Problem with pen on CF-18

Hello, sorry to be the stereotypical 'help me on my first post' type of member!

I recently bought a CF-18 from Ebay, and speaking as a generally quite knowledgeable computing man I can say the laptop itself is in great condition. I easily got a dual boot of XP Tablet and Linux Mint up & running, and had no problem getting all the hardware and touchscreen sorted.

Right, the problem. The pen that I have fits snugly into the holder near the screen, and physically it seems naturally made for the hole. In other words, I would never have doubted it was not the original pen. However, the one problem I was having with the touchscreen was that the right click function wouldn't perform. I can use it by tapping the L/R icon in the system tray of course, but that is tedious and I want to use the pen as it was intended.

I checked the manual, and it refers to a "pen button". My pen definitely does not have a button!

I am at a loss. I just checked for replacement pens, and found a picture of one selling at a steep $27 that is the exactly the same as mine in appearance, with no sign of a button.

Does anybody know what the deal is with this pen button please?

 

Hello and welcome!

I'm slightly confused - do you have a CF-18 with touchscreen or one with a digitizer? You speak of a touchscreen, does your screen work by poking it with your fingernails as well? If so, then it is indeed a touchscreen, and this means right-click with a pen button won't work. In fact, touchscreen models usually come with button-less pens like yours, but they have the normal XP Pro installed. The use of XP Tablet on the other hand points to a digitizer model, not a touchscreen - digitizers use XP Tablet and they have pens with buttons.

To me it seems most likely you have a touchscreen version, but with XP Tablet installed, which is non-standard for that model, and with the manual for the digitizer. I'm not sure how well this works out in general, but you will definitely not get a right-click by a pen button that way, even if you acquire a pen with a button, as a touchscreen cannot register the button function.

Björn

 

It almost sounds like you have a digitizer model with a standard stylus. If you have a digitizer... Then $27 is CHEAP for that stylus as it should be over $50 easy!

If you have a touchscreen... You can use a 2X4 as a stylus if you want... Just sharpen it to a point first. You may need to install/reinstall the touchscreen driver.

 

Hi, it came with a blank HDD; I put XP Tablet on myself. (The laptop's COA is for normal XP Pro.)

It was sold as digitizer, but other objects (such as fingers) can control the cursor...does that means it is a touchscreen that was incorrectly described?

 

You have a touchscreen model, the digitizer model has tablet o/s coa on the bottom touchscreen have xp pro
And you will also have a 9pin serial port on the back as it was not available on digitizer models


Alex

 

Jibby -

Since you have Tablet PC installed on your laptop, you MAY be able to enable pause/right click mode; it works by placing the tip of your pen on your objective & holding it still for a second. This can act as right click, or it can enable drag/drop depending on how you configure the mouse/pointer properties.

mnem
Click it or stick it!

 

Thanks for your help gentlemen.

mnementh, as I was setting up the options yesterday I saw reference to holding it still acting as right-click but I couldn't get it to work, which is why I checked the manual and found out about the different pen. (Although I now realise the manual I found wasn't exactly the right one for my model no. CF-18DHB29KE.)

If you could offer any advice on getting it to work (I understand it might not be possible) then I would be grateful.

Cheers

 

If you search around here for the CF-18 info you will find VERY detailed posts as to what you need to do and in what order. You MUST have the correct drivers from Panasonic and they must be installed correctly. As a matter of fact I think there are a couple of threads on the subject.

 

Jibby -

I was suggesting that as a POSSIBILITY; I've never actually tried to run TABLET PC OS on a laptop without a digitizer; it's kindof contrary to the whole intent of the OS, and TABLET is twice as much hassle to install.

If your touchscreen works and you still can't get the pause/right click function to work from the config dialog in Control Panel, I don't know if you'll be able to make it work at all.

Try reinstalling the Touchscreen drivers as Toughbook said; otherwise, you may need to look into restore disks.

Good luck,

mnem
That's your laptop's way of saying "Don't touch me there!"