FlyGestures: Slick Mouse Gesture Listener

very good
key review info
application features
  • Mouse Gestures the Easy Way
  • (4 more, see all...)

I don't remember where I first heard about mouse gestures, it was either in Black and White or Opera. I have experimented with mouse gestures in both the game and the browser and never found them to my liking. The idea is great, the potential for changing the way you work with the computer is great, but I just can't do those gestures. Maybe it's because of my four left feet, or because I am already way too set into the old fashioned mindset of keyboard and mouse, but I could never do the gestures right. Instead of saving a page I would close and other such minor mishaps that left me ultimately giving up on using mouse gestures.

FlyGesture is a mouse gesture program that is different, and should be equally useful to both mouse gesture newcomers and seasoned veterans.

What does it do? FlyGesture is a mouse gesture input interface... so to say. In English this means that the program interprets the movements of the mouse and translates them into various actions. Think of it as drawing little symbols with the mouse and having them represent different actions that the computer should execute.

The gestures can be as complex or as simple as you like and their meanings can be just as diverse, hiding an application, to opening Expose or typing text, which also doubles as keyboard shortcut.

Working with it Working with and in FlyGesture revolves around the input window. When you press the activation key, F1 by default, the gesture window appears. This is a small transparent bevel with a grid of dots, five rows high and five columns across. Your mouse will be in the center of the window, and moving it will leave a yellow trail behind to help you better visualize the gesture. Unlike other mouse gesture applications, FlyGesture actually works with the dots, not the trail. So what you are doing is basically a very cool looking connect the dots variation.

Gestures can be as complex or as simple as you like, and there is no limit to the number of times you can activate a dot, meaning that you can have a right-left gesture for one action and a repeated right-left movement for another.

This approach to gesturing has its advantages and disadvantages. One hand you can clearly see the gesture you are making and get constant feedback while your body assimilates the movement, on the other hand, the difference between a successful gesture and a failed one can be very small since you are actually working with the dots, not the trail.

After you have executed a gesture that has been recognized, the program will execute a predefined action. Actions are varied and range from opening or activating an application; opening a file or folder; opening a URL; running an Apple Script; running an Automator workflow; issuing various shutdown or sleep commands; calling different Expose layers, including Dashboard; doing nothing or waiting, which, although might seem like an absurd thing to do, is invaluable when using many scripts; to typing text, which if you only enter one letter and choose some modifier keys also doubles as a keyboard shortcut issuer.

I should note that one gesture can have as many actions assigned to it as you want, in any order, so there is a huge number of things you can do with just one gesture.

Customization is the key If you have a Mighty Mouse, the side squeeze button is ideal for invoking the gesture window, also, you can change and even disable the mouse trail during gesture input.

You can define as many of your own gestures as you like, FlyGesture will keep them all in its library. Just hit the + button at the bottom of the gesture list, or, why not, use the ?New? gesture to create a new one. You will be prompted with a gesture input screen in which you have to draw the gesture. If the gesture is already present in the library, you will be told and you will have to either delete the old one or create another, different gesture. Once you have your gesture in place, it will be added to the library, untitled and missing any action. Assigning an action, or actions, to a gesture is as easy as selecting it from the list, and reordering actions is easy using the up down arrows.

The Good Very cool look and feel of the gesture input. Gives lots of options for customizing both gestures and what they do, as well as the way you interact with it.

The Bad Getting used to mouse gestures takes time and practice, and this is not an inherent limitation of this application, but most of the time my gestures come out almost right but still fail, because the line passed pixels away from the circle. Perhaps an option to change the size of the circle grid would do much to help people adjust, since some people like to travel less with the mouse than do other and all hold and move it slightly different.

The Truth Offers advanced options for those weathered mouse gesture users, and great visual feedback for newcomers. It looks very cool and is easy enough to use but difficult to master.

Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:

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user interface 5
features 5
ease of use 3
pricing / value 3


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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