2016-03-01

StrokesPlus and GTK applications: clicking problems resolved

StrokesPlus is a neat tool for mouse gestures under Windows. The basic gist of mouse gestures is that you hold a dedicated button down and then perform a gesture by moving your mouse in a certain way. A mouse gestures tool, such as StrokesPlus, can then recognize the gesture and perform various actions based on what you configured it to do.

I have been using StrokesPlus heavily on Windows 8 and am still very satisfied with it. However, it does not work well together with GTK-based applications. I had always assumed this was a Windows 8 issue, but today found out it is actually a StrokesPlus problem. Whenever I use a GTK application, such as, e.g., GIMP, Meld, or Wireshark, I can only make one click in the application's window. Afterwards, I need to move the mouse out of the application window and back in to make the next click. This is quite annoying, especially when you have to do a lot of clicks, such as when editing images with GIMP.

Today, I stumbled upon a solution to this problem. It seems StrokesPlus draws an invisible window over all other applications to capture the mouse gestures. This probably prevents GTK applications from correctly capturing clicks, resulting in the behavior described above. The fix is to change the StrokesPlus settings so that this window is not always kept above all other windows.

To do this, go to the StrokesPlus settings and uncheck the checkbox "Keep Gesture Draw Window On Top". Afterwards, close and re-open StrokesPlus and all your GTK applications should work fine!

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