AutoHotkey Community

[Icarus]

Not missing the point at all, just admiring the script and trying to improve it while still keeping it simple.

Although the diagonals that I have attempted are not a great idea, since it makes unique recognition harder.

The best examples are simple, but if they are not taken to the next step, they just stay examples - no?

[Lexikos]

[rodfell]

i don't like diagonals in gesture scripts. i think they increase the error rate. an "R" can still be drawn as URDLRD if you really need an R. most of the gestures i use are simple... DR DL UR UL etc

[rodfell]

i often use the gesture GDURD . this is how i draw an "h" (to hide windows). i can draw the h fairly easily in a curved or fluent action

d..................................................d
d..................................................d
d..................................................d
d......urrrrr....................................d
d....u.........d.................................durrrrrrrrr
d...u..........d...........compared........du.........d
d..u.............d..............to..............du..........d
du...............d...............................du..........d
du...............d...............................du..........d
d.................d...............................du..........d

if the script allowed for diagonals, it would be far less fluent. The fluency i get with this script is why i wrote it. going up and right as an arc, is far easier than up and right trying to avoid a diagonal.

[Lexikos]

I agree completely. I typically only use two-stroke gestures, with diagonals disabled. When I initially wrote my gestures script, I had no idea what would be best, so I wrote it with support for any number of directions.

I say "two-stroke", but I draw it more like a curve.

[ManaUser]

I'm my own experimentation I found that short (e.g. two stroke) gestures were reliable enough with diagonals. This raises the number of two stroke gestures from 12 to 56, probably more than you'd need.

But complex gestures like letters are much harder to do correctly when you include diagonals. Unless you do them slow and carefully, which misses the main point of gestures, it's very easy to turn a right angle into two 45° angles or vice-versa.

[Icarus]

Agree with all, but heres a thought:

If we define that diagonal must be at least at a certain length (say 40 pixels), we might be able to achieve both accuracy and diagonals.

So, for example, if you draw a circle, it will be recorded as a combination of UDLR since the "diagonal" lines inside the circle are too short to be meaningful, but if you do a distinctive diagonal (e.g. the leg of the R) it will be recorded as 3 (diagonal RD).

So R is URDL3 and can be drawn loosely and with curves.

Just a theoretical suggestion, i am guessing that people who are used to 2 stroke gestures do not need it.

[Lexikos]

I think introducing any dependency on length reduces the efficiency of gestures. True pattern/character recognition could be powerful, but does not belong in a "simple mouse gestures" script.

[michaelJ]

I would like to implement it as follows:
back = hold right button and click left button
forward= hold left button and click right button

Is that possible and how?

[Guest]

michaelj. that's called mouse rocking. i looked into adding rocking, but as it uses the left mouse button, it is hard to keep it simple. the problem is the only way to have rocking but allow normal left clicking is to use a tilde (~). when you use the tilde, it's hard to stop the left click doing what it normally does (which is a lot). to try without a tilde, means you have to emulate everything the left click would normally do (which is a lot). if autohotkey used a conditional tilde, it would be a lot simpler.

[Lexikos]

[rodfell]

could you elaborate on WH_MOUSE_LL and SetWindowsHookEx

[rodfell]

i have included left clicking now. the adding off wheelup and down and left clicks has slightly bloated things, but not by too much. the addition of left clicking (and double clicking) seems to work very well.

[Lexikos]

[rodfell]

i have changed the way wheelup and down are used. rather than track wheelup and wheeldown, the script now uses the wheel in a more natural way. for example (see glw example) you can gesture left and if you keep the right button depressed, use the wheel to adjust volume (for example) up and down.
also, i found that using the left mouse click worked more efficiently if it terminated the gesture. for example, if you hold the right button, then click on the left button, the action gc: is run immediately (rather than waiting for the right button to be released)