1 fixed.

**System Information** Operating system: macOS 11.1 Big Sur build 20C69 Graphics card: n/a **Blender Version** Broken: Top of tree git pull from today Worked: probably never since 2.8 **Short description of error** Wacom Intuos Pro tablets support touch in addition to pen entry. When using touch, two fingers will scroll up and down. In Blender, two finger touch should work like an Apple touch pad or Apple magic mouse: two finger movement will orbit the view; holding down command zooms, holding down shift pans. Instead, it simply does nothing. **Exact steps for others to reproduce the error** Blender.app, default cube. Place two fingers down on a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet and move them around; it should orbit, but nothing happens. Well, the bottom status bar flickers back and forth as though command/shift or alt is pressed. There are two reasons why this happens. 1. Blender has incorrect Cocoa/AppKit code. I worked on AppKit for ~13 years at Apple. Below is a diff that addresses some of the issues. The code attempts to keep track of m_multiTouchScroll, but this isn't needed. It should key off of hasPreciseScrollingDeltas instead. I tested this diff with: Apple Magic Mouse, old school Apple scroll wheel mouse, Wacom tablet; all things work the same (except Wacom, which has the bug I'm reporting fixed). There is also a comment about intuos5, but that seems to be incorrect and outdated, but I don't have an Intuos 5 to test with. [0001-Fix-scrolling-with-wacom-tablets-using-them-as-a-tou.patch](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F9861683/0001-Fix-scrolling-with-wacom-tablets-using-them-as-a-tou.patch) 2. Wacom's tablet touch drivers do link-checked behavior based on the bundle identifier "org.blenderfoundation.blender". In other words: they change the touch behavior when they see the target application is Blender. Wacom needs to fix this, but I'm not sure how to log a bug report for them. To prove this, I created the sample application: [TabletTest.zip](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F9861693/TabletTest.zip) The sample application has the blender bundle identifier set, as seen in this screen shot: ![Screen Shot 2021-03-02 at 6.48.31 PM.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F9861701/Screen_Shot_2021-03-02_at_6.48.31_PM.png) In ViewTest.m I log the flagsChanged: ``` - (void)flagsChanged:(NSEvent *)event ``` { NSLog(@"%@", event); } ``` ``` If you run the app and do a two finger scroll in the window you will see some flagsChanged logged, which is very strange because Shift/Alt/Cmd have not been pressed! Wacom is faking them for some reason, and changing the scrolling data, which messes up Blender. Change the applications's bundle identifier to "org.blenderfoundationXX.blender" (you can simply edit the info.plist) and run it again; it will then behave correctly. I don't know how to fix item 2 for Blender; I'm fixing it in my own build of Blender by changing the bundle identifier to org.blenderfoundation.bl3nder after it is built. I looked into identifying the events, and I can could identify the source as coming from the wacom driver but I can't fix them. I'm trying to find a contact at Wacom to have them fix this, but once it is fixed we still need item 1 fixed.

Corbin Dunn commented

2021-03-03 03:55:42 +01:00

Added subscriber: @corbindunn

Corbin Dunn commented

2021-03-03 03:59:06 +01:00

Sorry...learning how to format stuff.

Yevgeny Makarov commented

2021-03-03 10:28:55 +01:00

@corbindunn - One note, some of the regular computer mice have hasPreciseScrollingDeltas see D8797 for details.

@corbindunn - One note, some of the regular computer mice have `hasPreciseScrollingDeltas` see [D8797](https://archive.blender.org/developer/D8797) for details.

Corbin Dunn commented

2021-03-03 14:41:42 +01:00

In #86223#1123198, @jenkm wrote:
@corbindunn - One note, some of the regular computer mice have hasPreciseScrollingDeltas see D8797 for details.

Interesting! Is that really an issue? It seems strange to treat them differently, right? It looks like D8797 is very similar to what I was fixing.

Apple's intention with hasPreciseScrollingDeltas was for people to scrollDeltaX/Y, but multiply it by the line height or row height (ie: it was more discrete and not pixel based). I helped review this API back when it was introduced back in macOS 10.7.

> In #86223#1123198, @jenkm wrote: > @corbindunn - One note, some of the regular computer mice have `hasPreciseScrollingDeltas` see [D8797](https://archive.blender.org/developer/D8797) for details. Interesting! Is that really an issue? It seems strange to treat them differently, right? It looks like [D8797](https://archive.blender.org/developer/D8797) is very similar to what I was fixing. Apple's intention with hasPreciseScrollingDeltas was for people to scrollDeltaX/Y, but multiply it by the line height or row height (ie: it was more discrete and not pixel based). I helped review this API back when it was introduced back in macOS 10.7.

Yevgeny Makarov commented

2021-03-03 15:21:42 +01:00

The hasPreciseScrollingDeltas has been used earlier and there was a issue that mouse scrolling is recognized as a touch event 6451c072ce.
There is a whole "History" of related changes in my D8797.

The `hasPreciseScrollingDeltas` has been used earlier and there was a issue that mouse scrolling is recognized as a touch event 6451c072ce. There is a whole "History" of related changes in my [D8797](https://archive.blender.org/developer/D8797).

Corbin Dunn commented

2021-03-03 16:13:05 +01:00

Thanks; I read the report and history. It looks like "Logitech Performance MX mouse" is sending hasPreciseScrollingDeltas too. There is no way to differentiate them and the touch input on a Wacom tablet as not enough information is packed into NSEvent or the underlying CGEvent. We could get the source process that generated the event via CGEventRef/kCGEventSourceUnixProcessID; and then identify the process by string...but this would likely be too slow to do on each mouse event.

Exposing a new UI flag for this doesn't seem ideal, as not many people would be affected. We could do a private user default for people who run into this issue (like me). Something like this:

    BOOL treatMouseInputAsTouchDevices = [NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults boolForKey:@"TreatMouseInputAsTouchDevices"];
      
    if (!event.hasPreciseScrollingDeltas && !treatMouseInputAsTouchDevices) {

I'd probably cache the result in a static. I could then set the default using 'defaults' on the command line.

Thanks; I read the report and history. It looks like "Logitech Performance MX mouse" is sending hasPreciseScrollingDeltas too. There is no way to differentiate them and the touch input on a Wacom tablet as not enough information is packed into NSEvent or the underlying CGEvent. We *could* get the source process that generated the event via CGEventRef/kCGEventSourceUnixProcessID; and then identify the process by string...but this would likely be too slow to do on each mouse event. Exposing a new UI flag for this doesn't seem ideal, as not many people would be affected. We could do a private user default for people who run into this issue (like me). Something like this: ``` BOOL treatMouseInputAsTouchDevices = [NSUserDefaults.standardUserDefaults boolForKey:@"TreatMouseInputAsTouchDevices"]; if (!event.hasPreciseScrollingDeltas && !treatMouseInputAsTouchDevices) { ``` I'd probably cache the result in a static. I could then set the default using 'defaults' on the command line.

Corbin Dunn commented

2021-03-03 16:13:58 +01:00

I quickly typed that code...it would have to be reworked to re-enable the old code as it was. I can easily do this change if people like it.

Julián Lema commented

2022-08-07 00:03:29 +02:00

Added subscriber: @julianlema

Julián Lema commented

2022-08-07 00:05:12 +02:00

Hi Corbin, did you find a solution? Im facing the same problem with my Wacom in Windows Blender.

Philipp Oeser removed the

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macOS: touch input fails to work on a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet #86223