The game Arx Fatalis also used Gestures to perform magic spell, quite well IIRC/
Just seconding the relationship between gestures and their similarities to pie menus. You can see them in use in the Sims so the usability of them seems to be fairly simple, with the provided contextual information. Pie Menus also allow movement memory to perform fast actions without having to wait for the visual queues, thus providing a similar experience to mouse gestures in some implementations.
Here’s something I wrote about Pie Menus and Set-top boxes a while back a href="http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/reports/piemenu/"http://www.benmeadowcroft.com/reports/piemenu//a
I really like the pie menus. I use them in Battlefield 2 all the time.
The only criticism I have is that once you move beyond the 4 cardinal directions and “no movement” (center), it gets hard to remember what direction does what. So the optimum number of commands is limited to 5.
the talk about forward and back gestures… and mouse buttons for forward and back…
On my browser (avant browser), i have a guesture for forward and back that is so simple that I can’t live without it.
to go forward, click left and hold, then click right. click multiple times to go forward multiple pages. same thing, only in reverse for going back.
its a lot quicker than draging your mouse back and forth on the page, and it still has the benifit of being usable nearly anywhere on the page. And because of the way I move my mouse, using my thumb to hit buttons is just annoying, because it means i can’t move at the same time.
People who move their mouse with their palm, are destine to get carple tunnnle syndrom
Mouse gestures are THE BEST THING
EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER!!!
SIMPLY SPEAKING THEY SHOULD BE USED BY EVERYONE AND EVERYONE!!
PERIOD
ALL HAIL STROKEIT
I found anoter program like StrokeIt thats free that looks miles better but needs a key press to start http://silentdevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/04/gesture-magic-10-released.html
hi, I am currently working on a mouse gesture algorithm which combines the traditional algorithm with computer learning methods. the main idea is algorith will learn (in time) how a specific user draws a specific shapes. everyone draw a letter in a different way so I am trying to make a user oriented mouse gesture algorithm.
actually I am designing a RPG video game in which a player will have nearly 100% freedom of sword movement. I will share my mouse gesture engine with anybody who is interested.
I explained the forward and back mouse gestures in Firefox to my parents like this: think of it as turning the page of a book. Your right finger goes down, you draw it across the surface of the page, and the page turns. And they GOT it. Mouse gestures aren’t mainstream, not because they require a sophisticated user, but because developers make them so. Or maybe they’re just not being explained very well.