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Mozilla The Internet

Mouse Gestures in Mozilla 279

Posted by michael from the still-pumped-from-using-the-mouse dept.
Jedbro writes: "I have really enjoyed the mouse gestures in Opera since its release, since then I have come across an awesome new project at Mozdev, called OptiMoz. OptiMoz (a.k.a. MozGest) is a XPI for Mozilla allowing Mouse Gestures to be available. It works great with Mozilla 0.9.4 and nightly builds. It currently has Gestures for: *New Tab Window (Moz Tabs!!) *Forward in History *Backward in History *Reload *New Document *Up a directory in the URL *View Source *View Cookies for Current Domain *View Meta Data for Domain and *Access Homepage."
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Mouse Gestures in Mozilla More

Mouse Gestures in Mozilla

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  • Headline... (Score:3, Funny)

    by 7608 ( 515533 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @12:54PM (#2395633)
    I just read this headline and all I could think of was a prostitute mouse hawking an AOL CD with Netscape on it. *shudders* I blame the poor quality of coffee in this facility.
  • A completely disposable gimic.
    • Yeah but its damm cool still tho

    • Re:Gimic (Score:3, Informative)

      by Xenex ( 97062 )
      You've never used the gestures in Opera for more then a few seconds, have you? Once you get used to them, you'll swear by them.

      A quick set of down-up's on a bunch of links on a news site, and they're all loading in new windows in the background.

      Down-Right, and a window closes.

      Down, in new window in the forground.

      Up-Down, refresh.

      This is really only scraching the surface, but they are the ones I personally use.

      With these gestures, I can browse the web with literally only the mouse, and still use it as easily as if I had access to keyboard shortcuts.

      Sure, it's not for everyone, and I'm still split 50/50 between my usage of keyboard commands and gestures, but don't call something a gimmic just because YOU don't like it.
      • Actully, I left off the 'left' and 'right' movement gestures for back and forward. I use them a lot too ;)
      • A quick set of down-up's on a bunch of links on a news site, and they're all loading in new windows in the background.

        a simple click on the thumb knob of my logitech MouseMan Optical also opens a link in a new window, with little mouse movement (point at link, middleclick) , okay, it doesn't open in the background, but that's beside the point.

      • Voice Nav is better (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SCHecklerX ( 229973 )
        And if you have ever used OS/2 Warp with Netscape (which was speech enabled on the OS/2 platform), you'd see how crummy your gestures are. Try surfing hands free. No mouse required. Speak a link that is on the page, it goes there. No pointy-clicky required.

  • Even better (Score:4, Troll)

    by phaze3000 ( 204500 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @12:59PM (#2395642) Homepage
    Use keyboard shortcuts. They're quicker, and as an added benefit don't give you RSI.
    • i really like the mouse click shortcuts in Opera (I.e to go back you just hold the left and click the right mosue button) Its a convient place to put a command I use all the time webbrowsing (when checking out the www, my hand is most likely to be on the mouse when I want to navigate

    • Re:Even better (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by Troodon ( 213660 )

      Only if you happen to be browsing resting both hands upon the keyboard. Personally I prefer to sit back and just use the mouse in one hand, switching back to the keyboard, positioning both hands is just an inconvience at this point. I can happily browse with little use of the keyboard with just four simple quick guestures in Opera: open new window from a link, close window, forward and back, whatever. As for RSI, personally Im more held up trying to remember not to wack the keys and thus damage my joints.

      Whatever, personal preference and frankly I find it more intuitive.

      • Personally I only use my right hand for moving the mouse, which conviniently leaves my left hand for keyboard shortcuts.

        As for leaning back and using the mouse, you obviously have a very different seating arrangement to me because I can't get into a position where my left hand can't reach the keyboard and still have my right hand on my mouse.

        • Re:Even better (Score:5, Funny)

          by litheum ( 242650 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @02:12PM (#2395825)
          you must not spend much time looking at porn..
        • Certainly, whatever works for you and Im fortunate to have quite a deep desk. Perhaps its just that Im the hazy area of almost being able to touch type, but as you say the left hand rests easily vaguely over left of the keyboard for ctrl, alt, meta, tab and so forth and the right with the mouse. However, I think such an arrangement would be much more awkward if one was left handed, and thus controled the mouse with that hand. But then perhaps you could take the time to configure keybinds to somethings more convienent. Whatever, as others have pointed out a certain redundancy in the interface isnt always a bad thing.

    • This is a fun feature, and I'm sure people will get a kick out of it. But gestures don't seem like a good "expert" way to browse -- the keyboard offers faster, more accurate input. And you are absolutely right about the RSI: since I started using my keyboard for almost everything (except web browsing, ah..) my wrist problems have gotten much better.

      What I'd really like to see is more ways to browse with the keyboard. I don't have any ideas in particular (being able to use the arrows to move around in a spatial way instead of tabbing through links in order would be a plus), but I would definitely learn and use any system that's better than what I've got now.
      • One thing I like about the keyboard is that it's so predictable -- I hit a key three times, and it's exactly three times. I have near-100% accuracy, where mice are always fuzzy -- always off by a pixel or two, sometimes much more.

        But in browsers there's another level of unpredictability that is a pain. You never know where the next tab is going to leave you. Could be any number of input forms, or a URL, or maybe you didn't realize it and your focus isn't on the page... it makes navigation with a keyboard near-impossible. Of course, this is largely true for any complicated GUI form. Browsers just happen to be the most common complicated GUI in use.

        I suppose it's because keyboards are good for modal or serial interfaces, where mice are better for more random-access interfaces. OTOH, with you use the keyboard to its full potential (i.e., as more than just a bunch of shortcuts) the keyboard can be far more expressive (e.g., CLI). But I don't have any clever ideas on how to map that to a web page.

        • But in browsers there's another level of unpredictability that is a pain. You never know where the next tab is going to leave you. Could be any number of input forms, or a URL, or maybe you didn't realize it and your focus isn't on the page... it makes navigation with a keyboard near-impossible.

          Here are some ideas that might help:

          • bug 66285 [mozilla.org] use a different shortcut to navigate tabs and to navigate links
          • bug 67684 [mozilla.org] directional keyboard navigation: instead using Tab for "go to next focusable element", you could use Alt+Shift+right for "go to closest focusable element to the right".
          • Web pages should use accesskeys more often. For example, on msn [msn.com], you can press Alt+S to jump to the search field. Removing the search menu (bug 67414 [mozilla.org]) from Mozilla would make it easier for page authors to use the Alt+S shortcut, giving accesskeys a much higher chance of becoming ubiquitous.
          • bug 37638 [mozilla.org] the URL bar has initial focus too often (for example, when you start the browser). It's usually better for the page in the content area to have focus, so the user can scroll the page using the keyboard. Worse, accesskeys stop working (bug 64606 [mozilla.org]) when the location bar has focus
          • bug 66597 [mozilla.org] after searching the page, Tab should go to an element after the beginning of the selection rather than the first element on the page. Combined with inline search (find-as-you-type, with no dialog), this would make it easier to jump to links.
          You should also check out the netscape.public.mozilla.accessibility newsgroup. Mozilla's accessibility team spends a lot of time making sure the browser works well with the keyboard, in part because blind users can't use pointing devices easily.
          • I disagree on the URL bar issue. I'm always annoyed in IE's tendency to start with the page getting focus. Personally, I rarely even look at the page that just opened with the browser window unless I used "open in new window", often opening new windows just for new browsing. In this case, the URL bar is what should have focus.

    • vim mode? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by The Pim ( 140414 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @02:31PM (#2395888)
      Use keyboard shortcuts. They're quicker.

      It's not just that keyboard controls are good on general principles; it's also the ridiculous extent to which browsers neglect them. Do you realize that when the focus is in the page (> 90% of the time), almost every single keypress does absolutely nothing? What a waste!

      I would give my left foot for a vim-like mode in mozilla. Flexible and powerful navigation, visual selection, one-key incremental regex searches, marks and jumps, macros. Some modifications would be necessary for a browser environment, but I think most of the endearing non-editing properties of vim could be carried over.

      So, anyone want to write this?

      • Do you realize that when the focus is in the page (> 90% of the time), almost every single keypress does absolutely nothing?

        That's a good thing. It means that you don't have to check what has focus before pressing Ctrl+W (close window) or Alt+Left (back) or Ctrl+L (focus location bar). If Mozilla used single-letter keyboard shortcuts, users would find themselves stuck whenever they went to a search engine's front page.
        • If Mozilla used single-letter keyboard shortcuts, users would find themselves stuck whenever they went to a search engine's front page.

          I wouldn't force anyone to use single-letter shortcuts. vim controls are for experts, obviously.

          Anyway, mozilla doesn't work the way you want now. When I go to a search engine, neither the PageDown nor the Ctrl-W keys "work". (This is 0.9.4 on linux. In the unix tradition, Ctrl-W means erase the last word, and mozilla respects this.) But it's hard to tell bugs from features in mozilla. . . .

          • It would be strange if pagedown worked in a textbox, because arrow keys don't work (in fact, they scroll back to the textbox!), and because in a textarea, pagedown has to scroll just the form control.

            I don't understand why Mozilla uses emacs keybindings at all, but since it does, I think it should use a different keyboard modifier for commands and for text editing. The problem is that then you're left with no key for opening menus or jumping to web page elements with the accesskey attribute.
            • It would be strange if pagedown worked in a textbox

              Ok, but now you seem to be acknowledging that even "normal" users (presumably, pagedown is among the more egalitarian keys) can cope with a keyboard command having different meanings in page focus and inputbox focus. Your original point seemed to be that this is too confusing for novices and must be avoided. I guess you were referring only to menu accelerators; but in that case, you shouldn't be to concerned about vim mode, because almost all of the single-key commands would be navigation commands (like pagedown).

              And FWIW, I would be in favor of pagedown scrolling the page in single-line textboxes, since it can't have any other meaning.

      • Re:vim mode? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Ecyrd ( 51952 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @04:42PM (#2396194)
        I would give my left foot for a vim-like mode in mozilla.

        Okay. You send me your left foot and I'll make Mozilla support a vim-like mode. Sounds like a fair deal, though I am more used to accepting souls in return.

        But a foot is a good start.
      • Point of Fact: Opera has extensive keyboard support. Almost every single keypress does, indeed, do something.
  • This story is a bit unclear.. please don't just post user menus as exposition, thanks.

  • Sensiva (Score:3, Informative)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @01:04PM (#2395657) Journal
    Sensiva [sensiva.com] is a nice tool for mouse gesturing, prety efficient too.

    Esp. useful for keyboard-repellant people =)

  • I don't think a mouse is the best tool to use for gestures, they don't have the finest movement. Maybe a laptop trackpad...

    Now, if you could use a Wacom tablet, it'd be more like Palm Graffitti. Pen to the left for forward, back for backward, tap the link...I oughta try it out.

    • Now, if you could use a Wacom tablet, it'd be more like Palm Graffitti. Pen to the left for forward, back for backward, tap the link...I oughta try it out.

      I just did. It's a little fiddly - I might have to play with the pressure settings to make it a little easier. But still, it works (although my current nightly is a little flakey).

      Cheers,
      Toby Haynes

  • XPI? (Score:2)

    by tcc ( 140386 )
    >OptiMoz (a.k.a. MozGest) is a XPI for Mozilla allowing Mouse Gestures to be available

    Now I can see IE6.5 having this integrated and calling it XP-Innovation (or Immitation, you choose).

    Still, it's nice, but normally when you surf the web you input data as well, so aren't keyboard shortcuts a more "productive" solution?

    One extra thing I use often on the mouse are the 2 side buttons linked to "back" and "foward", these 2 are great, if your mouse isn't a dexxa and you always accidently press on them while moving the mouse :).

    • Re:XPI? (Score:3, Informative)

      by knarf ( 34928 )
      XPI ('Zippy') is mozilla lingo for 'Cross Platform Installer' or something like that. XPI files are to mozilla what deb files are to Debian, or RPM's to RedHat. They are actually jar files (you know, Java Archives, which in turn are really zip-files with a twist) with an install script and a description of the contents of the archive in RDF format. More on this can be found on the mozilla website [mozilla.org]

  • This is really cool! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hazzl ( 161889 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @01:07PM (#2395669)
    When I read this post, I immediately ran to mozdev and installed it. This is really cool! Now you can browse in complete full-screen without having to rely on context menus. Using the keyboard shortcuts (as has been suggested) is not as easy because I usually surf using only the mouse and switching my attention back and forth between keyboard and screen is quite cumbersome. In short: this completely ROCKS!!!
    • Now you can browse in complete full-screen without having to rely on context menus.

      I'm curious. What's wrong with context menus? Unlike mouse gestures, their commands are highly discoverable, once you know the basic trick of right-clicking or control-clicking. Mouse gestures seem to be a reversion to the old "memorize a manual before using the program" paradigm.

      Tim

      • Re:This is really cool! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by abischof ( 255 )
        I'm curious. What's wrong with context menus?

        The problem with context menus, especially since they activate on mousedown-then-mouseup (instead of just mousedown [mozilla.org]) is that they offer no muscle memory. With Netscape 4.x, for instance, the context menu activated on mousedown. That allowed such movements as mousedown - drag right - select Back - release button, all in one stroke. Now, with the contextmenu activating on mouseup (after mousedown), muscle memory no longer comes into play.

        But, that's where mouse gestures [mozdev.org] come in. Sure, it may take a few minutes to learn. But, after a while, it's all second nature and you don't even need to think about it -- just like how copy-n-pasting is probably effortless to you since "your fingers" know all the right keys to press without you having to consciously think about it.
        • The problem with context menus, especially since they activate on mousedown-then-mouseup (instead of just mousedown [mozilla.org]) is that they offer no muscle memory.

          Well, Mr. #255, I don't know what you mean. I just brought up a contextual menu in IE5.0. It came up on mouse-down rather than waiting for a mouse-up. Now I'll try it on a few different links. Hmm, that's funny, the menus and their items are all in exactly the same position relative to each click. I see no barriers to positional memory. If this isn't what you're seeing, you may want to adjust your set.

          Sure, it may take a few minutes to learn.

          As for taking a few minutes to learn, that's exactly my point. The whole point of the GUI revolution is that software tells you what it can do for you. You don't have to sit around memorizing a manual. It's not a trivial issue -- it's central. Once we open the door to rote-memorization interfaces, sure, any one feature may only take a few minutes to learn, but before long we're back to having to spend hours reading a manual before being able to use a new piece of software at all.

          Tim
  • I remember them working really well in Black and White...

    What's the gesture to set fire to a web-page?
  • There used to be software called Pointix (for windows) that allowed you to navigate easily by making more unique gestures. With mozilla you have to click and drag, but with pointix you could make a counter-clockwise circle-motion with the mouse, and it would interpret that as "back." As long as you don't make idle circular motions with the mouse it worked wonderfully. I'd like to see those gestures incoporated into this project.

    (the full list of gestures: clockwise circle, counterclockwise circle, quick side-to-side motion, quick forward-back motion)
  • I tried to install it, the installation seemed to work fine on both mozilla 0.9.4 and a nightly build that I downloaded yesterday. Yet on both of the mozilla versions when I restarted mozilla (as I was told to do when the installation finished) I came back to see nothing different. I think there was suppose to be a new toolbar. I didn't see one and there was no option to show/hide one in the preferences or the view menu.

    Anyone else have this problem and figure out how to get it working? I really wanted to give this a try.

    • Re:Didn't work for me (Score:5, Informative)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot.keirstead@org> on Saturday October 06, 2001 @02:10PM (#2395819)
      Also, from the experience I've had, the user you're running mozilla under has to be able to write to the mozilla directory to install plugins. So I su root, install the plugin, then re-start in user mode. The plugin then appears.
      • Mozilla never runs for me as root, except on the initial install. Weird.

        It scrolls through its debugging crap, then just hangs. As my normal user, it runs fine. This is 0.9.4, at the moment. This is with full rights to the X display. I also tried running even X as root, with the same result. Why won't mozilla run as root?

        Anybody know wazzupwiddat???
      • I run a lot of nightlies, so I just install mozilla as my login user after making /usr/local/mozilla owned by me. Works great and saves having to su every time I install a plugin or new release.
    • I have the same problem. I tried with my old
      0.9.4 install, a fresh 0.9.4 install, a nightly
      build, removed my ~/.mozilla directory....
      whatever I do, after the install mozilla looks
      exactly the same as before.
      (I'm on Slack8.0, btw)
  • Installed it under Mozilla 0.9.4. The toolbar shows up, but the gestures don't seem to be working no matter what I do. Hmn. Am I doing the gestures wrong? Anyone else having the problem?

  • Will plugins like this work with Galeon / K-Mealon?

    • No. Thanks to the wonders of a platform-dependent non-XUL UI.
      • And the wonders of a non resouce hogging, slow as hell re-inventung the wheel UI. (BTW, GTK is platform independant, in case you didn't know)
        • BTW, GTK is platform independant, in case you didn't know

          Really? So there are now versions of GTK for the MacOS GUI, OS/2 WPS, NanoGUI, and Photon?

          Or did "platform independent" recently get redefined to "Basically for one GUI platform, with ports to two others"? Because then MFCs are platform-independent, too.
    • If this mouse gesture uses chrome overlays to listen for mouse move events then it won't run in Galeon.


      Having said that, there is nothing to stop Galeon from installing XPI packages - they just won't work do much if they exploit features it does not support.

  • There have been lots of attempts at gesture recognition in the past, but they never seem to have taken off in a big way. This is a shame, since when they work they tend to work really well.

    I love the way gestures are implemented in Opera - the actions become completely natural and I tend to find myself trying to use them in other browsers - to little effect. Now at least I'll be able to use them in Mozilla... Only Konquerer and IE left to go, and they'll be in *all* the browsers I regularly use 8)

    Can anyone remember what the company was called that did the "glicks" software? I used to use it years ago but stopped after the later versions got worse rather than better... That software recognised 4 additional gestures - clockwise, anti-clockwise, jiggle left-right and jiggle up-down. I remember mapping 3 of them to cut, copy and paste... those were the days. 8)

  • Slashdot to thank (Score:5, Interesting)

    by abischof ( 255 ) <alex@NOSpaM.spamcop.net> on Saturday October 06, 2001 @01:40PM (#2395745) Homepage
    In a way, Slashdot is to thank for this. Back when Mozilla 0.9.2 was released [slashdot.org], there was a +5 comment on the possibility of Opera-like gestures [slashdot.org]. That led people to read about gestures in bug 76537 [mozilla.org] and, from there, the community stepped up to the plate (specifically, Andy Edmonds). Nice.

    Now, if only we could work together and get some working spellchecking for Mozilla [mozilla.org] :).

    • Re:Slashdot to thank (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @01:52PM (#2395765) Homepage
      In a way, *Opera* is to thank for this. If they hadn't been truly innovative, in that they thought to take the uncommon idea of mouse gesturing and applying it to browsing, this would never have made the radar.

    • Can Slashdot help them stop adding features? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tony Shepps ( 333 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @02:38PM (#2395904)
      I'm just about at the end of my wick over certain mozilla bugs, such as the myriad problems with cursor management in textareas. Over the last six months to a year, I swear Moz has moved backwards in getting rid of these kinds of piddling little problems - problems which, in my opinion, absolutely prevent its wider acceptance.

      The usual reply is that you can't prevent people from working on what they want to work on. Well guess what, if the piddling little bugs aren't fixed, there won't BE an open source browser for you to add your favorite little quirks to.

      I'm composing this in Moz and if I hit the right arrow button at the end of a line, the cursor will go to the top of the text area. If I hit the down arrow key, it will create a hidden EOL. Sometimes entire lines of text just disappear and then re-appear. Sometimes unhighlighted text remains highlighted. Once in a while it even crashes, which I like because then at least something has a chance of getting attention.

      It's so bush, too, that's the problem with it. Looks like Moz can manage to claim compatibility with important WWW standards but CAN'T MANAGE STANDARD TEXT EDITING.

      You can complain about me complaining, but my contribution is not coding, and all my words are out of frustration for seeing these stupid little bugs live on for month after month. To live to make it into milestone after milestone. And the worst part is, IT USED TO WORK PERFECTLY. At some point, probably last spring, text editing was BROKEN. WTF, people?

      And I won't even mention how many times the window focus problems have changed but not improved in the last six months. And to think that, a year ago, I though Moz was three months away from "ready".

      • Re:Can Slashdot help them stop adding features? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @03:49PM (#2396074)
        You make valid points. I am not very familiar with the Bugzilla interface. But I tend to think that interfaces mean a lot, and with slight changes there often come great increases in productivity and changes in direction.

        The problem that important bugs remain unfixed seems to stem from a lack of knowledge and motivation for developers to concentrate on the important stuff. All bugs are considered equal. So when everything is equal, it seems to be logical to do what looks "cool" to you instead of what may actually be important. On the other hand, if fixing important bugs increases your status in the Mozilla community more than adding features, the problems you describe are likely to go away soon.

        I notice that Bugzilla already has a voting system. That is good. However, it seems to be mostly unused. That is bad. Why is that so? Probably because the voting interface is deeply integrated into the complex Bugzilla interface, which most end users will never access directly (let alone create an account for, which is necessary to vote) but only through the templates -- but you need the end users to vote on the most annoying bugs. How can that be changed? Perhaps all reported bugs should also be automatically submitted to a collaborative weblog like Kuro5hin. Scoop [kuro5hin.org], the K5 engine, is open source. It allows users to vote on "stories" submitted, either to the front page or to a page section. In this specific application, users would have to decide which bugs and feature suggestions are very important, which ones are relatively important, and which ones are irrelevant.

        This seems to be the simplest solution -- many others are possible, from improving the Bugzilla interface to integrating Bugzilla bugs into an existing weblog. You could also create a new native interface to report and rate bugs (and to rate the users who rate bugs), but that is the most time-intensive approach (if the most promising).

        In general, I think that the current state of Mozilla reveals a clear weakness in the development model, one which is likely to only show up in very large projects. Improving the interface(s) to rate bugs and feature suggestions and to find the bugs that really matter should be a priority -- and the tools to do that could be useful to others, as well.

        • All bugs aren't equal. In addition to the voting, there's various priority and severity levels. There's stuff for tracking bugs which get reported a lot. There's targeting for which bugs should be fixed for what release. There's the "dog food" and "cat food" tags. And more. In my experience, although there are a lot of annoying things that have taken a long time to fix, a lot of really critical things get fixed very very quickly.
    • Wouldn't that be "Slashdot to blame"? :)

      Anyway, since mozilla.org is in a feature adding move, and we've got the opportunity to pimp a little, go and vote for Alt mail support [mozilla.org] or Here [mozilla.org] -- this will allow Mozilla to play nice with the mailer/newsreader of your choice instead of assuming you want Messenger.

  • Gestures take to long. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @01:50PM (#2395761)
    They were my least favorite part of that Black & White game.. If they work anything like that in Mozilla then why bother? With your other hand on the keyboard you can just use keyboard shortcuts which take one press instead of opposing movements. The only thing I ever use the mouse for is clicking on a link anyway. Everything else involoving the mouse is so unnatural to do with your hands. If it weren't for graphical web browsers and quake, I would never use my mouse at all. It may just be that I have really big hands, but I just find resting my hand on a mouse (they're all too small) makes my hand curl unnaturally. I don't even want to get in to the scroll wheel...
    • I thought the gestures in Black and White worked very well. I could do the gestures much faster than I could find a key on the keyboard. It also kept the game from having rows of icons that take up half the screen. The gestures were difficult enough that it took a little practice to get the hang of them but a gestures interface in a browser has to use much simpler gestures. As such, the fact that you suck at Black and White does not guarantee that you would not be able to use a web browser with a gesture interface.

  • how about additional mouse buttons ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mbyte ( 65875 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @01:52PM (#2395766) Homepage
    I got an M$ Intellimouse with 5 buttons + wheel
    (if u count the wheel as buttonts, then it has 7)

    In IE the 4th button is the Page back feature .. this is WAY more convinient than every possible guesture, just press ur thumb , and page back.

    Any way to configure Mozilla to have the same behavior ? The best i found is using key for page pack, but as written below u need 2 hands for that ... Any ideas ? Do i need to fill out a mozilla bug ? :)

    • The extra mouse buttons work fine in Mozilla out-of-the-box, and have for quite some time. Maybe you need a newer release of Mozilla, or newer Intellimouse drivers.
      • I just did try with mozilla 0.9.4, no luck. Pressing any of the mouse buttons on blank screen space only the right button open the context menu, the other 4 do nothing.

        (using win2k sp2, and no additional intellimouse drivers, and it works perfectly in IE 5.5)
    • In IE the 4th button is the Page back feature .. this is WAY more convinient than every possible guesture, just press ur thumb , and page back.

      That specific functionality is bug 30431 [mozilla.org]. Feel free to vote for it [mozilla.org] if that issue is important to you. In the meantime, there are still ways in which you can make use of those extra buttons:
      1. First, configure at least one of the side-buttons to Ctrl
      2. Then, goto Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Mouse Wheel.
      3. Select "Ctrl" from the pull-down and set the radio button to "Move back and forward in the browsing history".
      Now, to move back or forward, just hold down the side-button that you configured to Ctrl and move the mouse wheel. Ok, so it's not as nice as just a click, but at least it's something until bug 30431 [mozilla.org] is fixed.
    • How about adding a mouse ball to the keyboard? That way you can have both your hands on the keyboard AND on your mouse.
    • You simply have to map your .imwheelrc to do it.

      Here's the relevant section of mine (and, you *are* using xmodmap to switch buttons 4 and 5 to the wheel aren't you?)
      Typically the side buttons are mapped to left and right, just add this to the mozilla section of your .imwheelrc:
      None, Left, Alt_R|Left
      None, Right, Alt_R|Right
  • For those not aware, "still-pumped-from-using-the-mouse" is an allusion to Scott Adams' Dilbert book "Still Pumped From Using The Mouse". It's a compilation of the strips from 12/14/92 - 9/27/93, and you can actually get it used for about $0.75 [bestwebbuys.com] + s/h.
  • Something useful for all those hacked Nintendo Power Glove / mouse conversions..
  • 'Leash Cow'
    'Switch to Torture leash'
    'Tie Cow to web site'
    'Back'
    'View Document Source'
    'Cast fireball on source'


    Hah! your website has come to believe in my browser! I now have control over your animated monkey gif.

  • I installed the gesture software a couple a days ago, and boy does it rock! i'll never live without it again ;-)

    And the development of Mozilla goes ever on, today they branched 0.9.5! And for all off you who doesnt know, Mozilla now features a tabbed interface! ATM there are some bugs related to it, but sure they'll be fixed for next milestone.

    Maaaan is Mozilla becoming good =)
  • Thank god for Mouse Gestures in Mozilla too, when will the advanced features be available?

    For example: To open a new mozilla window, login at slashdot as yourself and submit a really cool story.
    To do this try the following easy steps:

    Hold down left mouse button, move right-left-right, then hold down right button and move right-left-up-down-left-up-left-right. Release left button and move left-down-right-up, double-click left button, hold it down, release and double-click right button, move up-down-up-down, doucleclick both buttons (alternatively double-click middle button if you have 3 of them). Now finally move the mouse in a circle, anti-clockwise, four complete circles should be drawn. When done with the circles hold down both buttons and move up-down-right-down-up-left-right-left, double click both buttons. DONE!!!

  • This can't work (Score:3, Funny)

    by humming ( 24596 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @02:37PM (#2395901)
    atleast for me, as I keep wiggling the mouse, marking random text and pressing buttons while I read a page. Dunno why, compulsive disorder probably. ;)

    Atleast I learned pretty quick not to mark text text and press middle mousebutton in mozilla. :)

    //Humming
    • The sad part is that I ran the mouse under your subject line, highlighted the comment -- then read it.

      Apparently your not the only one who may have issues with this type of feature.

  • A list of gestures in Opera... (Score:3, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Saturday October 06, 2001 @04:05PM (#2396119) Homepage Journal
    You can view the list here [opera.com]. This is for Windows version and I was using Opera v5.12. This is sweet! I can't wait to use this with Mozilla [mozilla.org] and Galeon [sourceforge.net]. :)

  • Here's a list of a few new features that the Moz team have been debating, also inspired by the trend-setting video game, Black & White:

    • MozCreature
      This follows after the B&W 'creature' concept. An animated "buddy" tries to watch how you browse the web, and learns what pages to prefetch or submit every morning for you. You can scratch/fondle/slap your MozCreature to reinforce its tendency to discover new free porn for you, or punish the MozCreature to ensure that you never again wake up to find many First Posts on slashdot in your name. Lizard, Gnome, Ximian or Shadowman character art choices are included, but many more risquee "skin" packs are hitting the popular theme sites already. Caution: while the MozCreature can eat ad banners, a steady diet of ad banners will send the MozCreature into an IIS-defacing frenzy.
    • MozLeash
      The concept of bookmarks is antiquated in modern internet terms. Once your MozCreature is on the loose, you can use your MozLeash module to assist in the training of the creature; limit their browsing domain to any hostmask or subnet you like, or avoid the MozCreature's tendency to battle for supremacy on many popular websites. Leashing your MozCreature to other popular applications such as the GIMP, nmap or GPG is also possible, but it's up to you to observe the truly remarkable effects while you train your MozCreature to full proficiency.
    • MozVillagers
      Adding new JavaScript tags to your websites attracts your MozVillagers to point, click, play and explore your websites more than any real web visitor would. These MozVillager scripts will aid in your site's ad revenues by cavorting around GIF web-bugs as if in reverence, and occasionally clicking-thru to your sponsor sites to increase your marketing manna. The MozCreature, properly trained, can create and publish new MozVillager web scripts on your behalf, but remember, your MozCreature may end up teaching your competition some stupid web tricks as well.

    All in all, Mozilla's ever-expanding suite of features, copied from every other application under the sun, shows the power and flexibility of the community development process. Netscape never had the temerity to battle it out, but armed with the MozCreature, MozLeash and MozVillager features, a new mythical landscape redefines the browser wars. Redmond's Clippy has never been in such peril.

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