StrokeIt?

StrokeIt

No you have not stumbled onto some obscene blog. StrokeIt is the name of a program I just found by Googling ‘mouse gestures’. If you’ve been reading the blog you might have seen the posting on things I liked in other CAD programs I’ve used. In the Applicon Bravo3 software we had mouse gestures and since I couldn’t think of a thing to write about today I decided to see there was anything out there that could give me the same experience now.

I down loaded StrokeIt from http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/. The install was easy other than the required reboot to start the program. StrokeIt is free for individual and not-for-profit charitable entity use. Individual licenses are available for $10. But try it out for free and see what you think.

After the install and the printing of a handy tutorial off of the website I was programming StrokeIt to do some neat stuff in SolidWorks. Now I can draw a ‘W’ (for Whole) and a ‘F’ keystroke is transmitted to SolidWorks and you zoom to fit. I also did the ‘S’ key which is starting to get worn out on my keyboard and I also did a ‘M’ for measure. I actually had to add a hotkey for this one to work.

You draw the characters by holding the right mouse button and drawing the letter. You actually see a blue line being drawn on the screen which is better than the Bravo software where you did mouse gestures blind. It takes a bit of practice to get the character drawn so that it is recognized and so that you can do it quickly. If I remember correctly the DEC VMS Windows mouse was faster at this that my Logitech trackball. But anyway it might be something you like.