Ergonomic Mouseless Alternatives

[Jaymer]

This is a tutorial of a method I worked on to dodge mouse clicking. I read about diy foot controllers for music software and made a script for left, right, middle, double click, click down, and click ups using a keyboard instead of a mouse. I might get into alternatives for mouse movement later or if anyone wants to talk about styles add to the bottom

Autohotkey (AHK) was made for macros, read all about it near the downloads section http://www.autohotkey.com/download/

Basic Concept:
When I press the insert key on my keyboard I want to trick the computer into thinking I'm clicking the mouse. To do this I wrote a script in a text file saying Insert=Right Mouse Click. Now when I press the Insert key on my keyboard AHK catches it and tells the computer its a mouse click.

I originally wrote a script to assign these keys

Page Up for a Right Click
Home Key for a Middle Click
and Insert Key for a Left Click

This was to try out the software and worked using my left hand to move the mouse and my right hand to click and type from the keyboard.

I later turned the script to work with a separate keyboard for clicking with my feet. To do this I removed all but seven keys from the keyboard - Esc, F5, F8, F9, F12, F Lock, & Num Lock.

I removed the other keys so I wouldn't accidentally start typing all over the place with my feet. this seems like a good place for an emoticon neon paint helps me find the keys in the dark with a black light on.

Next I wrote a script for the keys that I left on the keyboard, I wanted them to to emulate the mouse so I edited the script to tell Autohotkey what mouse clicks to associate with what keystrokes.

ESC::MouseClick, Left,,,2

F8::MouseClick, right

F9::MouseClick, left

NumLock::MouseClick, middle

F12::Click, down

I think I ruled out needing F3 for a Click Up keystroke for some reason. Just right clicking again works fine

check some of the
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=112242

This a copy of my script, if you have installed AHK then you can edit this into a the sample script and run it right away or I think if you create a new text file save as testscript.ahk and right click<open with Autohotkey

; IMPORTANT INFO ABOUT GETTING STARTED: Lines that start with a
; semicolon, such as this one, are comments. They are not executed.

; This script has a special filename and path because it is automatically
; launched when you run the program directly. Also, any text file whose
; name ends in .ahk is associated with the program, which means that it
; can be launched simply by double-clicking it. You can have as many .ahk
; files as you want, located in any folder. You can also run more than
; one ahk file simultaneously and each will get its own tray icon.

; SAMPLE HOTKEYS: Below are two sample hotkeys. The first is Win+Z and it
; launches a web site in the default browser. The second is Control+Alt+N
; and it launches a new Notepad window (or activates an existing one). To
; try out these hotkeys, run AutoHotkey again, which will load this file.

ESC::MouseClick, Left,,,2

F8::MouseClick, right

F9::MouseClick, left

NumLock::MouseClick, middle

F12::Click, down

F3::Click, up

return


; Note: From now on whenever you run AutoHotkey directly, this script
; will be loaded. So feel free to customize it to suit your needs.

; Please read the QUICK-START TUTORIAL near the top of the help file.
; It explains how to perform common automation tasks such as sending
; keystrokes and mouse clicks. It also explains more about hotkeys.

This might not work accurately depending on your mouse control panel settings. make note of whether your mouse is for left or right hand and account for that when the keys are assigned.

tbc

 

[soulfly22583]

very intersting.. not sure if i would use something like this as I like to game and always have a mouse in my right hand. might mess around with this on another box or in a VM though, could be fun.