xGestures - 1.73

There's a few things this program doesn't do well, all related to tracking the mouse.

1.) It seems to track mouse movement on screen, not your movement on the trackpad, so if the pointer collides with the edge of the screen during the gesture, the gesture may not work because you lose subsequent movements in the direction of the screen edge.

2.) It doesn't allow consecutive movements in the same direction. For example, I want to create a new email by drawing an "E" with my finger - which would be down, right, right, right. It doesn't allow that... only down, right.

3.) It can't handle diagonal movement. I want to draw an "X" for Cut and a "W" for "Close Window". It interprets the diagonal lines as stream of consecutive movements up, right, left and down (depending on the direction), and never interprets them the same way twice, so they don't work. Drawing an X or a W using boxy, up-down-left-right-only strokes with right-angle turns between them works, but is unnatural and much slower that simply drawing them as I am used to writing them.

In fact, I realize this is tough from a programming perspective, but ideally it should recognize circles too... the circle or loop is the most basic shape, the easiest to draw with a finger, and is a natural control gesture.

4.) The "gesture timeout" is a good start, but what really needs to happen is, as soon as it recognize that your current gesture couldn't possible match any of the gestures you have defined, it should timeout the gesture immediately. Is it is, I have it activated by a keystroke, and if I bumble a gesture, I have to either hit the keystroke or wait for the timeout before I can try again. As soon as it's bumbled, I should be able to try again.

5.) Similarly, there should be a user option to allow it to act on any gesture as soon as it's recognized as a valid one. I don't like having to hit my keystroke to both start and stop gesturing. I realize not everybody will want this, as it will prevent any gestures that contain the same movements as other shorter gestures, but it should at least be an option for those who do want it.

6.) Since my trackpad hardware (I'm on a macbook) recognizes two-finger scroll wheel emulation, I'd like xGestures to recognize two-finger gestures too. Rather than hit a key to begin a gesture, I'd like the option to have it automatically consider any two-finger movement as a gesture and any one-finger movement as ordinary mouse control (which would end any previous gesture), so I don't have to hit a keystroke to start and end gestures. Alternatively, I'd like "two fingers" to be an option for any movement within a gesture. IE, I'd like to be able to define a gesture as "one finger right, two fingers right, one finger right".

7.) It should recognize a tap on my trackpad as a control gesture, and even be able to tell between a tap with one finger and a tap with two fingers.

I think that about covers it. This is a great program, it's just not all the way there yet - get this better control implemented and it'll be worth far more than the low, low $5 currently being asked. Perhaps there needs to be an "xGestures Pro" for more money but with these advanced features?

Fairly new user, used cocoa gestures for years, but xgestures is now my main man.

Just today finally tried Leopard's spaces, then set it up for XG to do the movement among them, and wow!

Hats off to the dev, and yes, I already paid...within one hour. :)