Some insights after testing

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Hi,
so, after one day of using the tool I have some thoughts, hope they will be useful.

• the most useful thing would be, imho, introdicng a "temporary deactivation" key, same as in the Mouseable, which there was represented by ]. It means the program is deactivated only for the time the key is pressed. It was useful for me when I had a specific shortcut to do or to write the first letters of the name of a program in the Windows search bar or in similar situations. Here there's no such function, which requires do to several more movements every time I need to write sth.
• same thing with the temporary activation key, in Mouseable it was double LeftAlt
• I'm not sure if placing the "deactivate after click" button right near the frequently used scroll buttons is optimal - there's a risk of accidentally switching off the program
• lastly, a function that seems to be more "premium" and complex than others - that is optional cursor gravitating towards clickable elements. It's a function present f.ex. in software developed for people with shaky hands, but maybe it could be useful also when navigating with the WASD, grid or f number mode.

Thank you for developing this and wishing you further success!

[petoncle]

Thank you so much for the feedback!

the most useful thing would be, imho, introdicng a "temporary deactivation" key, same as in the Mouseable, which there was represented by ].
same thing with the temporary activation key, in Mouseable it was double LeftAlt

We can try something. I've put this together quickly, you can add it at the end of the config file:

normal-mode.to.pause-mode=+]
pause-mode.to.normal-mode=-]

idle-mode.to.temp-normal-mode=#leftalt -leftalt +leftalt
temp-normal-mode.to.idle-mode=-leftalt
temp-normal-mode.indicator=normal-mode.indicator
temp-normal-mode.mouse=normal-mode.mouse
temp-normal-mode.wheel=normal-mode.wheel
temp-normal-mode.start-move=normal-mode.start-move
temp-normal-mode.stop-move=normal-mode.stop-move
temp-normal-mode.press=normal-mode.press
temp-normal-mode.release=normal-mode.release
temp-normal-mode.toggle=normal-mode.toggle
temp-normal-mode.start-wheel=normal-mode.start-wheel
temp-normal-mode.stop-wheel=normal-mode.stop-wheel
temp-normal-mode.move-to-grid-center=normal-mode.move-to-grid-center

The first part is for the temporary deactivation when pressing ]. The second part is for a temporary activation (double left alt). As it is currently, the temporary activation is not going to work for grid and hint. Would that be useful as well?

I'm not sure if placing the "deactivate after click" button right near the frequently used scroll buttons is optimal - there's a risk of accidentally switching off the program

Good point. I'm open to suggestions if you have any.

lastly, a function that seems to be more "premium" and complex than others - that is optional cursor gravitating towards clickable elements.

Is that a functionality you saw in another program? Do you have an example so I can take a look at it?

Thanks again for the feedback!

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Thanks, the temporary activation/deactivation it works great, it will be a great improvement:)

As for me I generally don't use the grid functiion, I use hints only from these two, but f.ex. Mouseable had neither of these two functions, so adding the temporary keys, even if now not encompassing all the features makes your app surpass Mouseable in my eyes.

From the point of view of my method of working, in which I use the middle click very rarely, for Click And Disable I would choose something like the ' key for example, on the right side of the middle click key. Some people use it more, as I heared, so a second option for me would be maybe the \ key. On my keyboard it has some distance from the rest of the navigation keys, it's placed on the right side of '. But in general for keys switching the program permanently, that is more radical in their actions, I would also like to use some more peripherial keys like ` or - or + or 5. 5 seems nice, because it has the "protection" of two R and T empty keys, for example which makes the chance of accidental switching off minimal.

Here's a program that uses the "cursor gravity" feature. SteadyMouse - Hand Tremor Mouse Accessibility Software

At the same time I must say I never used it, as for me it's costly, but if you want to have only an idea of how it could work like, on their page you can find also an older version on SteadyMouse, with many bugs, but for free. I didn't install it, because after reading the potential bugs list, encompassing the cursor gravity feature too, I deemed it not useful for my purpose. At the same time the gravity feature is only partially disfunctional, at least that's what they are claiming, so it could be a good preview for you.

Hope this helps!

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Update:

• bug: I added more rows and colums at hints (40) as an experiment. Curiously it worked, but only on one display - the two others had still 26x26
• now that I think about it the hint system could be more adapted to the multi-display workflow. I have three displays. For example now:

1. if I want to have the hint on an another screen I have to press f.ex. c + j+ f + qa, a total of 5 keys. This makes it significantly slower than on the main display.
2. what's more sometimes I'm not sure on which screen the cursor is currently on, which forces me to press additional keys or causes a problem where the hints display on the wrong screen and then more times is wasted for undoing it and moving cursor on the right display
3. fixing the problem with displaying an ''all-displays'' hint seems also a bad option, as it would increase the number of combinations and create the necessity of pressing more keys, thereby slowing the workflow down a bit once more

Instead of it I would propose to introduce a following system:

**f for hints in the mainscreen

1 for hints on the first/main screen
2 for hints on the second screen
3 for hints on the third screen
4 for hints on the fourth screen
so, fex. 1 + bb, 2+qa**

That makes the number of the combinations necessary same as on the main displays and at the same time eliminates the problem of mistaking displays, making the work on all the work on all displays equally fast.

Personally I never saw somebody work on more than 4 screens at once, but who knows, maybe some elite megaminds do:)

[petoncle]

Thanks for looking into multi-screen hints. My usage of multi-screen hints is limited because I'm currently using a single screen. I'm glad other people can give me feedback on this.

bug: I added more rows and colums at hints (40) as an experiment. Curiously it worked, but only on one display - the two others had still 26x26

Sounds like a bug. Is the bug still there after you restart the app?

now that I think about it the hint system could be more adapted to the multi-display workflow

I really like your suggestion. Currently, there is no command to map a key to jump to a specific screen, there is only the concept of "currently active screen". But it may be worth trying to add that functionality.

However, right now we could change the config file to achieve something like this:

1. Press c (screen selection mode).
2. Press the hint corresponding to the screen you want while pressing leftshift (e.g. leftshift + j).
3. As soon as you press j, a hint grid appears on that screen.
4. Press the hint you want (e.g. bb).

c + J + bb instead of c + j + f + bb. Not as concise as 1 + bb, but still. Here is what it could look like in the config file:

# Assumes that the "slow" key alias is defined as leftshift.
screen-selection-mode.to.screen-selection-then-hint-mode=+slow
screen-selection-then-hint-mode.to.screen-selection-mode=-slow
screen-selection-then-hint-mode.hint=screen-selection-mode.hint
screen-selection-then-hint-mode.to.idle-mode=+exit
screen-selection-then-hint-mode.hint.mode-after-selection=hint2-1-mode

If having to press leftshift is annoying, we could also do something like x + j + bb instead of c + J + bb.
This is just me throwing out ideas based on your suggestion while leveraging my knowledge of what's currently possible to do in mousemaster without code changes.

[petoncle]

I just had an idea for implementing your suggestion (pressing 1 shows hints on screen 1, pressing 2 shows hints on screen 2, etc.) with a small code change.
The idea is to make the normal-mode have screen selection hints and make those hints invisible. So, when you're in normal mode, those screen selection hints are there, but you can't see them:

normal-mode.hint=screen-selection-mode.hint
normal-mode.hint.visible=false
normal-mode.hint.selection-keys=1 2 3 4
normal-mode.hint.mode-after-selection=hint1-mode

I had to change the code to handle this new configuration setting (hint.visible). I've built a new version of the app with that change: 1.0.38. You'll need to get that latest .exe file for it to work. Let me know if it actually works as you wanted it to work.

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Glad to see a new version, I will install it in minutes :) then I will send feedback.
I didn't have time to test the code you sent previously, but about the multi-display bug, yes, I reopened the app and even restarted the PC and nothing changes :/

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Okay, so I've installed the new version first by downloading the .exe file only.
I runned the program and tried to press 1 to see what happens, but nothing happened. Then I also tried 1 + bb, 2+bb, f+1+bb and so on. It didn't work neither, so I downloaded the .exe file together with the neo-mousekeys.properties file, but the result was the same. When pressing 1 / 2 / 3 on normal mode it simply writes the numbers down.
Interestingly now the ] temporary deactivation key works, but the double alt temporary activation not.
The normal hint f mode works as usuall, no bugs.
Idk, maybe I'm doing something wrong 🤔

[petoncle]

about the multi-display bug, yes, I reopened the app and even restarted the PC and nothing changes :/

Ok, I'll need to get a second screen to try this out.
Edit: I've just tried it on a dual screen setup. I was able to increase the number of hints successfully: the number of hints was increased on both screens. Let me try to explain how this works in the config file, maybe that will help:

hint1-mode.hint.grid-max-row-count=26
hint1-mode.hint.grid-max-column-count=26
hint1-mode.hint.grid-cell-width=72
hint1-mode.hint.grid-cell-height=40

Here we are saying that we want a hint grid made of (at most) 26 columns and 26 rows. We are also defining the size of the cells of this grid to be 72x40 pixels (one cell contains one hint). This means that the total width of the grid will be 26 * 72 = 1,872 pixels. I've chosen these numbers (26 columns, 26 rows, and cells of size 72x40) because it makes the grid fit nicely in regular 1920x1080 screens (and it makes the hints use the whole A-Z alphabet: row 1 is AA to ZA, row 2 is AB to ZB, ..., row 26 is AZ to ZZ).
In your experiment, I believe you said you increased the number of columns/rows from 26 to 40. With 40 columns, the total grid width is 26*40 = 2,880 pixels. If your screen width is greater than 2,880 pixels, then it should work fine. If your screen is smaller than that, you will need to reduce the width of the cells (grid-cell-width) so that 40 * <width of cells> is smaller than your screen width.
When I designed this, my goal was to be able to work with screens of different sizes while keeping the same "density" of hints across the different screens.
Anyway, for now my question for you would be: what are the resolutions of your screens?

Okay, so I've installed the new version first by downloading the .exe file only.
I runned the program and tried to press 1 to see what happens, but nothing happened

I've tried to reproduce the problem, but couldn't. Here is what I did:

1. Redownloaded the exe file and neo-mousekeys.properties from the release page.
2. Added the 3 configuration modifications we've discussed in this thread, at the end of neo-mousekeys.properties:

   # Deactivate temporarily by pressing ]
   normal-mode.to.pause-mode=+]
   pause-mode.to.normal-mode=-]
   
   # Activate temporarily by pressing then releasing leftalt twice in a row.
   idle-mode.to.temp-normal-mode=#leftalt -leftalt +leftalt
   temp-normal-mode.to.idle-mode=-leftalt
   temp-normal-mode.indicator=normal-mode.indicator
   temp-normal-mode.mouse=normal-mode.mouse
   temp-normal-mode.wheel=normal-mode.wheel
   temp-normal-mode.start-move=normal-mode.start-move
   temp-normal-mode.stop-move=normal-mode.stop-move
   temp-normal-mode.press=normal-mode.press
   temp-normal-mode.release=normal-mode.release
   temp-normal-mode.toggle=normal-mode.toggle
   temp-normal-mode.start-wheel=normal-mode.start-wheel
   temp-normal-mode.stop-wheel=normal-mode.stop-wheel
   temp-normal-mode.move-to-grid-center=normal-mode.move-to-grid-center
   
   # Show hints on screen 1 by pressing 1 in normal mode, 2 for screen 2, etc.
   normal-mode.hint=screen-selection-mode.hint
   normal-mode.hint.visible=false
   normal-mode.hint.selection-keys=1 2 3 4
   normal-mode.hint.mode-after-selection=hint1-mode

3. Renamed neo-mousekeys.properties to mousemaster.properties (now I have mousemaster.exe and mousemaster.properties in the same folder next to each other).
4. Double-clicked mousemaster.exe.
5. Successfully tried temporary deactivation with ], temporary activation with double leftalt, and showing hints on screen 1 by pressing ctrl e (activate) then 1.

I'm attaching the configuration file that includes those modifications just in case:
neo-mousekeys.zip

Let me know if it still doesn't work.

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Hi,
ah, so here lies the problem, I thought that with the new update all the new code was included in it:)
After I copied the code you provided everything started to wok fine, nice:)
About the screens it's a complicated thing, as they are of different sizes and shapes; I took them from my friends that didn't need them anymore. When I'll reach home I'll verify these resolutions. Definitely on one of the screens, the left one, the hints are significantly more sparse, it's more elongated - the screen also lies in a greater distance (an conscious choice, different distances of the screens in order to prevent the eyes from becoming too short-sighted and agile) so the hints are less visible, but for now I don't have any optimal solutions for that, I'll undoubtedly experiment with that more, probably changing the overall size of cells.

I'll try to change the number of hint cells once more. Maybe now it'll work.
In the scenario you're talking about, I'd rather expect the cells to appear in a smaller number, but still being in a different letter format, f.ex. after setting the number of cells to 40x40, in the central screen the cells were appearing in a different, three letter format, that is to say f.ex. AAB. But when i was activating the hint mode on the other screens the letter format was two letter, that is f.ex. AB. In the case of a too small screen "cutting" edges of the hint field I would rather expect the cells to be always in the three letter format too, but simply fewer. What's more, it worked on the two additional displays in the same way, even if the left screen is of a similar size as the central screen (if not even bigger), meanwhile the right one is the smallest and more square like. I think I'll after send you a photo of them.

An another thing I encountered today was problems with Windows 10. On my main computer I have Windows 11, and Mousemaster works fine on it, but when I tried to use it on my older laptop, with Windows 10, it doesn't work. Idk if Mousemaster was thought to be compatible with this older Windows version.
Surely the Avira antivirus and Windows Defender were very hostile towards the files, in a similar manner as in the Windows 11 (there I have Norton), but here, when I tried to open the mousemaster.exe the program's screen appeared only for some miliseconds and dissapeared. I tried to download the entire set of files again, to uninstall Avira and activate Microsoft Defender instead, give permissions, open it as an administrator and check the firewall even, but to no results, situation is still the same. Not sure what could be the reason at this point, maybe it's only on my PC.

[petoncle]

I think I'll after send you a photo of them.

Sure, a screenshot and/or photo will definitely help.

An another thing I encountered today was problems with Windows 10.

It's working on my Windows 10, let's try to see what the problem is on yours. Right now, your mousemaster command line window closes as soon as it starts. It may be showing a useful error message but unfortunately the window is closed as soon as the program stops. Open a Windows command line prompt, then make it move to the directory where mousemaster.exe is by typing:

cd C:\Users\petoncle\Documents (replace this with the path of the folder containing mousemaster.exe)

Then, type this to launch the app:

mousemaster.exe

This should start the app and the window won't close immediately. I hope that there is an error message that you can share with me here.

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Hi, thanks for the answer:)

So, right now I cannot test the Windows 10 thing, as I don't have the laptop in my proximity, but I'll try as soon as I get to it.

About the displays - I made a photo, hope it will help

Here's also a screenshot with hint's on the left screen.

BTW, I'm trying hints + LeftShift to use the smaller hints too. I noticed that the cells order is a bit peculiar, at least to me, and can be a bit confusing. Right now it's like that:

H J K L :
A S D F G
Q W E R T
Y U I O P

I think it could be not really user friendly in an optimal way. That's because of the keyboard order.

First for the upper part of the rectangle whe have the lower right part of the keyboard section used. That's counterintuitive in two ways:

1. we see the keys in the upper part of the rectangle, but we have to go bottom with our hands
2. most of languages read text from left to right, but here we have the begining from right to left. Then to ASDFG we have to jump with our hands not further right, as the rectangle seen by eyes would suggest, but to left instead

Then the lower part is also counterintuitive in some ways:

1. it breaks the scheme of the upper part of the rectangle: here we have to go all the way from the left to right, without changing directions in the halfway, but for the eyes the text looks the same. So it requires more memorization.
2. again here we are working with the lower part of the rectangle, but we have to go to the upper part of the keyboard section instead

Maybe there were some reasons behing such a reasoning, idk, but I would rather suggest something like this:

Q W E R T
Y U I O P
A S D F G
H J K L ;

Thanks to that solutions we could obtain:

1. eye-to-hand consistency
2. rectangle keys positioning scheme consistency
3. lower to upper rectangle and keyboard sections consistency
4. a way of reading the majority of users are accustomed to
5. thanks to all that better intuitiveness and lower learning treshold

What do you think?

[petoncle]

Here's also a screenshot with hint's on the left screen.

Thanks. Could you also share a screenshot of hints on the other two screens? If you can, also share the hint mode configuration if you have changed it in any way (number of rows/columns, cell width/height, etc.).

BTW, I'm trying hints + LeftShift to use the smaller hints too. I noticed that the cells order is a bit peculiar
Maybe there were some reasons behing such a reasoning

You are right to question the reasons behind having the second hint pass this way. I have actually not spent a lot of time thinking about it. I have spent time optimizing my personal configuration of mousemaster, which is completely different than the one you're using (neo-mousekeys.properties). Currently, in neo-mousekeys.properties, we have:

hint2-2-mode.hint.selection-keys=h j k l ; a s d f g q w e r t y u i o p z x c v b

I have taken this from warpd which is the main project from which I got inspiration for implementing hints.
I think your suggestion could be implemented with this:

hint2-2-mode.hint.selection-keys=q w e r t y u i o p a s d f g h j k l ;

Is this better?

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Hi again,

so, in the attachments you'll find screenshots of hints on other displays too.

During the screenshot the hints had default settings.
Before I tried to change the font in the cell size settings, but it turned out that I could change only the size of the "hint-after-hind" cells, not the "first hint" cells. Although I suppose that even if I englaged these letters, then a problem with reading the screen buttons could appear - I have no ideas for it other than having the possibility to set the cell font size for each display separately 🤔 I thought about making them a bit transparent, but I think it wouldn't work, it would probably make only both things less readable, instead of more.

In the meantime I also tried to do the thing you said me about the command line on the Windows 10 HP Elite Book laptop.

Not sure what does it mean, but if it's about the system capabilities, I'm a bit suprised, does this program require such a good chunk of the system's calulating abilities?

About the qwerty… order for the second things, imho now it works really better, now I'm, for example, able to predict more or less what button I need to hit even before it appears, thing I wasn't able to do before.

I also tried to remap the permanent deactivation buttons. As I foreseen I had problems with accidentally switching off the program during scrolling, navigating or even hinting.

Now it looks like that:

key-alias.exit=5 =
key-alias.clickthendisable=-

Thanks to that most buttons more "buffer zones" in the form of empty or infrequently used keys. I was unsure whether to make the first deactivation button 5 or 6 - from one side I suppose not many people use four screens, so it would be better to make it 5, but on the other hand I'm not sure what the "Right Click Button Toggle"(Y) is for and how often it's used by power users, if rarely it would be more reasonable to make it 6. I did it yesterday, so I have not a strong opinion, but for now it seems to work fine, the problem of accidental switching off seems to have disappeared. Many times I also simply use the ctrl+E to deactivate.

Also, I noticed that hints do not display over the Windows Search window appearing when you hit the Windows button. Sometime also single cells do not work, like ZC, but only in some situations, I'm stil not sure which ones.

But overall I think the experience is improving :)

[petoncle]

so, in the attachments you'll find screenshots of hints on other displays too.

Thanks for the screenshots. May I ask if you have a display scale set for the leftmost screen? It looks like the font of the date and time in the task bar of this screen is bigger than on the other screens, which is why I'm thinking that you may have a display scale of like 150% for this screen? If yes, then I'll need to look at the part that handles display scales, there may be a bug there.

In the meantime I also tried to do the thing you said me about the command line on the Windows 10 HP Elite Book laptop.

This looks exactly like the problem someone else had. I have rebuilt mousemaster.exe using the compatibility build option discussed in that thread. Hopefully it will fix your issue too. See the release page for v1.0.40 which contains the fix (you just need to download mousemaster.exe).

I noticed that hints do not display over the Windows Search window appearing when you hit the Windows button.

Yes, I think I have the same problem. The Windows start menu is displayed on top of the hints. I don't know if it's possible to fix that.

Sometime also single cells do not work, like ZC, but only in some situations, I'm stil not sure which ones.

That's strange. Sounds like a bug. If you're able to reproduce that problem, let me know how you did it.

But overall I think the experience is improving :)

Good to hear! If you don't mind, could you share your configuration file with the changes you made once you've finalized it?

Thank you!

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Hi there,

so, about the Windows 10 error - it's fixed, now it works! Big thanks :)
I also noticed that some errors in the code can provoke the same dissappearing window error - after installing the new version all worked fine until I customized the keys, then it started disappearing once more. So I downloaded the file again, and customized it once more - and now works fine.

About the screen scale - indeed, I changed it a bit, due to it's distance, without that I wouldn't be able to see everything there. For that reason too now I'm simply not using the hints on the leftmost screen - I switch to WASD when there.

About the file, I doubt I can call it finalized, but at the same time I don't know if I'll do any more changes, as for now I'm simply thinking about most common obstacles in using this system and for now the keyboard mapping I have seems to work pretty fine, no casual switching off anymore, nice second hinting, nice selective screen hinting.

mousemaster - Copy.txt
I changed the format because the GitHub didn't allow the .properties one.

Uhm... now that I think about it I only noticed two strange keys, that is V B that have the same fuction of scrolling faster, but only when other scrolling keys are pressed too. They are exactly the same and in the same place, I don't know if this is particularly useful, but on the other hand it doesn't provoke problems… but maybe, if we already have two keys for it, it would be more reasonable to change their function into one-keyed, so make B to scroll fast up and V to scroll fast down. Thanks to that there would be no need to press additional M or , key. On the other hand I don't know how it works with I O, because for now I don't see any change in the scrolling with or without V or B in all four directions - maybe that's also because I have set relatively fast scrolling by default on Windows.

About other features or problems, the only frequent problem I have for now is about forgetting when the program is on or not switching it off because of, for example, hitting the wrong key, and trying to write when it's on.
It's probably because of working with multiple screens, so my sight cannot see the red dot easily if the cursor is on an another screen. I thought a bit about it and the best idea I had till now is to set some separate activation. deactivation and maybe temporary deactivation sounds - it's pretty common among such apps, Windows Mouse Keys has it, NeatMouse has it too.

[petoncle]

Hi @DobretaAndrzejewic, sorry for the late reply. I've been trying to fix the problem with hints on your smaller screen that has a display scale of 175%.
I tried to replace:

mousemaster/src/main/java/mousemaster/WindowsOverlay.java

Line 406 in 1778c4a

int scaledDpi = GDI32.INSTANCE.GetDeviceCaps(hdc, ExtendedGDI32.LOGPIXELSY);

with:

int scaledDpi = (int) (screen.dpi() * screen.scale());

I'm hoping that GetDeviceCaps(hdc) from the Windows API doesn't take individual display scale into account, and that this would fix it. I can't try it but I'm attaching a build of mousemaster.exe with that change for you to try:
mousemaster.zip

Uhm... now that I think about it I only noticed two strange keys, that is V B that have the same fuction of scrolling faster

I did not make the V, B mapping but I remember that the person who did told me that they mapped V, B to the same function because it is useful for Alice keyboards:

I don't have such a keyboard myself so I cannot tell if having V, B mapped to the same function is good or not.

the only frequent problem I have for now is about forgetting when the program is on or not switching it off because of, for example, hitting the wrong key, and trying to write when it's on.

That is indeed an annoying problem when you have multiple screens. I'm not sure what would be the best solution yet. In my config, I have a timeout which disables mousemaster after 5 seconds of inactivity. Would that be useful for you?
Other solutions could be:

• distinctive sound when activating, and when deactivating (I believe this is what you proposed)
• some kind of all-screens visual notification that mousemaster is active (taskbar icon, ???)

[DobretaAndrzejewic]

Hi pentocle,
glad to see futher improvements, I must say that I tried to use the file you sent me and for now it works fine, it even adjusts itself to the screen resolution(I tried 125%, 150% and 175%), very nice! Both first and second hints are pretty and visble, thanks :)

About the keyboard - well, I have not such keyboard neither, so it's difficult for me to say…

Well, about the switching on and off problem first I think that the authomatic switch off wouldn't be of a much help for me, because, for example during situations like filling some fields with text or navigating through internet I have to switch between writing and not pretty often.

Yes, I was thinking about the distinctive sounds solution.

I was also considering some all screen visuals, and it could be indeed the most useful of features if we are talking about that kind of problems - for example a thin red, semitranslucent frame at the displays' edges that appears on all the screeens would be hardly unnoticeable, but at the same time it would be necessary to make it an optional feature in the config file, like activity_frame = yes as this feature could be less useful for ppl like streamers or gamers, it could mess with the game graphics, for example.

Edit: I'm also slowly gathering screenshots of cases when the hints had some problems in working