Slashdot Mirror
Gestures For The Linux Desktop
geoffsmith writes "Just stumbled upon a gesture system for the linux desktop called 'wayV'. It works similarly to Mozilla gestures, except at windowing system level. For example, hold down the middle mouse button and draw an 'N' and netscape pops up, or draw a slash through a window and it kills the window's process. There are .debs available and the author is currently porting it to win32."
A couple years ago there was a similar app for Windows called Popmouse. I cannnot find it now. Does anyone know what became of that software, or Pointix, the company that made it?
Thats utterly freakin stupid It takes longer to draw an "N" than it does to click the freakin icon, not to mention that there's probably hundreds of apps that start with the letter "N".
The "mouse gestures" idea is pointless.
To me, gestures is a violation of POLA (Principle of least astonishment). When gestures are on in Opera, they get in the way, because I sometimes 'randomly' select text when I browse/read (it helps me read faster, dunno why).
So make me a believer. Tell me _why_ gesturing (as the scourge that it is to me) should haunt me even on my desktop?
No, I'm not trolling, I'm generally curious about why people think this RSI inducing "input method" is useful, and why I should use it instead of my well-optimized keyboard shortcut scheme.
There's already a pretty good mouse gesture program out for Windows called StrokeIt. I tried using it for a while, but it's really not worth it unless you have an optical mouse IME - a balled mouse ended up screwing up the gestures something chronic. Since I got my Logitech optical, it's a bit more usable, but I do wonder how much more efficient it is. To close a window, you have to draw a Q, and in the same time you've done it you could have just clicked the X.
I use the gestures in Phoenix though, moving back and forth between pages is a breeze now though - I really wouldn't recommend it for a full windows system though.
I really hope that the gestures they use are the same as Mozilla's. I use the gestures a lot, and if I'm ever forced to use IE, I find myself gesturing to no avail.
However, I recently tried using Opera which also has gestures capability. The problem I had is that a lot of the gestures are different than Mozilla's gestures, causing me to do Mozilla gestures out of habit without effect (or the wrong effect) inside Opera.
On an operating system level this could be problematic. What if I absent-mindedly do a Mozilla gesture, but in this operating system's gestures, it causes me to lose my work before it was saved? Or some such similar disaster.
Already I know I would have problems with the closing windows by drawing a slash through it. In Mozilla and Opera, you close it by gesturing L, R, L.
Probably the best way to avoid all these gestures getting confused with each other ("now let's see, was that for Opera? Mozilla? or the operating system?") is to develop some sort of gesturing standard that's generally agreed upon as intuitive that we all can remember and use.
Also, what if I have Mozilla installed on a system that also has an operating system gestures program installed? Which gesture takes priority when the same thing means two different things to two different programs that are monitoring the mouse at the same time?
Have a look at strokeit
:p
Fairly customizeable, and neat for a while, but eventually I decided that I could do everything more efficiently directly from emacs
In any case, I use that gesture all the time, too. However, I also make very heavy use of "open in new window/duplicate", "reload", "new blank window". So I think mouse gestures are pretty damn sweet. On the other hand, I've never used them outside of a browser environment.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Did you ever play "Black & White". It had gestures and once you got used to them they were pretty cool. You would use your mouse to draw the gesture on any surface, and if the game engine successfully recognized it a bright white light would illuminate the path of your mouse (as well as implementing the selected command of course); usually this announced that you (being God in the game) are about to perform a miracle. There was a definite learning curve to using them, but once you got it it was genuinely useful and allowed the game to have almost no interface cluttering the screen. Though it isn't any where near the top of my list of favorite games, the gampeplay was unmistakably innovative.
To all the idiots saying 'this is totally pointless, waste of time' - think about accessibility for a second.
You do realise that there are some people whose only interface with a computer is a head controlled pointer, right?
I hope that the gnome accesibility people consider adopting something like this for gnome2, providing 'gesture-binding' for the desktop.
Only because you can't handle your mouse right doesn't mean that nobody else couldn't too. I for one find mouse gestures an extremely useful thing to have. As I use mouse for clicking on links and whatnot, it never gets in the way.
Before I learned mouse gestures (they got enabled accidentally) I did manage to do some things (close windows, bring new ones..) by accident. After I learned what moves do what, I haven't have any problems. Only that mozilla's version of mousegestures sucks ass.
Afaik only people who bitch about mg's are those who never understood how to use them, exactly the same thing as with i9 text input system.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
mouse gestures are a bad idea, Mice are crap interface devices, ever tried drawing with a mouse, it''s like getting my brother to do the washing up.
Now with a graphics tablet as a interface device, gestures are easy(accurate) and fast.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
There's already a gesture recognition program for Win32. Gesture
It's at an early stage at the moment, but shows potential.
I've never used gestures, so I don't know if this is true or not, but I think I remember reading somewhere that gestures tend to exacerbate repetitive stress problems.
Is that true? Or is it just an urban legend?
You sound like you're only considering what's good for the present. Sure, with current technology, typeahead seems more usefull. And today, I would certainly choose the keyboard over the mouse.
But what about in the next 20 years? By then I hope we're using some combination of voice and hand gestures , or something even beter.
I've come across software like that in the Windows platform for years, yet I failed to understand how it would improve my everyday interaction with my PC. Of course some people like it and lets face it : it is quite impressive, even 'trendy'. So people will play with it for a few hours and then pretty much forget about it (I know I have). A minority may even continue to use such a system on a regular basis but not me (or anybody I know of for that matter ...).
, http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fce/pendragon/publication s/programming-overview.html).
;) departments) are spending millions on that area. Sure, they're not doing it out of the goodness of their heart, they aim for profit. But they do offer a few solutions.
... I wonder how many people would agree with that ...
... what if, just if, something happened and I would not be able to use my fingers anymore ? The Gestures-type-of-application (I just can't remember its name !) proved quite useful at that point. Not an adequate replacement of ones fingers but quite usefull nevertheless. Therefore, everytime I see similar software I feel a little more 'secure' and optimistic; it's silly I know ... Thats all.
Yet, for all its 'useless-ness', pointing device based gestures and similar technologies can be of importance for a particular sect of the 'computer users' population : People with disabilities. (check Google on that, and btw here are a couple of quick links http://knowltonian.net/NJIT/webaccessibility.html
I know that my post is on the verge of being moderated 'offtopic' or even 'flamebait' but the truth is that the FS/OSS community has not come up with any serious technologies to aid/help people with disabilities in their effort for satisfactory interaction with their computer. On the other hand, commercial entities/corporations (yes, like Microsoft but also Adobe, Sun etc.; in fact most of the big corps have dedicated research (or marketing
And yes, I am aware of the accessability options provided by modern FS/OSS desktops. But do you think they are enough when compared to commercial solutions ?
It is true that people with disabilities is a very small minority in the FS/OSS world (any statistics anyone ?) so it would not seem wise to 'waste' resources on the development of such software (mouse gestures, visual gesture recognition, voice recognition etc.)
Why did I post this ?
A few years ago I had an accident which resulted into several broken fingers. Ever tried to use a keyboard while most of your fingers are broken or cracked ? I tell you, it's a bitch.
A friend of mine helped me by installing a Gestures kind of software and a trackball in my brand new Win95 (no 'booo' please) box. It didn't solve everything but it did seem to make my interaction easier. My 'torment' only lasted a month or so but since then I often wondered
Black & White had this
Gesturing is hard
You can do this with StrokeMe, libstroke, and XYZ (name software here)
Ha! I've captured all the comments with only 3 lines!
Seriously though, I think this is wayCool (ducks as piano flies over head, nearly hits. Or did it nearly miss?)
I loves the black&white gestures (They should make it draw the gesture on the screen with you, a la Black&White)
I've got nothing more to say to this.
My other
StrokeIt is awesome. I've been using it since the last time I read a story about mouse gesturing on /. It works great! It saves me lots of time searching for the X or the -, and I can open my favorite webpages or programs with the flick of a wrist. ;)
Not to mention girls dig drawing all over the screen with it.
You're nothing; like me.