Thoughts on WinTab vs WM_POINTER

For developers

Wacom published a page with frequently asked questions about WinTab:

https://developer-support.wacom.com/hc/en-us/articles/12844524637975-Wintab (archive)

Here is a small snippet from the relevant section.

Please read the document for the full details.

My developer perspective

But here are a few things that stand out to me:

• It is a well-understood and stable API.

• There are wrappers for many languages, including C#, Rust, and Python, that let you work with the API.

  • I had a relatively simple time incorporating it into my test drawing app called WinTabPainter.

• You can find many projects that use WinTab.

• It has been difficult for me to find clear examples of how to use the Windows Ink API. Most code focuses on inking features, which is great, but not on what I need: a way to get pen position, pressure, tilt data, and more.

So, at the moment, I intend to continue using WinTab until I find an easy way to consume the Windows Ink APIs.