what do i need for maya?

[Anim8or]

Ive seen the fingerworks devices mentioned on cgtalk and now that I see some 3d people here and a mention of tendonitis/other repetitive stress injuries and fingerworks products as a solution, I was wondering if any of them would be right for me. Im a maya user with tendonitis in my index and middle fingers on my right hand from too much of holding down the mouse buttons and dragging. As all maya users know you need 3 buttons on the mouse plus access to the keyboard with your left hand for modifier keys such as ctrl, alt, shift, also qwerty,f, x,c,v,1,2,3 etc. So basically on my right hand i would need a touch only device with no buttons (either that or just moving the mouse) and on my left i can do anything except precise mouse movements which i need to do with my right hand. My problem is figuring out how to hold down one of 3 mouse buttons while dragging the mouse and applying modifier keys at the same time. Would any of the fingerworks products/a combination of them be right for me? Has anyone found a solution to a similar problem with these products?
Thanks in advance
J

[The00Dustin]

I would recammend the TouchStream LP keyboard. However, you can't disable surface keys on onehalf, it's all or none (I believe tho you can in game mode, but I also believe that you only have a two button mouse in game mode, hopefully someone will correct me if I am wrong on either of those issues).
Anyway, the mouse works on top of the keys on the right side, and you should rarely accidentally hit a key while mousing. I would recmmend enabling the Thumb+Index+Pinky mousing option outside of game mode, then you can us your middle and ring fingers as the mouse and drop each of the other three (thumb and two fingers) for their respective button as needed (each of them can be configured as the mouse button of your choosing).
You can use gestures or the keys for CTRL, ALT, Shift, whatever else on the left side of the keyboard in combination with the mouse. You may have to configure the gestures to work without a separate key being pressed, but don't be scared, all of these changes are fairly straightforward and easy to make (the keyboard is quite customizable).
Lastly, there are four hidden keys on the left side that could be configured as CTRL+ALT, Shift+CTRL+ALT, etc. Then you would only have to hold said button down for those gestures (you might have to turn off internal repeat rates for that to work, I don't know, but when you turn them off, Windows repeat rates work like narmal anyway). There is much more that can be done and I wish you the best of luck.
Edit: Note from many other posts throughout this forum that changing to said device is a major change and your typing rate will drop drastically while you learn to use it.

[Anim8or]

So using the right hand on top of the keyboard on the right side is the same as using the i-gesture pad next to a regular keyboard? (with the exception that with the i-pad you wont activate any keys by mistake?) What about using just the pad on one hand? or the numpad? Does anyone use that with maya? I still cant picture how using the same fingers for clicking and movement works especially in input intensive programs like maya and with combinations of fingers that need to be held down. And those combinations are all editable to your liking with the editor?
I guess theres no way the device could distinguish between presses and drags of single fingers such as index, ring etc?
Is it also possible to assign specific areas that when pressed on would activate left/middle/right mouse buttons on either the pad or keyboard device? Although im not sure what that would do to cursor placement.
I guess its also different when you just need to do the equivalent of clicking a mouse button and selecting something from a menu and clicking and holding down a mouse button while moving the mouse around....like I said Im a novice to the whole concept of touch sensing so I'll wait for the experts' opinions to my initial post...

[The00Dustin]

Originally posted by Anim8or
So using the right hand on top of the keyboard on the right side is the same as using the i-gesture pad next to a regular keyboard? (with the exception that with the i-pad you wont activate any keys by mistake?) What about using just the pad on one hand? or the numpad? Does anyone use that with maya? I still cant picture how using the same fingers for clicking and movement works especially in input intensive programs like maya and with combinations of fingers that need to be held down. And those combinations are all editable to your liking with the editor?
I guess theres no way the device could distinguish between presses and drags of single fingers such as index, ring etc?
I hope you don't mind my bombarding your thrad with these answers, but I want t try to clear up my answers too, so here goes.
Yes, using the right side of the keyboard is just like using an iGesture pad only you could accidentally hit keys. That is also true of an iGesture numpad or mini-keyboard though. The keyboard detects the difference in typing and mousing/gesturing by needing at least two fingers to mouse and gesture. However, in my experience, when accidentally dragging one finger across the board, nothing happens as long as the finger touches at least two "keys" in the drag.
As far as I know, the pad and keyboard use the same finger combinations, so using the pad or the keyboard would require the same hand actions.
I don't use Maya, but the computer just sees standard mouse input when you are mousing. So I certainly think a pad combined with a standard keyboard would work, and many people find that to be a good way to transition to the keyboard and/or a good alternative to the keyboard.

[The00Dustin]

Originally posted by Anim8or
I guess theres no way the device could distinguish between presses and drags of single fingers such as index, ring etc?
Is it also possible to assign specific areas that when pressed on would activate left/middle/right mouse buttons on either the pad or keyboard device? Although im not sure what that would do to cursor placement.
I guess its also different when you just need to do the equivalent of clicking a mouse button and selecting something from a menu and clicking and holding down a mouse button while moving the mouse around....like I said Im a novice to the whole concept of touch sensing so I'll wait for the experts' opinions to my initial post...
Each key on the keyboard/numpad is a "macro" of sorts, by default, one letter / function is assigned to each one. You can assign letter / function to any key, including some hidden ones (keys that aren't apparent on the surface of the pad).
As far as the different combinations and the mouse, if you look at some of the how to stuff on the web page, it shows how two fingers mouse and tapping those same two fingers clicks, whereas three fingers clicks and holds for dragging, and other strange combinations of fingers do other mouse functions. You obviously would not find that particularly useful or convenient in Maya, but there is another mouse function that can be enabled which I was recommending in my first post. That function allows you to drop and lift fingers as you mouse, so it is just like clicking and releasing a mouse button, plus you have three fingers that are free, each of which can function s a mouse button (you choose which finger is which button).
I don't know what you would do with the keyboard if you needed to hold a key down on the right side and also mouse, though, so you might be better off with a pad if that would happen much.
I don't know of any options for making parts of the pad into mouse button hotspots. The pad determines which finger you are clicking with in the mouse mode I described above by noticing which side of the mousing fingers it is on and how far it is from those fingers. Hand size is adjustable if this doesn't work well with your hand at the default hand size.
I hope that clears it up a little, but, experts, fire away.

[JerryKnight]

While a bit wordy, most of your answers are accurate. It can be put much more concisely though:

If you touch the surface with one finger, the key closest to where you tapped is activated.

If you touch with more than one finger at a time, the corresponding gesture is activated. Two adjacent fingers (by default) act as the mouse cursor control. Tapping two fingers left-clicks. There are many gestures using different finger combinations in different directions.

The configuration of keys and gestures allows pretty much any combination of keys or mouse buttons to be activated by any key or gesture. You could create a highly customized configuration that does exactly what you want. Or list the exact things you need, and I'm sure some kind soul would configure it for you and send you the config file.

This, however, is completely wrong:

"However, you can't disable surface keys on onehalf, it's all or none..."

A set of internal functions called Left/Right Layout On/Off do exactly that: turn on and off the layout (keys) on either pad. But you shouldn't need this, since the gestures and keys were made to coexist. I don't think anyone has made a way to use one finger to point, etc. It wouldn't do much good, though, since it's easier to control the mouse cursor with more fingers down, since it uses the average motion of the fingers. (Ie. 5 fingers down, only move one, the mouse moves 1/5th the normal amount.)

[The00Dustin]

Sorry about the misinformation on hurning one side on and off independently of the other. I thought the option existed, but couldn't find it, so I assumed I was wrong. Anyway, I figured it might interest you to know that there is an option for using your left thumb and three or four fingertips. The option is called Maya animation tools: Orbit/Pan/Zoom. I can't tell you more than that about it, but it seems relevnt to your original post, and I thought you might like to know about it. I also figure that, now that it has been mentioned, maybe someone else can describe it in detail and explain what it does / how it works for you.