Jitouch



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I use Jitouch, which enables dozens of gestures, plus the better part of an alphabet that you draw with two fingers held separated. All these commands are assignable independently to individual apps, giving you something like the ability to talk in sign language to. Find the latest Tennis live scores, news, schedules, results, stats, video highlights from the French Open on NBC Sports. Jitouch is not available for Windows but there is one alternative that runs on Windows with similar functionality. The most popular Windows alternative is Trackpad, which is free. If that doesn't work for you, our users have ranked eight alternatives to Jitouch, but unfortunately only one is available for Windows. Macの操作性を抜群に上げてくれる拡張アプリJitouchが、BigSurへのアップデートで以前のように自動的に起動されなくなっています。。(v2.74現在) 簡単な実装ですが、Automatorを使って常時起動を実装してみたいと思います.

jitouch is a wonderful tool and well worth the $5.99.
But if you are a Snow Leopard user and for whatever reason; want a free alternative.
BetterTouchTool is your answer.

It’s not as feature rich as jitouch and only supports Snow Leopard.
But performs the basic functionality of jitouch like remapping of the gestures and adding in a few more gestures – you get what you pay for.

Though I highly recommend jitouch – but the free option is also available.

You can find out more and download BetterTouchTool from the developer’s website here (http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=1722).

At a Glance

Expert’s Rating

Jitouch

Cons

Our Verdict

I’m a big fan of the Multi-Touch trackpads on Apple’s recent laptops; by letting you use various gestures to perform actions, this technology makes the trackpad much more useful than when laptop input devices allowed only pointing and clicking.

Unfortunately, Mac OS X doesn’t let you customize these gestures, or add new ones, which is why I loved MultiClutch. As I showed in a Macworld video, MultiClutch let you assign particular gestures to particular actions or keyboard shortcuts. Sadly, MultiClutch doesn’t currently work in Snow Leopard.

I recently discovered an alternative, Jitouch, which instead of letting you customize gestures, adds eight new sets of them. Once you launch Jitouch—it’s an application, rather than a kernel extension, preference pane, or system hack—you can perform the following types of actions using trackpad gestures:

  • Switch to the next or previous tab (for Web browsers only)
  • Open a link in a new tab (for Web browsers only)
  • Minimize a window
  • Zoom a window
  • Move and resize a window
  • Close a window or tab
  • Open a recently closed tab (for Firefox only)
  • Quit an application

Rather than attempt to describe each gesture, I encourage you to check out the developers’ Gestures page, which provides clear descriptions and demonstrations of each gesture. In addition, the developer has posted two videos on YouTube, one showing each gesture, the other demonstrating Jitouch’s gestures in action.

What I like best about Jitouch is that it lets you perform, with a single-hand gesture, actions that would otherwise require switching to the keyboard, accessing a menu, or using two hands. In other words, it lets you keep your fingers on the trackpad.

Via Jitouch’s preferences, you can choose to disable particular gestures if you don’t use them or if you find yourself accidentally performing them. (You can temporarily disable all gestures via Jitouch’s menu-bar menu.) You can also adjust the force and speed needed for gestures to be recognized. If you’re left-handed, you’ll appreciate the option to reverse Jitouch’s gestures.

Jitouch 2

These gestures do take some practice; the developers claim that in order to avoid stepping on OS X’s built-in gestures, and to prevent too many accidental triggers, some gestures are purposely more complex than others. But I found that after just a few days of use, I had already incorporated several of the gestures into my trackpad habits.

Jitouch

Jitouch Big Sur

As noted in the list above, some gestures are limited to Web browsers; in addition, you can’t currently customize Jitouch’s gestures. But the Jitouch Web site promises that upcoming versions will include support for such customization, as well as gestures for switching between workspaces in OS X’s Spaces feature and switching between windows. I’m looking forward to those features.

Bettertouchtool

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