A lot of things are going on right now in the Tagtool universe. Check out our official Facebook group to see what the worldwide Tagtool community is up to. Join the conversation!

There’s a new Nodekit version available (0.7.6.2). This release is mainly about supporting the Arduino Uno.

Features added:

* Created a Tagtool FTDI patch for Arduinos with the FTDI chip – you can find it in the “patches” directory of the Nodekit user documents. How to install your FTDI drivers can be found here on the Arduino site.

Changes and bug fixes:

* Nodekit´s “Open” function now redirects directly to the patches directory. Here you can find the Serial, MIDI and FTDI patch, depending which driver you are using.

* Arduino – We did some connection tests with all Arduino boards we have including NG, Diecimila, Duemilanove and Uno. Older boards (NG, Diecimila, Duemilanove) showed usual system handshake troubles – using both FTDI or serial driver. If the nodekit doesn´t recognize your Arduino, just re-upload your .pde patch.
We didn´t experience these issues using the latest Arduino Uno board. We can definitely recommend this board.

Tagtool patch changes:

* Rearranged all nodes of the nodekit – all important nodes and comments are now placed on the left side of the patch to give a better overview.

Release notes

Version 0.7.6.1

Features added:

• Space bar scrolling: While pressing the space bar, click and hold
  the left mouse button in an empty area in the patch. You can now move
  the mouse and scroll your way through the patch. Works like the “hand
  tool” in various graphics applications.
• Automatic tablet mapping: The display is automatically fitted to the
  current tablet and screen resolutions, so that you can always draw on
  the entire screen.
• New screenshot mechanism: Screenshots are now always the size of the
  display screen. The currently drawn shape (which hasn’t been released
  yet) is also included in the screenshot. The star-shaped drawing
  cursor can be included if you wish. The screenshots are also already
  anti-aliased.
• Image loading: Press left + 1, 2, 3 or 4 on the gamepad to load an
  image into the scene. The default directory they are loaded from is
  called “Images” and is located in your Nodekit installation directory. You need to enable Image loading with a drop-down menu in the Tagtool patch (look for the comment box).
• Added Tagtool MIDI patch – you can find it in the “save” directory of the Nodekit installation.
• The antialiasing level can now be configured with the following command line option:
  -antialiasing:LEVEL

Changes and bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug that moved nodes 20 pixels to the bottom-right every
  time a patch was saved
• Changed the Arduino drivers (now using the D2XX drivers). This fixes
  communication problems which happened occasionally. The Arduino node
  button state now is true when you press the release button, and false
  otherwise.
• Changed the amount of configurable MIDI devices
• Comparator node now outputs boolean values
• Arduino node has been renamed “TagtoolController” and has drop-down
  menu for switching between 5-slider and 6-slider Tagtools
• Using a new installer and changed the install location of the patch files. They are now found in MyDocuments\Nodekit\patches. This should fix install issues on Windows Vista and Windows 7 that prevented Nodekit from starting properly.

Tagtool patch changes:

• Replaced the old camera node set-up with the new TagtoolCamera node
• Replaced the old screenshot node set-up with the new Screenshot node
• Added the image loading node set-up
• Removed the negation of the arduino button state
• Corrected a comment in the MIDI patch

To have a look at the stunning artworks, and for contact & price information, go to his webpage and have a look in the “bundles” section.

Thanks go out to Gernot Greindl for the good work.

Release Notes Version 0.7.5

Features added:

• Patch comments: Right click on an empty space in the patch area and select “Create Comment…” in order to add a comment box to the patch
• Logfile output: You can redirect the console messages to a logfile by adding the commandline option -logfile:filename (when omitting the filename, the log will be called “logfile.txt”)

Changes and bug fixes:

• SmoothMotion acceleration value now ranges from 0 to 1
• Color picker now works and has OK/Cancel buttons
• Fixed a color conversion bug in the color picker
• Fixed tablet output recording and movement of tags after loading a session
• Fixed a bug that caused strange deformations of tags when using the latest Wacom driver in Windows 7
• Added drop-down menu to the “Pen Select” and “Screenshot 2″ node

Tagtool patch changes:

• Added comments and reordered the nodes so the ones that are most likely to be edited are in the top left

Of course, the options on there are not comprehensive. If you have suggestions, ideas or comments – feel free to edit the Wiki page or let us know in the comments on this post.

While we’re still going through the tons of material & ideas that have come up during the Tagtool Chink Chank, here’s some coverage of the event on the blogs of people who have been there.

Frances Sander on Drawinglive News:

The Chink Chank – Day 1
The Chink Chank – Day 2
The Chink Chank – Day 3
The Chink Chank – Day 4

Ange Taggert on her Nine Trades of Dundee artist blog:

From Library worker to VJ in 72 hours

With the Twitter account you can expect us posting more or less regular informal project updates and links to Tagtool-related things we found on the web.

The Facebook group is a good place just shout out to other Tagtoolers, or to post pictures and videos of your Tagtool sessions or DIY Tagtools.

It’s meant to be for tips and tricks for all things to do with Tagtool. Kind of like a collection of recipes.

The three main categories are:

“Tagtool use” – this is for practical tips from a user’s perspective (who already has a working Tagtool setup)

“DIY Tagtool” – everything that has to do with building the Tagtool hardware

“Nodekit” – everything that has to do with tweaking things in the Nodekit.

Feel free to change/add things! Right now we have an English and Bulgarian version, also we have installed Spanish, Portuguese and German, so if anyone is up for translating something, that’d be much appreciated.

Have a look, hopefully it’ll turn out to be a useful resource!