How to make my HP Tilt pen on HP Spectre x360 13-ae001nl work with GIMP?

[luca1983]

How to make GIMP recognize the HP Tilt Pen on my HP Spectre x360 13-ae001nl? It merely acts as a pointer, without pressure sensitivity or the side and top buttons being mapped to the lazo or eraser. More than pressure sensitivity, I'm interested in the lazo and eraser features being associated with the side and top button of the pen.

It does not work out of the box with the current stable release GIMP 2.8.22 (released 2017-05-11). In "Edit'', "Input Devices'', "Configure Input Devices dialog'', along with the "Core Pointer'' (the only one that is listed with the HP Spectre x360 13-ae001nl) there is no such thing as an "HP Pen". Notice that an older version of GIMP worked fine with my old Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and its pen.

Notice I have HP Tilt Pen Driver VERSION: 1.0.0.5 installed. Also notice that also my old Surface Pro 4 Pen works fine on my HP Spectre x360 13-ae001nl on apps like Onenote, but not with GIMP.

Thanks

[SJ404]

Not being directly helpful to answer your question, but want to provide some background information and some things for you to try.

The reason why GIMP wouldn't recognize pen pressure is because GIMP uses older pen API called "WinTab" while HP Tilt Pen driver only support Windows Ink API based on Microsoft Pen Protocol (formerly n-trig). 

While newer modern app started supporting new API, older applications like GIMP only support WinTab API. WinTab API is Wacom's technology that been out there long time.

N-Trig (acquired by Microsoft) recognized this issue and released WinTab driver which is essentially emulating WinTab support enabling old apps like GIMP take advantage of its pen technology. Unfortunately this became somewhat obscure when Microsoft acquired N-Trig and became part of Surface device drivers while this driver was actually for any N-Trig (MPP) based tablets.

For example, see this article for Surface Pro 4 customers who wants to enable this:

https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/01/11/enabling-pressure-sensitivity-on-the-surface-pro-4-in-pho...

NOTE: Pause/Disable AdBlock before visiting the site above. The site otherwise would show very dim page that is hard to read.

b.t.w. This WinTab driver used work on any tablet that supports N-Trig pen tech (MPP). But it at some point newer version of this WinTab driver started not working properly for non-Surface book owners I hear. And I am not sure of current status.

Now if you're adventurous, you can try this driver from here to find current status. Click Download and find WinTab x64 driver from the list.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49498

I assume worst it could happen to you is that the driver might not do what you want, but who knows something worse can happen so I want to mention that I am not responsible for any issues when you try the driver. Do it on your own risk.

[luca1983]

Thanks for your information. It's helpful indeed as it gives me new keywords to google like "Microsoft Pen Protocol GIMP" or "Windows Ink API GIMP". Maybe it will be supported soon (hoping there are no legal problems). I'll try to investigate a little more in the next days.

I tried to install the WinTab drivers from the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 driver's page, but it does not work. GIMP keeps refusing to see the pen as an "Input Device" and the pen acts as a mere pointer. I remember installing WinTab on my old Surface Pro 3 and, in fact, it worked at the time.