Love the web

I remember the first time I saw mouse gestures in action. It was a rainy afternoon, and while gazing mindlessly out the wet window I saw something strange from the corner of my eye. A Springload colleague, Brett, was drawing simple shapes on his browser window with his mouse. Trails of red followed his mouse pointer, leaving a scarlet streak in its wake.

To be honest, I thought he was just mucking about. I thought maybe the pressure of deadlines had finally broken him. It was inevitable, I saw all the signs in the weeks prior - unruly hair, hadn't shaved for days, a growing addiction to the escape that is the cafe lunch - but upon closer inspection, these simple shapes actually seemed to be of use. There was method in this madness. He was flicking back, forward, refreshing, opening and closing tabs. What initially appeared to be a blur of random activity turned out to be really fast work.

"What's that?" I interrupted.

"What's what?" he snapped back, clearly unimpressed by the interruption.

"All the lines on your browser there. What are you doing? You're browsing. How are you doing that?"

 "They're mouse gestures. Don't you use them?" he enquired, appalled at my n00bness. Already I could tell this conversation wasn't going well.

Another voice piped up on my left.

"You don't have mouse gestures??" It was Lance, Integrator extraordinaire. Lance was similarly appalled.

I was in the midst of a revolution, but was apparently the last to know.

So, what is a mouse gesture? Wikipedia put's it like this:

'a mouse gesture is a way of combining computer mouse movements and clicks which the software recognises as a specific command. Mouse gestures can provide quick access to common functions of a program'.

Now, I like to think that I embrace new technology, new ideas, but I have to admit that I fought mouse gestures for a while. It seemed like a fad - something for the geekiest of geeks, not for mere mortals like myself (I identify as a semi-geek), but my curiosity got the better of me and I downloaded a mouse gestures extension for Firefox.

My approach was to learn the basics, and grow from there.

To initiate a mouse gesture, the default is to hold down the right mouse button, move the mouse in the desired direction (or combination of directions), and then release the button. Simple. I started with the back (right mouse button - move left - release) and forward (right mouse button - move right - release) commands, but eventually started opening and closing tabs, refreshing pages etc.

There's a downside. If you hop onto someone else's machine who is without mouse gestures, you'll be clicking about hither and yon to no effect, and you MAY appear incapable of controlling a mouse. Nowadays, I can't imagine life without mouse gestures. The back and forward buttons on my browser seem cumbersome and time-consuming. For me, it's created a whole new level of laziness - "Really? I have to move my mouse pointer ALL the way to the top of the screen? Who has the time? Who has the energy?"

Sure, they're not for everyone, but I'm a convert and highly recommend mouse gestures to anyone who spends any real time online. I use 'Mouse Gestures Redox' on Firefox (www.mousegestures.org ), but there's quite a few out there. Check out Wikipedia for a good selection (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_gestures )

If you're game, there are even mouse gesture programs that work for your operating system, rather than just browser specific (I'm currently playing around with one called 'strokeit' - ahem). You can use gestures to perform any common tasks, and it can be customised to suit your needs.  

Good luck, thank me later.