Additional Info on Mouse Gestures

I blogged earlier on Mouse Gestures in K2 blackpearl.  Anthony Petro from K2 sent me some additional information about configuring the gestures.  In the \bin\configurationmanager.config file of your blackpearl install folder there is a <wizards> section where all of the wizards are configured.  Here you can register a Mouse Gesture to trigger the startup of a wizard.  For example, for the Default Activity wizard you will find the following configuration code:

<wizards>
  …
  <wizard text=”Default Activity” … >
    <settings>
        …
        <add key=”MouseGestures” value=”A,O” />

In looking at the default configuration in this file, the default Mouse Gestures appear to be:

A, O - Default Activity
C - Default Client Event
M - Mail Event
P - InfoPath Client Event
S - Default Server Event (Code)
W - Default Server Event (Workflow)

In my previous post I also indicated it would be interesting to see this gesturing approach carried into other designers in Visual Studio.  It appears someone has already worked on this integration in the Mouse Gestures Add-In for Visual Studio out on CodePlex.  The add-in utilizes the more generalized Mouse Gestures for .NET component, which can be used to add mouse gesturing to any .NET application you write.   When I have time, I’ll be digging into these more.

K2 blackpearl Gesturing on VS Design Canvas

In the K2 blackpearl Designer for Visual Studio you can use mouse “gestures” to populate the design canvas, instead of dragging/dropping elements from the toolbox.  For example, you can draw an “S”, and have it get converted into a new Default Server Event on the process canvas.

 

A more useful application of the gesturing technique is adding a Line between activities by simply drawing the line from one activity to another.

 

To use this technique, you first right-click the canvas.  The mouse turns into a ink pen like pointer.  You then draw with the mouse (or pen on a Tablet PC) and release the right-click when done.  The drawn letter will convert into one of the elements from the toolbox, or execute a wizard corresponding to one of the elements.   I couldn’t find this gesturing approach documented anywhere, and after playing with it for a little while I discovered the following gestures and corresponding toolbox element:

A,H,W - Default Server Event (Workflow)
C - Default Client Event
D,F,P - InfoPath Integration Process
M - Mail Event
O - Default Activity
S - Default Server Event (Code)

I found this whole gesturing approach much easier to use on a Tablet PC with a pen vs. trying to draw with a mouse - especially anything with curves.  The gesturing is pretty picky about how you draw the letters.  In fact I’m not sure D, F, and P are all really letters intended for the InfoPath Integration Process.  I may have just happened to draw them all similar to a “P”.  It seemed to follow more of a Graffiti convention to scribing letters than a handwritten one.  There were times when I tried to draw an “M” in a handwriting style where it would run the InfoPath Integration Process wizard instead of creating a Mail Event.

I’m not sure how much I’ll remember the gestures and make use of this when authoring K2 processes, except for when drawing lines between activities.  I do think this is a fascinating UI approach, and can achieve some great efficiencies given the right scenario.  I’d love to see other Visual Studio designers make use of this (e.g., draw buttons on a Windows Form design canvas with a “b”).