Hi all. I have use of only 1 hand, seems so many functions are done with pressing control and shift while scrolling mouse, I am very creative at making things happen with my abilities, I am just curious, if anyone has any quick suggestions.
Generally I would say that many things are done fastest with pressing control/shift and scrolling the mouse, for those who are able to. But just about every feature that works like that can be achieved in other ways that are perhaps a little slower for most users (but often also more precise).
The most obvious examples to me would be zooming the canvas, and rotating it as of v1.0. For zooming there are a variety of other options, from the magnifying glass tool, through the buttons on the toolbar, to the field at the bottom right of the screen. As with most of the main input fields in Inkscape, a right-click on this brings up a sensible list of defaults which you can quickly select.
You may also benefit from setting the "Mouse wheel zooms by default" option (Edit > Preferences, then the Behaviour > Scrolling pane). With this set, the mouse wheel will zoom without needing to press Ctrl.
For the canvas rotation, once again there is a field at the bottom right of the screen, again with a context menu of defaults.
There are many other areas where holding a modifier and clicking or dragging has an effect. Again there are generally workarounds or alternatives for these. Perhaps the best thing would be for you to post any specific things that are causing you problems so we can suggest alternative approaches.
Hi there, I have a drawing tablet with a pen. (wacom bamboo pen&touch, an older one, it has touch functionality) The pen has 2 extra buttons that you can assign functions to with the software. You assign Ctrl and Shift to them. When you drag with the pen and hold that button, it is Ctrl+dragging. Or Shift+Clicking with the pen for choosing the colour of a line. Zooming in and out you can do with your fingers on the tablet. Also rotating, and dragging.
A drawing tablet takes some time to get used to it, but it works fine under Windows.
But I can also imagine an onscreen keyboard that holds the function keys. I have seen it somewhere.. Do you already have something like that?
I have a few practical suggestions that would make things more bearable in terms of productivity.
Keyboard shortcut keys without having two hands.
I wanted to suggest Sticky keys which is available for Windows and Gnome (if you're using Linux). This allows keys like CTRL, SHIFT and ALT to stay down for Ctrl + C or Ctrl + A type operations. On Windows you activate these by hitting shift 5x. In Linux you'll find this option under Accessibility.
Practically I can think of two solutions that would work for Shift/Ctrl/Alt + Mouse operations:
1. You could use a small weight to hold a key down longer than sticky keys would. I.e. Shift/Ctrl and scroll around a drawing.
2. I tried testing how if feels using Inkscape one handed and found it's not totally impossible to hold down the Right Ctrl or Shift with my thumb while rolling the mouse wheel with the same hand. It works ok on my Laptop keyboard. I'd say a smaller or even one handed keyboard would really help you heaps as well.
BTW Xav has created some excellent tutorials for Inkscape that I'm busy reading through. He often points out the different ways of doing a task in these. I think you'll find them very helpful.
@Kirstie you actually posted while I was busy writing my post. 😁
I like your suggestion for using a drawing tablet. It's the ultimate one handed drawing machine if you can afford it.
@Glamtam hope there is something workable between all the suggestions you've gotten. Do let us know how you get on with Inkscape. I'd love to see some of your designs.
I use MX Anywhere 2S and MX Master 3 mice which have programmable buttons. A gaming mouse can give you even more (10-15) programmable buttons. The buttons can be programmed on a per app basis. I tested using just one hand after programming two of the buttons using Ctrl and Shift for Inkscape only. Worked like a charm. ☺
@Glamtam Years ago I was temporarily injured and used a 3-button mouse from Mouse Systems (no longer exists). It had programmable keys, maybe the gaming mice have the same flexible programming possibility.If you know about guitar chords (I don't know when you lost use of your other hand) then my method is quick to understand.
I set the 3 single buttons to work the usual functions. Four other important functions I assigned to combinations of buttons like (Left+Middle, Middle+Right, L+R, L+M+R).
With more buttons you can have SHift, Alt, Ctl modifiers. If I was still one-handed I would make a pedal board for function keys and modifiers. Watch an organist, they often play barefoot!
Beginners' Questions One handed user
Inkscape.org
Hi all. I have use of only 1 hand, seems so many functions are done with pressing control and shift while scrolling mouse, I am very creative at making things happen with my abilities, I am just curious, if anyone has any quick suggestions.
Maany thanks.
Tam
Generally I would say that many things are done fastest with pressing control/shift and scrolling the mouse, for those who are able to. But just about every feature that works like that can be achieved in other ways that are perhaps a little slower for most users (but often also more precise).
The most obvious examples to me would be zooming the canvas, and rotating it as of v1.0. For zooming there are a variety of other options, from the magnifying glass tool, through the buttons on the toolbar, to the field at the bottom right of the screen. As with most of the main input fields in Inkscape, a right-click on this brings up a sensible list of defaults which you can quickly select.
You may also benefit from setting the "Mouse wheel zooms by default" option (Edit > Preferences, then the Behaviour > Scrolling pane). With this set, the mouse wheel will zoom without needing to press Ctrl.
For the canvas rotation, once again there is a field at the bottom right of the screen, again with a context menu of defaults.
There are many other areas where holding a modifier and clicking or dragging has an effect. Again there are generally workarounds or alternatives for these. Perhaps the best thing would be for you to post any specific things that are causing you problems so we can suggest alternative approaches.
Hi there,
I have a drawing tablet with a pen. (wacom bamboo pen&touch, an older one, it has touch functionality)
The pen has 2 extra buttons that you can assign functions to with the software.
You assign Ctrl and Shift to them.
When you drag with the pen and hold that button, it is Ctrl+dragging.
Or Shift+Clicking with the pen for choosing the colour of a line.
Zooming in and out you can do with your fingers on the tablet. Also rotating, and dragging.
A drawing tablet takes some time to get used to it, but it works fine under Windows.
But I can also imagine an onscreen keyboard that holds the function keys. I have seen it somewhere..
Do you already have something like that?
Hi Glamtam,
I have a few practical suggestions that would make things more bearable in terms of productivity.
Keyboard shortcut keys without having two hands.
I wanted to suggest Sticky keys which is available for Windows and Gnome (if you're using Linux). This allows keys like CTRL, SHIFT and ALT to stay down for Ctrl + C or Ctrl + A type operations. On Windows you activate these by hitting shift 5x. In Linux you'll find this option under Accessibility.
Practically I can think of two solutions that would work for Shift/Ctrl/Alt + Mouse operations:
1. You could use a small weight to hold a key down longer than sticky keys would. I.e. Shift/Ctrl and scroll around a drawing.
2. I tried testing how if feels using Inkscape one handed and found it's not totally impossible to hold down the Right Ctrl or Shift with my thumb while rolling the mouse wheel with the same hand. It works ok on my Laptop keyboard. I'd say a smaller or even one handed keyboard would really help you heaps as well.
BTW Xav has created some excellent tutorials for Inkscape that I'm busy reading through. He often points out the different ways of doing a task in these. I think you'll find them very helpful.
@Kirstie you actually posted while I was busy writing my post. 😁
I like your suggestion for using a drawing tablet. It's the ultimate one handed drawing machine if you can afford it.
@Glamtam hope there is something workable between all the suggestions you've gotten. Do let us know how you get on with Inkscape. I'd love to see some of your designs.
I use MX Anywhere 2S and MX Master 3 mice which have programmable buttons. A gaming mouse can give you even more (10-15) programmable buttons. The buttons can be programmed on a per app basis. I tested using just one hand after programming two of the buttons using Ctrl and Shift for Inkscape only. Worked like a charm. ☺
@Glamtam Years ago I was temporarily injured and used a 3-button mouse from Mouse Systems (no longer exists). It had programmable keys, maybe the gaming mice have the same flexible programming possibility.If you know about guitar chords (I don't know when you lost use of your other hand) then my method is quick to understand.
I set the 3 single buttons to work the usual functions. Four other important functions I assigned to combinations of buttons like (Left+Middle, Middle+Right, L+R, L+M+R).
With more buttons you can have SHift, Alt, Ctl modifiers. If I was still one-handed I would make a pedal board for function keys and modifiers. Watch an organist, they often play barefoot!
Have you tried voice-activation?
Best wishes