Mouse Gestures

[jgpaiva]

This app was being mentioned in the irc channel, and i thought i should divulge it.
Check StrokeIt, a program for creating mouse gestures for every app you have
Check FileForum for ratings and reviews.
I just love this program, and so do other forum users, as they have it mentioned in the "what app do you keep running all day?" thread!

[Armando]

I've downloaded this application a while ago, but postponed the moment of installation... now that I've installed it I can only say one thing: it's amazing in its effectiveness and simplicity! Thanks jgpaiva!

Not only does it work really really well, but it eats up a very little resources (500 kB on my system, and 0% CPU) and is really easy to configure. Exactly what we all like: small, effective, fast, simple... perfect. The beauty of this little software is that it's possible to use the same mouse gestures for all applications. Copy the gestures you configured for Opera or Maxthon, and paste them into another application's configuration.

Also : Exclude applications, include others, create global gestures, copy gestures, paste gestures, create new ones, create new commands...

I often found myself doing gestures in Explorer, word, and other applications... without any success... but now, with StrokeIt... 

Highly recommended, IMO especially for those with laptops and touch pads...

[J-Mac]

I used Stroke It for several months and it does seem to be very good - and IIRC, it's free.  I removed it last year, and I don't remember all the specifics involved but I was having interface issues and a lot of difficulties with my PC display in general and was trying to diagnose several issues.  And besides Stroke It I had a number of other programs, like many of the Stardock applications, installed and it was near impossible to determine what was going wrong, so I had to uninstall all and start over again.

In the end it turned out to be a WindowBlinds beta version that was the culprit - it's drivers were driving just about everything else on my machine crazy.  And I just never got around to installing Stroke It again.  I'll have to download it and give it another try.

(BTW, Another program that DID cause me some problems was one that offers to autofill text systemwide - can't remember the name offhand but it was recommended highly by Gizmo - on his list of apps.  One unannounced "feature" was that it overwrote a number of Windows hotkeys, including Windows+S.  That's the screen-clipping hotkey for OneNote.  This program made it activate the "suspend" or "sleep" feature.  Every time I tried to clip a piece of the screen with Windows+S I instead blacked out my monitors and my PC went to sleep!!  Arrgghhh!)

Jim

PS:  The program that changes some Windows Hotkeys was PhaseExpress - finally remembered!

[TucknDar]

Thanks for reminding me. I loved StrokeIT, but the middle button on my previous mouse broke so I stopped using it (using the right button wasn't ideal for me).

Will install again

[nontroppo]

Ah, StrokeIt - I used since it was a young pup. I'm always amazed how few people use mouse gestures. I love the keyboard too but sometimes one has the hand on the mouse and it is quicker to gesture than to click through menus or move to the keyboard. Whe you guide people to use simple gestures in e.g. Opera they often have a halleluja moment. The only thing I missed in StrokeIt is was flipback and flipforward — where you click left then right or visa versa. It is a blazing fast gesture great for navigation.

For the one other OS X user out there, XGestures is a fantastic gesture system:

http://alum.hampshire.edu/~bjk02/xGestures/

[jgpaiva]

Interestingly, i've also removed stokeit, but for different reasons. Since i made this post, i have learned ahk, and some of my most important mouse shortcuts made with ahk are incompatible with strokeit, because they use both the middle mouse button and the right mouse button.

Still, it's great software, and i've used it extensivelly!

@nontroppo: Yep, i also missed a lot the flipback/forward, it's one of the shortcuts i use most in opera (for switching to the tab on the right or to the tab on the left. it's way more useful than the default setting!)

[yksyks]

If anyone is interested, there's a new free application for mouse gestures, which unlike StrokeIt works fine under Vista: gMote. Works well with Google Chrome, too. Unfortunately, it also lacks flip back/forward actions.

[jgpaiva]

Interesting, yksyks!
gMote works pretty well in Vista, and it has a lovely interface (even for me, and I hate non-standard interfaces!).
Also, I think it's very easy to configure. I think it only lacks some default shortcuts, so that we can play out with it right away instead of having to configure it first.

[Armando]

Thanks yksyks. Will have a look at it later on. 

[J-Mac]

If anyone is interested, there's a new free application for mouse gestures, which unlike StrokeIt works fine under Vista: gMote. Works well with Google Chrome, too. Unfortunately, it also lacks flip back/forward actions.

If you are using Firefox 2 or 3 try the extension All-In-One Gestures - that does have the "rocker" back and forward feature plus you can configure just about any other gesture you wish.

Jim

[Deozaan]

If you are using Firefox 2 or 3 try the extension All-In-One Gestures - that does have the "rocker" back and forward feature plus you can configure just about any other gesture you wish.

Jim

I love the Firefox All-In-One Gestures! Though it is limited to only Firefox and not available system wide like StrokeIt. But to be honest, I just can't see why I would need mouse gestures in other applications (besides IE). So All-In-One Gestures works great for me.

[J-Mac]

Deozaan,

Folks were posting about specifically wanting to use a "rocker" gesture to go back and forward, mostly used in browsers. That's the only reason I mentioned A-I-O Gestures. It's perfect for that feature alone! And Opera already has that feature built-in.

Jim

[yksyks]

No, I'm not using FireFox, I was investigating these programs because of Chrome. As for IE, I'm using IE7pro, which has very good mouse gestures for IE7.

Now, to the flipping issue: In the meantime I discovered that my favorite application HotkeyP I'm using for assigning tasks to different keys, can easily create a macro for this flipping, too. Alas, flipping from left to right works well, but from right to left collides with both StrokeIt and gMote.

Couldn't this be accomplished using AutoHotKey?

[Deozaan]

Deozaan,

Folks were posting about specifically wanting to use a "rocker" gesture to go back and forward, mostly used in browsers. That's the only reason I mentioned A-I-O Gestures. It's perfect for that feature alone! And Opera already has that feature built-in.

Jim

Thanks for pointing out the "rocker" gesture for A-I-O Gestures. I always wondered what that meant. But to me the mouse gesture itself for "back" and "forward" work well enough.

Anyway, back to generic Mouse Gestures for the OS.