Is there a way I can set the way questions are asked so I don't need to switch so often between bamboo and keyboard?

Typical session might be like:
Writing [bamboo]
pin yin [keyboard]
writing [bamboo]
pin yin [keyboard]
pin yin [keyboard]
writing [bamboo]
definition [keyboard]
tone [keyboard]

so more time is being spent picking up and putting down the bamboo than is my preference. Would like to bunch up say 20 keyboard and 20 bamboo during the fast practice sessions (to clear large amounts of revision) and then I don't mind the alternation when I get to new material

Maybe the different groups could include a input score, (say 0 for bamboo and 1 for keyboard) so the next random selection will also be adjusted based on the last shown question. Therefore once a bamboo question comes out the chance of the next one being a keyboard input should be <20%

smhon, here is, what I do: go practice, practice all and then click on settings in the right upper corner. Here you can select either writing, pinyin, definition and tone. So I clear all boxes except one and bring the items for review down to almost zero, then select the next one and so one. Hope that helps.

To be fair, there's no reason to switch to keyboard for tones and definitions, both are just as easily done with a tablet.

With the writing practice, you do need a keyboard, though - for this reason I've never studied writing on Skritter. Study is already grouped by type to some extent, if it's too spread out for you, I would suggest turning off writing for a session, and then swapping so that writing is the only thing being studied - it's a bit tedious, but it would save input switching time.

I engage the on-screen keyboard, which is slower than the real keyboard, but for some reason isn't as irritating as having to put down bamboo/pick up bamboo. When I'm using my tablet, though, I use the touchscreen and keyboard, and it's actually quite smooth.

I just realized that I substituted writing for reading in my above post - what I means is that for "reading" i.e. pinyin entry, you need a keyboard or, as jcdoss mentioned, an equivalent like the onscreen keyboard, so I don't do that on Skritter (I generally grade definitions and tones as forgotten or so-so if I don't recall the pinyin correctly, so it comes out in the wash).

I've written a bunch of code to try to group keyboard vs. non-keyboard prompts together, such that readings and writings don't mix, but it doesn't work very well all the time, especially below 100% readiness, or when you're adding new things. It's still on my list to improve it, but I'm not sure when I will do that. You can switch the parts you're studying to manually group then, like Rolands suggests, which is a helpful speed boost in general. But make sure not to add new words during this time, or the parts that are disabled won't be added for those words. (Not intuitive!)