Mouse gesture

In computing, a mouse gesture is a way of combining computer mouse movements and clicks which the software recognizes as a specific command. Mouse gestures can provide quick access to common functions of a program. They can also be useful for people who have difficulties typing on a keyboard.

For example, in a web browser, the user could navigate to the previously viewed page by pressing the right mouse button, moving the mouse briefly to the left, then releasing the button. The Opera, Konqueror and Mozilla web browsers recognize mouse gestures such as this.

The first mouse gesture, the "drag," was introduced by Apple to replace a dedicated "move" button on mice shipped with its Macintosh and Lisa computers. Dragging involves holding down a mouse button while moving the mouse; the software interprets this as an action distinct from separate clicking and moving behaviors. Although this behavior has been adopted in a huge variety of software packages, few other gestures have been as successful. As of 2004, most programs do not support gestures other than the drag operation. Each program that recognizes mouse gestures does so in its own way, sometimes allowing for very short mouse movement distances to be recognized as gestures, and sometimes requiring very precise emulation of a certain movement pattern (e.g. circle). Some implementations allow users to customize these factors.

Some computer and video games have used mouse gestures. For example, in the Myth real-time strategy series, originally created by Bungie Software, players use them to order battlefield units to move in a desired direction. Another game using mouse gestures is Lionhead's Black and White.

Some tools allow using mouse gestures in any application, such as Sensiva and StrokeIt for Microsoft Windows. KDE includes universal mouse gesture support since version 3.2.

See also

• Pie menu
• Computer accessibility

External links

• Sensiva is a general mouse gesture solution for Windows systems.
• Ralph Hare has written a mouse gestures implementation for Internet Explorer.
• StrokeIt mouse gesture recognition system for Windows.
• MauSuji is a general mouse gesture solution for Windows systems.
• Documentation of mouse gestures in Opera.
• OptiMoz adds mouse gesture and/or pie menu support to Mozilla. So does All-in-One Mouse Gestures.
• The Gesture Recognition Home Page is the homepage for Gesture Recognition and provides a great deal of further information on human-computer interaction