Magic Mouse - Multiclutch

[drnkusv]

When the multitouch trackpads first came out on the Macbook Pro, someone wrote a great app/preference pane called Multiclutch that allowed customization of the gestures.

Interestingly, when I use a Magic Mouse with my Macbook Pro that has Multiclutch installed, some but not all of the customizations port over. So, for example, I remapped the three-finger left swipe for the trackpad, and that mapping carried through to the two-finger left swipe on the Magic Mouse. I suppose this means that there is technically a way to customize the multitouch on the Magic Mouse, if someone is interested/able to write a new app for it.

 

[chill.]

this doesn't sound quite right, the 3-finger swipe mapping to the 2-finger swipe?

what did you map the swipe to in multiclutch? are you sure it's multiclutch doing it? the magic mouse has a 2 finger swipe for back and forth browsing by default

 

[skorpien]

This makes perfect sense. As the three finger swipe left and right on the trackpad is by default back and forward in Safari (for example), so is the two finger swipe left and right on the Magic Mouse. If the OP mapped the left three finger swipe to something other than back, it would make sense that the same function on the Magic Mouse would be remapped as well.

 

[drnkusv]

That is exactly right. I mapped the three-finger left swipe to Ctrl-Alt-Y in Multiclutch, only for Firefox. Now when I do the two-finger left swipe on the Magic Mouse in Firefox, I get the Ctrl=Alt-Y. In every other application, it works as usual.

The only thing that can possibly cause that behavior is if Multiclutch somehow also modifies certain of the Magic Mouse multitouch behaviors.

 

[ventro]

Very interesting. I can't wait until someone makes some software to take advantage of this!

 

[bobdard]

Can you try to configure a four-fingure gesture and see if you can duplicate that with three fingers on the mouse? Seems like everything that the trackpad can do with x fingers, the mouse does with x-1 fingers (ie. scroll, swipe).

 

[drnkusv]

No such luck. I have a bunch of four finger swipes configured, but the Magic Mouse does not replicate them for three finger swipes. As far as I can tell, the Magic Mouse makes no distinction between two finger and three finger gestures, at least out of the box. Perhaps someone can figure out how to develop something that will make the distinction.

 

[bobdard]

Interesting. Alright thanks for getting back to me.

 

[Coolnat2004]

No such luck. I have a bunch of four finger swipes configured, but the Magic Mouse does not replicate them for three finger swipes. As far as I can tell, the Magic Mouse makes no distinction between two finger and three finger gestures, at least out of the box. Perhaps someone can figure out how to develop something that will make the distinction.

I don't know anything about Objective-C, but I looked at the source code for Multiclutch and it looks like the mouse/trackpad sends the program a code for "swipe" (3-finger on trackpad, 2-finger on mouse) or rotate or zoom or whatever. This is just a guess, but it might have to be something Apple enables to get the Magic mouse to send those additional codes.

 

[drnkusv]

I know even less about Objective C, but I was afraid that would be the anwer (i.e., Multiclutch is just taking a pretty high level feed and translating the gesture into something else). It is interesting, however, that on the trackpads, Multiclutch is able to recognize gestures that Apple does not expose to the user (i.e., double pinch and zoom movements and a couple of others, if I remember correctly). So it may be that the Magic Mouse actually returns more nuanced information than the options in the Preferences indicate. If so, that is something that could be accessed programatically.

I also note that the developer of USB Overdrive apparently thinks there is at least something to do with realizing additional functionality on the Magic Mouse.

http://www.usboverdrive.com/USBOverdrive/News.html

 

[Coolnat2004]

I know even less about Objective C, but I was afraid that would be the anwer (i.e., Multiclutch is just taking a pretty high level feed and translating the gesture into something else). It is interesting, however, that on the trackpads, Multiclutch is able to recognize gestures that Apple does not expose to the user (i.e., double pinch and zoom movements and a couple of others, if I remember correctly). So it may be that the Magic Mouse actually returns more nuanced information than the options in the Preferences indicate. If so, that is something that could be accessed programatically.

I also note that the developer of USB Overdrive apparently thinks there is at least something to do with realizing additional functionality on the Magic Mouse.

http://www.usboverdrive.com/USBOverdrive/News.html

Interesting. USB Overdrive is pretty low-level. I remember trying it and having to get rid of it because it ended up overriding some settings or something like that.

I found some documentation on handling multi-touch gestures on a trackpad. Apple provides gesture codes, but also allows you to make up new gestures by using the "raw" finger movements: developer.apple.com

Whether they are or will ever provide this layer of access for the Magic Mouse is up for discovery or debate, respectively.

Thanks for giving me the heads up about the swipes though! I think changing tabs is more useful than navigating back/forward.

Edit: Some developers think support for touch events is likely, possibly with 10.6.2. *crosses fingers*