Disclaimer: App was provided for review purposes

Back in 2016, I reviewed the Tablet Pro and Artist Pad apps that could add softkeys on Windows tablets so that you can could use shortcuts more easily.

Fast forward 7 years and those apps have evolved into something called Tablet Pro STUDIO, developed by Marius Sucan and Justice Frangipane.

The app is available via these price plans:

• US $4.99 per month
• $29.99 per year
• $99.99 lifetime (launch promo code STUDIOlaunch gives you $60 off)

Since it doesn't make much sense to buy the subscription plans, the price of the app is $39.99 during the launch period.

What does the app do?

By the way, the app I've tested is v 5.0.0.

This app lets you create softkeys by the side which will launch automatically depending on the active drawing app. For example, when you launch Photoshop, all your custom shortcuts for Photoshop will be by the side.

This app makes it easier to use drawing apps on Windows tablets without relying on a keyboard or diving into menus.

Additionally, there's also a radial menu that can be set to appear under your pen tip. The 12 softkeys on the radial menu are also customisable.

UI

This is the main user interface panel that provides softkey customisation. Click the image above for a larger view.

On the left is a list of drawing and graphic design apps with pre-programmed softkeys.

To create your keyboard shortcuts and customisation, you first have to click EDIT PANEL.

Click Pick Button and all the softkeys will light up in red. Next you select softkey you want to customise and create a keyboard shortcut for it.

What I've explained is the gist of softkey customisation. There is definitely a learning curve involved because this app has so many features.

Softkey customisation can be tedious if you have many softkeys to customise. You must also name the softkeys or search for some representative icon to differentiate the softkeys. And once you're done, you can save the preference file to the cloud for backup. This is very important as softkey customisation is quite repetitive.

Shown above are the four sizes of softkey panels: Slim, Small, Medium and Large. Medium is my favourite because it has many softkeys. Large is good if you want slider controls.

Glitch alert: Ideally, the softkey panel will launch automatically with the active drawing app. But occasionally that does not happen so you'll have to enable the softkey panel manually.

On the right side you can customise radial menu and its 12 softkeys, and the side buttons of the pen.

At the time of this review, the pens supported are the Microsoft Surface Pen, Microsoft Slim Pen 2, Renaisser Raphael and one Wacom Bambook pen I cannot identify.

The Huion pen from the Huion Kamvas Studio 16 is not compatible with the app. However, it is possible to set the 2nd button of the Huion pen to the shortcut "Winkey + Shift + R" which can also call up the radial menu.

I have also tested with the ASUS Pen 2 on a Windows convertible laptop and the radial menu works fine.

I have not explored much on customising the radial menu. From what I can see, it seems possible to create stacked buttons, e.g. softkeys that open up to more softkeys.

Conclusion

Tablet Pro STUDIO is a utility app and it is quite useful.

The ability to create softkey for your most commonly used keyboard shortcuts, tools or commands can save a lot of time.

As someone who uses lots of keyboard shortcuts, I still prefer to use my keyboard if I have access to that. The app comes in handy when I don't have access to my keyboard, such as when I'm using the Windows tablet outdoors or on a couch.