I've been starting to notice a really annoying bug lately.

If I switch to a different tab or window mid-skrittering, the strokes become really stiff and awkward, pretty much unsable.
Reloading the tab solves the problem, but gets annoying.

I found this problem in Firefox (4, not sure if that makes a difference), not in Chrome, the other browser I use (btw, did you fix the lag in Chrome between items? it seemed faster now when I checked if the bug showed up there.)

Sounds like Firefox is doing something to throttle the CPU usage after you defocus the tab without properly unthrottling it when you switch back. Can you note the exact Firefox version, in case it's just localized to a recent change that Mozilla made? And is anyone else seeing this kind of behavior in Firefox? (I'm not.)

I haven't yet gotten around to debugging the Chrome issue, no.

I'm using Firefox 4.0.1. Oh, and btw I when I tried to recreate it just now the bug didn't show up when switched tabs (but I'm pretty sure it does sometimes) but immidiately when I switched to Word.

Something I forgot to mention, the bug seems to exclusively affect using my graphic tablet, I can still use my mouse normally.

Your explanation sounds a lot more plausible, but I had been wondering if it could be connected to the wacom plugin and the fact that I'm not sure if it is installed or not.
After I updated to FF4 and had some problems I wanted to try install it, but clicking on the link just takes me to some random place on the wacom website.

But I guess it can't really be the plugin otherwise it wouldn't worke properly in the first place.

I noticed that each time I start using skritter I have to open my bamboo preferences, change the stroke stiffness and put it back to where i had it. If I don't do that, the strokes are huge and awkward.

I have also noted the weird bug when switching from a tab to another, but it hasn't happened to me in a few days.

Firefox 4.0.1

Okay, I guess I'm not sure what "stiff and awkward" strokes means, but it could be a Wacom thing. Can you try unchecking "Use Wacom plugin" in your study settings?

I see that the Wacom plugin link we have there has moved; I'll email them and get the new link.

I've been having pretty much the same problem since upgrading to firefox 9.20.0.0.

Whenever I switch from using skritter to anything outside of firefox, writing with my wacom upon returning to skritter becomes almost impossible - it behaves the same as with the wacom plugin unchecked (e.g. jerky, jagged strokes, sometimes doesn't seem to register pen stroke).

Any ideas how to sort this?

Forgot to add - reloading the tab returns it to normal.

bart, can you check if your Wacom tablet settings are getting changed somehow when you do this task switching? And can you also tell me whether it's just writing input which gets whack, or whether the rest of Skritter's Flash animations (like stroke snapping) are slow and jerky, too?

Nick, as far as I can make out nothing is getting changed in my wacom settings.

It seems to just be writing input that screws up - I normally write raw squigs, but when I unchecked this the pop up strokes showed up normally.
I'm not sure what you mean by "stroke snapping"...

I tried using just the mouse (with wacom plugin unchecked) to write raw squigs - task switching had no noticeable affect on performance.

I have the same problem and also use Firefox.

To solve it I used to open the Wacom settings and move the bars around and then it was ok, but then i found that I only have to actually open the control panel (not even the Wacom settings) and then it's fine...weird huh.

Weird one. Bart, does Antimacassar's hackaround work for you, too?

I'm back again after a few days without internet...

I tried: 1. opening control panel 2. opening tablet properties. 3. opening pen and input devices. 4. altering settings in pen and input devices.

None of the above made any difference. Perhaps I should consider changing browser.

Just got the latest firefox update and now switching tabs within firefox does not cause this problem. However, switching to anything else still does.