CNET Editors' review
Mouse gestures are one of the simplest -- and, we'd venture to say, most clever -- ways to save time on the computer. With a flick of the wrist you can launch or close a program, adjust your volume, undo your last action, or perform any number of other tasks. StrokesPlus is an easy-to-use program that provides users with a variety of predefined mouse gesture actions, as well as the capability to create others. We think it's a great way to save time and mouse strokes on commonly performed tasks.
StrokesPlus appears as an icon in the system tray, and right-clicking it brings up a menu that gives users access to the program's major functions. Users can choose to employ the right, center, or left mouse button, X1 or X2, or the Control or Alt button. Then it's just a matter of learning the gestures you want to use. StrokesPlus comes with plenty of common actions already configured; a straight line drawn from the bottom up will copy text, while a curlicue will cut it. A diagonal line drawn from the upper right to the lower left will minimize a window, while a circle will run the notepad application. By default the program displays your stroke as you make it, but this can be disabled for advanced users who have plenty of practice with making the gestures consistently. The training mode lets StrokesPlus learn the particular way that you draw gestures, improving its capability to recognize your requests. Overall, we were quite impressed with the features and options for customization that StrokesPlus employs, and we recommend it.
StrokesPlus installs a desktop icon without asking but uninstalls cleanly.
Publisher's Description
From StrokesPlus:
StrokesPlus is a mouse gesture recognition program that allows you to automate repetitive tasks by simply drawing a gesture with your mouse or performing mouse and keyboard modifiers to fire off an action sequence.
Whether the action sequence you're wanting to fire uses a gesture, mouse or keyboard modifier(s), or both, you begin with pressing the selected Stroke button on your mouse. By default, the Stroke button is assigned to the right mouse button. To begin, press and hold the Stroke button and either draw the gesture or perform the mouse or keyboard modifier(s), then release the Stroke button. If the events are recognized as being tied to an action sequence, StrokesPlus will fire the action sequence.What's new in this version: Version 2.7.4 reverted the prevention of S+ allowing multiple instances and removed unintended duplicate trim timer.
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All versions:
3.7 starsout of 3 votes
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"Everything but the kitchen sink!"
Version: StrokesPlus 2.6.9
Pros
There's an option for everything you can think of and some you can't. It's logically laid out and pretty much covers all the bases and than some. If you don't have technical experience, expect to be spending a night or two reading/learning.
Cons
It auto-loads at windows boot without asking and there seems to be no program option to disable it. But, it's just a link within the startup group that even novices can find and delete without the need for cleaning software. Normally, I'd deduct a star for that, but the other review was a bit unfair, as he admitted.
Summary
You can definitely tell a fellow techy/programmer stayed up slogging down coffee until the wee hours of the night building this app for quite some time. Giving it away free was very cool, considering the time this must've taken. There were no issues found with other apps, XP, or Vista (which is notorious for spurring non-Microsoft apps). As for the "retracted" negative review... those issues couldn't be related to this app (they're unrelated). But as a rule, always create a system restore point, before testing anything (just in case).
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"Best gesture program for Windows"
Version: StrokesPlus 2.5.6
Pros
It doesn't use much resources at all, has the best gesture recognition I've experienced, has a ton of configuration options, modifiers allow for a lot of simple gesture variations like rocker gestures.
The guy who wrote the app is always on the forums and releasing updates. I don't know what the other reviewer here is talking about.Cons
Need to be familiar with scripting or you probably won't be able to do much.
Summary
I used Strokeit for years but it rarely gets updated. I found Strokes Plus and it does everything Strokeit did but is 100 times better in every way. Once you get used to having mouse gestures, you go crazy without them. I'm glad something was made to replace Strokeit and it's kept up to date.
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"Very buggy and useless"
Version: StrokesPlus 2.2.6
Pros
It's creator has basically tried to copy other mouse gesture apps out there.
The first look of it seems good, but it's all "painted on".Cons
As mentioned, it's very buggy, and lacks a lot of important options a mouse gesture application should have.
* The most important of all is that it is built in such a bad way that it interferes with the graphics of the system, making it slow and may even cause crashes of browsers. It made my Firefox choppy and flickery whenever i had it on. It did not go away even after un-installation and restoring windows. Tried getting help solving this issue from the creator, but he of course denied the whole thing that it's his app and started coming up with imaginary scenarios about why that happened, while the whole time he knew what i was talking about.
So if you like your system the way it is, don't install this junk.
* No detection of flash tabs/windows in Firefox. Iits creator "claims" it does, but it doesn't.
* No functioning rocker gestures for example for going to next and previous tab in a browser. Again its creator claims it does but it doesn't.Summary
* No detection of flash tabs/windows in Firefox. Iits creator "claims" it does, but it doesn't.
This is actually pretty good compared to the other gestures out there. Just forget my review, made it out of rage.
* No functioning rocker gestures for example for going to next and previous tab in a browser. Again its creator claims it does but it doesn't.
* Can't have multiple apps for one gesture, so you gotta do a new app for every gesture tyle you want to make.
* Only one gesture per function.
* Gestures don't have a clear marking spot, meaning you can't have gestures of left and right and at the same time have L_D or R_D, as they the left and right gestures would be detected as the latter two.
* Complete lack of functionality for a real gesturing experience as the other moues gesture apps have provided. As the creator claims, it's not for the "technically challenged" or whatever insult he was throwing at me at his site.
* As mentioned above, a delusional little guy as the creator which instead of helping, actually needs a lot of help himself.
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To sum up, this is the result of someone trying to copy other similar applications without knowing what they are doing, and failing at that miserably.
There is no getting help either at its forum, as the creator of it which runs the place thinks very highly of his application and answers any criticism or pointing out of the bugs in his app with insults!
I tried helping him improve this, even gave him an AHK script and combined it with a lua script from his own app to make a hybrid gesture for Firefox, something he/she later put in his app as a function but never thanked me for. And i'm still stuck with a ruined Firefox profile and probably system because of this program.
StrokeIt is the best mouse gesture application for windows, and has all the options this doesn't have. Another good moues gesture application is "Radial Menu", an Autohotkey script which takes gesturing to whole other level.
Updated on Aug 2, 2012
Whether i like the creator of this or not, this app is the best mouse gesture app out there now and it's very useful.
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