Footmouse version 2.1.0
Note: Linux Only - Python3 Version
Description:
Allows Linux users to use a standard foot pedal to emulate a mouse.
The foot pedal emulates a mouse in conjunction with up to 4 modifier keys,
ALT, CONTROL, SHIFT and ESCAPE.
Functions available are Left Click, Double Click, Right Click, Cursor Up,
Cursor Down, Cursor Left, Cursor Right, Wheel Scroll Up, Wheel Scroll Down,
Middle Click, Page Up, Page Down,Window selection, Close window,
Minimise window and Null (define an option that does nothing)
You can also grab a window and move or resize it.
Footmouse can do everything your mouse can do plus a few extra features, it's
just slower.
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* Beware the Infinity in-USB3 footpedal it it not the same as the old in-USB2 version *
* It is inconsistent with the Linux udev system and will not work with footmouse *
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It may be that you don't need a complete mouse replacement, perhaps you can
move the mouse around but find clicking or the mouse wheel troublesome, in
which case foot mouse can perform those tasks for you.
Many foot pedals come with software, often MS Windows only, which allows you to
program the pedals to perform some function or other, Footmouse does away
with the proprietry software and allows you to assign Mouse commands to a
pedal or a pedal with a modifier key. All functions can be assigned as you
require.
Designed principally to help people who have difficulty operating a Mouse but
are able to operate a foot pedal and use 1 finger (to press the modifier key).
By its very nature, moving about the screen is slow compared with using a mouse
but it does the job, if you can't use a mouse.
Automatic installation of dependencies require that you use the Gdebi package
to install the program.
Please read the accompanying document: footmouse.pdf
Installation:
The package installs itself into Accessories and can be found in that menu.
Install with debian GDebi package installer 'gdebi'
if you don't have that run
sudo apt-get install gdebi (before trying to install footmouse)
The reason for this is that by default the dpkg and apt packages do not automatically
install packages dependencies, unless they have been configured to use "Smart Updates"
Dependencies: python3 (>= 3.6), python3-configobj, python3-wxgtk4.0, sqlite3, python3-evdev
Features:
- Left, middle, right and double click
- Move up, down, left, right
- Mouse wheel up and down
- Left click grab
- Page up and Page down
- Scroll through open windows
- Close focused window
- Minimise focused window
- Mouse movement speed is configurable
- Mouse commands can be assigned to the pedal that you wish
- Multiple foot pedal manufacturers catered for.
- The ability to redefine the codes that your foot pedal sends
- Single pedal mouse move in conjunction with numeric key-pad for direction
Change Log
==========
footmouse (2.1.0)
* License update and testing under wxPython 4.1.1
*
* Include a udev .hwdb file for the olympus rh31 footpedal
*
footmouse (2.0.0)
* Update for Python 3 and wxPython 4
*
footmouse (1.3.0)
* Reworked for wxpython 3.0
footmouse (1.2.4)
* Renamed microdia udev files
footmouse (1.2.3)
* Re-configured to be able to also run on a Raspberry Pi 3
* If the Pi is running Ubuntu-Mate 16 (Downloadable from Raspberry)
footmouse (1.2.2)
* Check Version now gives a report of what is new in new versions
* of footmouse available on the sourceforge website
footmouse (1.2.1)
1. Added the ability to change the colour of footmouse screens
footmouse (1.2.0)
1. The identification of the Event Id for the foot pedal is now more robust,
to help with installation issues and if the Id of the foot pedal should
change, due to using a different connection or some other cause.
2. The Foot pedals HID Device Id event is now checked against what footmouse can
see. If there is a discrepancy, the stated Id, if invalid, can be swapped out
for one of the event Id's that can be read.
3. The tooltip on the Hid Device in Configuration now lists valid event Id's
4. If the Event Id is still incorrect or there are permission errors a list of
probable causes are listed with solutions.
5. New pedal selection option added, "Move"
This if held down, allows you to move the cursor around the screen with the
numeric pad buttons, 7 - NW, 8 - North, 9 - NE, 4 - West, 6 - East
1 - SW , 2 South and 3 - SE
It ignores NumLock so you can always use the numeric pad for movement.
The normal Left, Up, Down and Right arrows keys are also honoured.
This option, if you use it, releases the other Mouse Move keys, to do
other things.
6. Holding down the Left Click button to grab a Window, now permits you to use
the numeric pad to move/resize the window, see point 5 above.
7. Pressed pedals are indicated on the Display Pedals helper screen. When the
pedal is active, the text on the appropriate button turns green.
8. Mouse acceleration speed is configurable
footmouse (1.1.1)
Scroll through open windows option altered, from emulating “Alt Esc” to emulate
“Alt Tab”, which moves between windows with a pop-up window.
This option works properly, no matter which modifier key has been utilised,
whereas, previously this option did not work well with “Esc” as the
modifier key.
footmouse (1.1.0)
Rewrite of the initial version to cope with the fact that foot pedals with
keyboard emulations, such as MicroDia, send a “Held” event, if a pedal is
held down and foot pedals with mouse emulations, such as Vec Infinity, don't.
Keyboard emulating foot pedals might also send an unwanted Up event,
if another pedal is depressed, whilst holding down the first pedal.
Quirks of this type of pedal are that the foot pedal is determined that only
one event on one pedal can be occurring. Thus if pedal 1 is held and pedal 2
is pressed, a Up event is fired for pedal 1 and then a down event fired for
pedal 2. It doesn't matter which pedal is released first, the event that fires
is an Up for pedal 2, because as far as the foot pedal is concerned only
pedal 2 is being used. A subsequent release of the other pedal does not
register any form of event. This complicates the use of these types of
foot pedal.
I have tried to mitigate these issues and hopefully the only issue that you
will observe, if using this type of foot pedal, is that the release of
either pedal when moving or resizing a window, can cancel the mouse grab
function. You would have to re-grab to move it again.
This version 1.1.0
- filters out all events which are not UP or DOWN
- identifies the “unwanted” up events, mentioned above, and sends them at an
appropriate time later
These changes mean that mouse movements are continuous and fluid for as long
as the pedal is held down. The speed of movement is configurable.
* Added ability to hold down Left Click, which allows you to then use
the mouse up,down,left and right functions to move or re-size a window
* Added Scroll through open windows
* Added Close the focused window
* Added Minimise focused window
* Added SPEED to the fm.cfg configuration file which governs the speed of
mouse movement.
footmouse (1.0.0) unstable; urgency=low
* Initial version of the software.
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