MyMoves 0.0.2: Usable gestures for Harmattan
September 24, 2011 14 Comments
Yayyy!
MyMoves version 0.0.2 is now out. The previous version was a hackish demo which didn’t contain a proper UI
for normal usage. This version does : ) Also, recording the gestures with a clumsy UI wasn’t the nicest
thing on earth, so I settled for having 12 pre-defined gestures, which should all be simple enough to
be recognized with different users.
In order to avoid disturbing normal usage of the phone, there are 6 two-finger and 6 three-finger
gestures, and no single-finger gestures at all. In addition to that, there’s pinch recognition for
avoiding accidentally opening an application while zooming in or out. Currently it handles most of the pinches, but there’s still a couple of glitches to fix, such as it doesn’t yet catch zooming of web pages 100% of the times.
Here are the gestures:
Most significant changes:
– Simple configuration UI for selecting an app for each gesture
– Option in the UI to start/stop observing gestures
– 12 preconfigured multi-touch gestures
– Pinch recognition to avoid conflicting with normal usage
– Auto-start of the recognition server on boot and after installation
Installation is now available via a repository, so enough for copying stuff into the phone manually : )
Instructions for installation (run as root):
1. In case you have the previous version of mymoves installed, remove it from the command line:
– dpkg -P mymoves mymoveserver
2. Add the mymoves repository to your phone:
– Create a file called /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mymoves.list
– Into that file, enter this line (without the quotes): “deb http://koti.kapsi.fi/~sh8dfwk/mymoves binary/”
3. Make sure you’ve got a working internet connection on your phone
4. apt-get update
5. apt-get install mymoves
6. Ready to run!
Have fun with the app! : )
For the interested, sources are in GitHub:
The UI: http://github.com/sandst1/mymoves
Server side: http://github.com/sandst1/mymoveserver
Here’s a demo clip of MyMoves 0.0.2 in action:
EDIT: Thanks to a question in Youtube, decided to make another small demo to show that you can also use the gestures in the lock screen. The system forces the lock screen on top, but it still opens an application ready for you to use : ) The clip:
About sandst1
expr3ss yourself 
You legend, I can’t wait to try this once I have my N9.
Thanks so much for this!!!
Pretty sure I’ll end-up using this heaps, can we donate?
If you want, see the bottom of the blog š
Sweet, once i have the app on my n9 a small token of my appreciation will be winging it’s way! š
awesome app.. but doesn’t it drain the battery?
Actually, it doesn’t. When mymoveserver is observing and recognizing the gestures,
the CPU load is going between 0-5%, so I’d say it’s not that much.
Launching applications is the heavy part of the functionality of this app : )
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Hi, for me 2 finger gestures (up, down, left, right) are a bit too general when you are using browser and two-finger pinch zooming and panning a lot. I often end up launching application when not intended š
I instead decided to use three finger combinations which mainly work ok, except 3 finger up doesn’t seem to work ok, is it working for you?
Anyway thanks for a great application, already love it š
Hi.
Thet’s the exact reason why the app includes pinch recognition which is meant for recognizing zooming so it wouldn’t clash with the gestures. However, the recognition is not 100% working yet š
It’s on top of my list to make the software recognize pinch
correctly so it will not interfere with two-finger gestures.
Yes, all the gestures work here, but i’ve also been playing around with them for >1 month. It might take a while to get used to the three-finger gestures (keeping all three fingers on the screen during sliding is a bit hard at first : )
You could e.g. try to put your fingers in a ‘row’ by pressing them together and then trying the slide up gesture.
Hi, i often do pinchzoom first and then pan the page with 2 fingers in order to zoom to correct part of the page, this panning the page with 2 fingers will be a problem unless you first detect that user is pinch zooming and then omit the 2 finger panning if user does not lift the fingers from the screen š
I was able to get 3 fingers up to work but as you said, it requires some learning first š
Are you planning to introduce more variants for 2-finger gestures? Like drawing “o”, “v” etc? I use both N and Z as they are misdetected while panning and zooming with browser.
Ah. Thanks a lot for that! I didn’t realize the 2-finger pinch zoom & then panning since i usually just pinch and then pan normally with one finger : )
Yes, some gesture variants could come in the future releases. I already had a bigger set of gestures earlier but since they were clashing with each other abit, decided to start with these more simple ones, and move to more complex gestures in time.
Great app, thanks! I expect my N9 in one week and will install this immediately. I am ready to pay or donate!
Maybe this could be an addition, or even a new app:
I want to secure my phone with a code, but don’t want to enter a numeric code every time I want to use my phone. I would like to unlock with a special swipe, which makes it possible to unlock without looking.
It could be recorded special gesture, or a combination of 3 or 4 predefined gestures. My Palm had this option to unlock with a combination of cursor key hits. Very fast, and this slightly reduced security is often enough.
I’m also missing that feature for Harmattan. The locking is however a deeply integrated feature, so i don’t know how clean implementation would be possible. But anyways, sounds like a great idea an that’d surely make a great new app too : )
Hi,
How will I ” Create a file called /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mymoves.list ”
I have managed to enable terminal and root access. How will i proceed?
Hi.
You have to create it using Vi.
If you haven’t used it before, here’s a tutorial to get started:
http://www.unix-manuals.com/tutorials/vi/vi-in-10-1.html
basically:
1. vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mymoves.list
2. Press letter ‘I’ to activate edit mode
3. Write/Copypaste the repo url
4. Press Esc
5. Press :wq for saving the file
Another option is that you go to Nokia Store and install MyMoves 0.1.2 from there š