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Click/drag lock utility or workaround needed

cleo

cleo

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 21, 2002
1,186
0
Tampa Bay Area, FL, USA
I'm a longtime Mac user, and also quadriplegic. I've always been able to use a standard keyboard & mouse, but I've recently been moved to a new seating system that supports me in a much better posture, but makes accessing a standard setup difficult. Luckily, there are a lot of great accessible technologies for Macs... but I'm stuck on one issue.

In my new setup, I'm using a wireless switch interface with SwitchXS to "type." This software has mouse emulation functions, but I find them terribly clunky and slow. My wheelchair itself has a bluetooth module, so that the joystick that I drive with controls the mouse. The problem is that I can click & right-click with this device (by quickly nudging the joystick left or right), but there's no way to drag. Right now I'm making do with a dwelling app (ClickNoMo), but this too is less than ideal.

What I'm looking for is a utility that will do one of the following:
  • Turn on drag (or "click lock") when I hold the "left click" down for a given length of time (say, 1.5 sec)
  • Turn drag on when I triple-click (rather like a touchpad)
  • Allow me to reassign the right-click to drag (the joystick doesn't have drivers to do this; maybe there's a bluetooth equivalent of USB Overdrive?)
  • Some other option I haven't come up with yet...

I'm honestly surprised this isn't an option in Universal Access; from what I've read, it's a factory option in Windows.

FWIW, I found pre-OS X extension (called ClickLock) that seems to be precisely what I'm looking for... it's just a decade and 7 OS's too old.

Thoughts?
 
Updated info

Not a single reply? C'mon, MR, I know you can help me!

Here's a bit more info that I noticed the last time I was in the new wheelchair & using the joystick-mouse: It does respond to changes made in the System Preferences/Mouse panel, as far as changing the actions of the left & right buttons. I could live without right-click... is there any way to turn that into drag? It's not in the dropdown list, but I thought there might be something that could be added to add it?

Additionally, my switch interface has 2 free ports which can emulate keystrokes... is there any way to make a "hot key" for drag?
 
Hal Itosis said:
I have no ideas really, just wondered if perhaps this might be something RJ Cooper would carry: http://www.rjcooper.com/
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, Hal! Unfortunately, RJ Cooper doesn't have anything to do this... it was one of the first sites I checked.

After a couple weeks using "dwell" to drag and drop, I'm going crazy... Dwelling is clumsy and the timing has to be absolutely perfect... I've got to find a better solution. Am willing to pay a developer at this point, if that's what it takes.
 
old-wiz said:
I did a search on Google and a number of sites show up:

http://atmac.org/
http://www.assistiveware.com/products.php

Are there any local assistive technology groups that might be able to help?
Our town has a group, but I don't remember the name.

I helped one man who is blind to get some things setup, but it was mostly helping him with a screenreader program and it was for Windows.
Click to expand...

Wiz,

Yeah, I'm well aware of the sites you mentioned... AssistiveWare actually makes the software I'm using & linked to in my OP. :) So far they've not been able to help, although I am in ongoing conversation with them.

It's not the getting set up part I'm at; aside from chatting with other PWD online, I'm rather a geek, and certainly understand & use my Macs at a more complex level than most users. I've got it all set up, it's just that (thus far) I haven't found a solution to my dragging problem. If I were just using the computer an hour a day to do email and web browsing, I could live with the clumsiness of dwell-type software (which is what every AT person I've spoken with recommends). But I make my living on the computer and am on it all day, and dwelling simply is not cutting it.

I figured I'd ask here because it's outside the bubble of AT/OT/rehab folks, thinking it might be something a non-gimp geek might have insight into. :)
 
USB Overdrive

Hi, I've found a solution that may work for you. USB Overdrive is a surprisingly useful tool in this situation.

(And it is not intuitive how to set it up. And I don't know whether your device will work.)


1. Under "Settings" tab select "Any Mouse, Any Application".
​
2. Click anywhere inside the list-box where "Left Button" etc. are listed.​
3. Press any of the Non-standard keys on your Mac Keyboard. (I've used the eject key)​
4. If it now shows up in the list, you can program a mouse drag called "Click Lock".​


And if it doesn't work, try the other tabs like "Any keyboard, Any Application" and press to see if some button or keystroke registers. Anything that will does will now have all the power of USB Overdrive's programming.

Good luck,
Bobby
Dieppe, Canada
 
Last edited:
cleo,
Maybe I completely misunderstood the problem. I am sorry, if this is the situation.
It might be a solution to seek a workaround from a different prospective. What if you use an efficient, capable Clipboard manager that can be configured to utilize one or two clicks etc.? Like this.
 
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