Surface Pro 4 / Win10 >> Gestures???

Discussion, questions and support.
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gmalone
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Joined: Dec 27th, ’15, 19:18

Post by gmalone » Dec 27th, ’15, 19:26

Has anyone used FK gestures either in Win10 or, more specifically, Win10 on a Surface Pro 4 (or 3 or any touch device)? Maybe I'm just being dense, and I am new to FastKey, but not new to keyboard macro utilities. How in the h*ll are gestures supposed to work? I gather that D, U, L, R are directional indicators, but since there is no apparent documentation on how to use this feature and when searching this forum for "gestures" I get a "that word is too common to waste time on a search" failure message, I'm at a loss.

Could anyone assist or comment?

Many thanks. Loving FastKeys... closest thing to Keyboard Maestro (Mac) I've found for Win.
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Tom
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Joined: Nov 24th, ’15, 23:39

Post by Tom » Dec 27th, ’15, 20:40

By default, mouse gestures in FastKeys work by holding a right mouse button and drawing a gesture on screen. You can change a default gesture key in Preferences/Gestures/Gesture key - try changing it to something else like Ctrl key and see how it works.

The easiest is to simply add a new gesture item and press Record button to record it.
gmalone
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Joined: Dec 27th, ’15, 19:18

Post by gmalone » Dec 28th, ’15, 00:20

Thanks for the comments.

Solved it. Thanks!
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Tom
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Joined: Nov 24th, ’15, 23:39

Post by Tom » Dec 28th, ’15, 11:27

I'm glad it works for you. Could you post your setup? It would be useful for other users with touch devices. ;)
gmalone
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Joined: Dec 27th, ’15, 19:18

Post by gmalone » Dec 28th, ’15, 18:16

Yes, I always grumble when someone posts 'Solved it!' but doesn't explain. Thx for the nudge. I'd intended to come back and explain.

Using Surface Pro 4 w Win10 Pro. FastKeys installed and running. The issue was "how to use FastKeys 'gestures''? -- the one simple reason I didn't figure it out faster was that I didn't check the 'Help' file -- confession, admission, contrition, embarrassment.

So, for me, the key was to first realize that the term 'gestures' refers to 'mouse gestures' accompanied by a keyboard 'activator' key... not a simple touch-only finger gestures. The SP4 form factor had me thinking the latter (and my failure to find the help file sooner). Just a point, I always wonder why software developers don't make their interfaces more self-explanatory, but that's grist for another mill and this is a rather techie tool which was originally written in earlier times. In this case, just the simple use of the word "Mouse Gestures" somewhere in the primary UI would've clued me in.

Once I studied the examples (in light of 'mouse' gestures) it became clear. I also changed my gesture activation method to "Ctrl key + Left Mouse Button" -- just a preference over the default. As soon as I could see the mouse trail lines on the screen, I was home free and began customizing the gestures to fit my workflow.

Here's my one feature wish about FastKeys gestures....

Given the nature of mobile devices, there isn't always a keyboard connected, thus one can't activate a gesture. With a keyboard connected to the SP4 it works fine, though mouse gestures are tricky until you get enough muscle memory built up. But wouldn't it be nice if there could be a non-keyboard activation option as well? Perhaps a clever touch scheme (e.g. Tip Tap, or 4-finger tap followed by the gesture, etc), or holding down the volume button simultaneously, or similar. I now realize that Fastkeys has no touch awareness, except for what is native to touching as a mouse equivalent. But, it's the activation method that's the challenge in a touch-only setting.

One last thing, to accommodate touch-only gestures on the SP4, I've installed a program called TouchMe which seems to solve my issues, and may even let me hook into FastKeys macros --- just diving into that.

Hope this helps.
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Marko
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Joined: Mar 2nd, ’13, 21:02

Post by Marko » Dec 29th, ’15, 11:48

Thanks for the comments, very much appreciated! We will think if it would be possible to add more options in the future releases. By the way, maybe you could try some other Gesture Keys, like Media, Volume etc and see if it works.
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