AutoHotkey Community

Update - 26th Nov 2009 - Added a click delay setting
Update - 25th Nov 2009 - Save/Load and mousespeed bug fixes
[Update - 16th Nov 2009]

This is an app I've made to help teach the kids in my class how to use a computer mouse. It also works on an interactive whiteboard. I am a relatively new special needs teacher and found AHK to be perfect for making technology accessibile for my students (severe autism and Down Syndrome). I saw that my students really engaged with computers and interactive whiteboards but their motor skills/behaviour or cognitive ability often hindered a rewarding interaction with them, and so MouseTrainer was born! As far as my research has revealed there's nothing like it out there. With it you can adjust almost anything to do with the mouse so that you can scaffold your student's learning.

Download http://www.autohotkey.net/~evandevon/MouseTrainer.zip

Features:
IMPORTANT! - Once you've started training press escape at any time to return to the setup stage.
Choose a region of the screen for the mouse to only work in (stops them e.g. clicking the taskbar).
Choose what any of the mouse buttons do (e.g. all Left click).
Set the mouse speed 0-10 (can set to 0 for no movement to act like a switch http://www.spectronics.com.au/product/big-red-switch).
Choose a click delay for those rapid clickers who need to slow down
Choose from a variety of cursors to follow the mouse (large images - not actual cursors).
Works with interactive whiteboards (to paint use the "SMARTboard" painting setting)
An Error log displayed at the end of your training session to help you with assessing your student's progress.

ScreenShots


A great painting program to use with this is "Artrage" - it has very realistic painting effects which I have found to be soothing for some particular students.
http://www.artrage.com/



As you can see there is a green rectangle highlighting the area the mouse will work in - The mouse won't work if clicked outside the workarea but if the mouse is pressed inside then held and dragged outside then it continues to be held down until the user releases the button. You can see this in the letter "T" in the screencap. There is also a paintbrush image following the cursor.

Future Features:
- An IronAHK port for Linux/Mac compatibility
- A mouse movement smoother for shaky hands

Known bugs/issues:
-The script uses the clipboard so you'll lose anything in it (2be fixed later)
-The script needs tidying up because it was very poorly written on not much sleep. (Once I start scripting I can't stop!)\
-A second script that produces the cursor image needs to be assimilated into to main script. Sometimes the situation arises in which the main program shuts down but the secondary one does not. (Fix = Restart Mousetrainer and then close it down properly),

Thanks Chris and everyone in the AHK community!
Any constructive feedback would be appreciated!
evs.

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Not yet tested it (I'm getting a li'll tired now ), but don't wanna miss to thank you for your effort to support handicapped people. Thx mate

Thanks for that Bobo3! I really appreciate it!

Just got back from work and tested it on a SMARTboard interactive whiteboard. To my horrible dismay it didn't work but after some screaming I found a setting called something like "click and hold". It would send a right click after a second if you hold your finger against the SMARTboard for a second and this was stopping the dragging of the Lbutton. Once turned off it works great!
The particular software for the SMARTboard I use at school is school is called 'Notebook' and the setting is in the control panel for that app if you right click on its icon in the system tray. Then you have to choose to adjust the mouse settings from the drop down box and uncheck the 'click and hold' setting. I might add that setting to change automatically but sinc there are a variety of interactive whiteboards and associated apps I don't know if its really worth the time.

[EDIT] The school I work at recently re-imaged their computers and I could not get it to work on an interactive whiteboard again so I added an option that should make it work on ALL interactive whiteboards. The click and hold feature uses movement to detect click and hold and releases when you stop moving the mouse for a fraction of a second. This works since on a smartboard you release your touch to press something else and by the time it takes you to press somewhere else the Lbutton is released. Updated the top post.

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App updated to display error log - For use with reporting.

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Hi, it's great to see AHK being used for such a good cause.

Now, I'm slightly puzzled here, seeing as you seem to know so much more about AHK than me, but I'll mention it in case it's something you've simply not come across...

In previous scripts I've written that mess around with the clipboard, I've backed up it's contents first with these 2 simple lines:



Then, when you've finished playing with the clipboard, you can just do the following:



If this helps, then I'm glad to have been of use! And if it doesn't, I apologise for misunderstanding.

Hi ZeroCool! Thanks heaps for checking it out - you're absolutely correct - Looking back I think I missed it because I'd code (very) late at night after I had finished my lesson preparation for the next day. I'll put it on my list of fixes/additions to make when I revisit the program. Thanks for helping to make it more useable!

Evs

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