Mousepad - Use a dance pad for keyboard and mouse input. Copyright Sean Stangl [email protected], 2005-2011.

Licensed under the GPLv3+. See LICENSE for the full license text.

USAGE

Mousepad permits keyboard and mouse control using a standard dance pad, or using anything with at least ten buttons that identifies itself as a joystick.

After plugging in the joystick, run mousepad-config. This creates a joystick button mapping in your home directory, which mousepad reads on startup.

Mousepad is modal: press the 'Start' button on the dance pad to switch between mouse and keyboard input modes. The default mode is mouse. Keyboard mode will always display a character mapping in the lower-right corner of the screen.

MOUSE CONTROLS

Step on a directional arrow to apply acceleration in that direction. Releasing all arrows immediately stops the cursor.

To left-click, jump on the left and right arrows at the same time. To right-click, jump on the up and down arrows at the same time.

To look very silly, wildly flail your hands while you do this.

KEYBOARD CONTROLS

(These controls are tedious to use and will be improved.)

Each character is bound to an ordered pair of directions. Holding one foot on the first arrow and pressing the second arrow with the other foot causes a character to be omitted.

For example, the character 'a' is written by placing your left foot on the left arrow of the pad, then placing your right foot on the top-left arrow.

Because memorizing this mapping is irritating, keyboard mode always creates a window in the lower right-hand corner of the screen that displays mapping help. For example, pressing only the left arrow displays a chart showing all characters that can be generated by pressing left arrow first. It's pleasant to read, and easy to get used to.

HISTORY

Mousepad is the first C program I've ever written, back in 2005, shortly after I discovered that Linux existed, soon after a good friend started bringing a foam dance pad to school.

The initial commit of this repository reflects the code as it was in 2005 (except now GPLv3). It's not the prettiest code--it uses a busy loop and somehow manages to contain deadlock--but it was fun to use, even though my mother thought I was nuts. I even managed to get 6 wpm once. fistpump