4 ms·

Orthogonally, i've always wanted a decent pair of foot pedals just to cover Shift, Control, Option and Alt or run key macros. It might be possible to coopt one

by gtani 13y ago

Orthogonally, i've always wanted a decent pair of foot pedals just to cover Shift, Control, Option and Alt or run key macros. It might be possible to coopt one of the new USB guitar pedals that also control DAW (Logic, ProTools), shd investigate something like: http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-TCE-GSYSTEM-LIST http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-TCE-GSYSTEM-LIST

ics 13y ago
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FootSwitches http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FootSwitches http://www.cb1.com/~john/computing/emacs/handsfree/pedals.html http://www.cb1.com/~john/computing/emacs/handsfree/pedals.ht... http://hackaday.com/2012/06/21/building-a-clutch-for-vim/ http://hackaday.com/2012/06/21/building-a-clutch-for-vim/ ...do a search for "emacs foot pedals" and you'll find many results. Years ago when I got my first Mac I had visions of buying all these cool MIDI devices and trying to control it with those. As an 11-year-old without internet access I hit a dead end pretty quick, but there are certainly others with the idea.[1] [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5928061/using-a-piano-keyboard-as-a-computer-keyboard http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5928061/using-a-piano-key...
extra88 13y ago
Foot switches are available from ergonomic hardware companies. Kinesis makes the Savant Elite line of USB foot switches. They only provide Windows software for programming them but once programmed they can work with other OS's (with some limitations). http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-savant-elite.htm http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-savant-elite.htm http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-elite-single-compatibility.htm http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-elite-single-compatibility.ht...
mathiasx 13y ago
This is in the works. While it won't be three pedals to start, I realized the simplicity of wiring the Teensy to a digital piano foot pedal (like this: http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-Sustain-Pedal-Action-Keyboards/dp/B00063678K/ http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-Sustain-Pedal-Action-Keyboards...) to build a relatively cheap, durable foot pedal for computing. I'll be posting about that sub-project soon on my blog. One thought, since the Teensy can detect button press and button release events, is to code a vim mode where holding the pedal puts you in insert mode and releasing the pedal hits ESC to leave insert mode. We'll see how that works out in practice. For 3 pedals, you could go with a DIY guitar pedal solution of project boxes and 3 momentary stomp switches (http://www.mammothelectronics.com/ http://www.mammothelectronics.com/ is a good supplier of these parts) but I am unsure about the ergonomics of using one of these pedals constantly. (Guitarists simply stomp them on and off from a standing position. They're generally not pressing and holding the switches for 8 hours from a chair. So it might just cause foot/ankle problems due to the height of the front of the enclosure. More experimentation is needed on my part in this area.) Such a pedal would be way cheaper than the commercial versions from Kinesis and other manufacturers, however, and should be far more configurable / useful on Linux & Mac.
- mathiasx 13y ago
  For those interested, I just posted about my foot pedal project: http://blog.mattgauger.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-simple-text-editor-foot-pedal/ http://blog.mattgauger.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-simple-text-edi...

by gtani 13y ago

ics 13y ago

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FootSwitches http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FootSwitches http://www.cb1.com/~john/computing/emacs/handsfree/pedals.html http://www.cb1.com/~john/computing/emacs/handsfree/pedals.ht... http://hackaday.com/2012/06/21/building-a-clutch-for-vim/ http://hackaday.com/2012/06/21/building-a-clutch-for-vim/ ...do a search for "emacs foot pedals" and you'll find many results. Years ago when I got my first Mac I had visions of buying all these cool MIDI devices and trying to control it with those. As an 11-year-old without internet access I hit a dead end pretty quick, but there are certainly others with the idea.[1] [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5928061/using-a-piano-keyboard-as-a-computer-keyboard http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5928061/using-a-piano-key...

extra88 13y ago

Foot switches are available from ergonomic hardware companies. Kinesis makes the Savant Elite line of USB foot switches. They only provide Windows software for programming them but once programmed they can work with other OS's (with some limitations). http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-savant-elite.htm http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-savant-elite.htm http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-elite-single-compatibility.htm http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/fs-elite-single-compatibility.ht...

mathiasx 13y ago

This is in the works. While it won't be three pedals to start, I realized the simplicity of wiring the Teensy to a digital piano foot pedal (like this: http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-Sustain-Pedal-Action-Keyboards/dp/B00063678K/ http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-Sustain-Pedal-Action-Keyboards...) to build a relatively cheap, durable foot pedal for computing. I'll be posting about that sub-project soon on my blog. One thought, since the Teensy can detect button press and button release events, is to code a vim mode where holding the pedal puts you in insert mode and releasing the pedal hits ESC to leave insert mode. We'll see how that works out in practice. For 3 pedals, you could go with a DIY guitar pedal solution of project boxes and 3 momentary stomp switches (http://www.mammothelectronics.com/ http://www.mammothelectronics.com/ is a good supplier of these parts) but I am unsure about the ergonomics of using one of these pedals constantly. (Guitarists simply stomp them on and off from a standing position. They're generally not pressing and holding the switches for 8 hours from a chair. So it might just cause foot/ankle problems due to the height of the front of the enclosure. More experimentation is needed on my part in this area.) Such a pedal would be way cheaper than the commercial versions from Kinesis and other manufacturers, however, and should be far more configurable / useful on Linux & Mac.

mathiasx 13y ago
For those interested, I just posted about my foot pedal project: http://blog.mattgauger.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-simple-text-editor-foot-pedal/ http://blog.mattgauger.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-simple-text-edi...