I have used a few “gesture” programs before on various versions of Windows. They have always seemed clunky and well….not worth the trouble. But that changed today when I started using a free app called Gmote (that link has a pop-up so here is the direct download link).

Gmote lets you define “gestures” that you draw with your mouse after clicking a pre-arranged key combination (to prevent accidental gestures).

You first download the app from here and install it. You will then be asked to select a language to install.

Then after it does its thing, it will pop up a balloon from the task bar. You can see it below:

So of course you obey the balloon and right click on the lower case ‘g’ icon in your system tray. Choose ‘configure’ and you can get right into creating gestures. Just click that ‘New Gesture’ button on the bottom left hand side.

Upon clicking the ‘Create Gesture’ button you will be able to draw your gesture on the right pane and select its associated action.

I chose to draw a symbol that kind of looks like an A. It has to be continuous so think Zorro. Next I hit the [Do Nothing] box on the left pane. It pops up the window below and allows you to choose your action.

Here is a full list of available options:

For my ‘A’ like gesture I choose ‘Website’ from this list – asking Gmote to open my default browser to a web site of my selection. I chose my most favorite site (no I am not biased at all!) askTheAdmin.com was what I typed into the address bar and clicked ok.

Now the only thing left to configure was my Gmote options. This is how you let Gmote know what to look at what you are drawing and how it starts up.

My action keys are Control + Shift. So when I hit these two keys and draw with my mouse the blue lines are shown on my screen. You can change the action keys and the colors of the trails here as well.

After setting this I held my two keys down and drew my A. Guess what happened??

I think it is pretty cool and after a while you won’t believe you ever lived without it!

So get out there download this little app and start making gestures…

No not that gesture! Put that finger down!

What’s your experiences with mouse gesture software? Do you find you save time with it? Which one do you use?