Here's a prototype/proof-of-concept for an ordinary screen.

I've written it in Perl/Tk and tested on Cygwin and Windows XP. It's basically a Text widget with lots of content. Moving the mouse around at (what I consider to be) normal speed does nothing; swiping the mouse horizontally, vertically or diagonally will scroll the window in the same direction.

You may need to tweak a few numbers:

• The geometry ($mw->geometry('1200x900+50+50'); is widthxheight+x-offset+y-offset - see the geometry() method in Tk::Wm for details (or just comment that line out and position/resize manually).
• The distance the mouse has to travel before the gesture is recognised is governed by X_MIN_DISTANCE_VARIATION and Y_MIN_DISTANCE_VARIATION - the settings I have worked for me but your mileage may vary.
• The amount of scrolling is controlled by X_UNIT_SCROLL and Y_UNIT_SCROLL - again, you may want to customise these.
• Recognition of whether the mouse is being moved at normal speed or being swiped is determined by MAX_TIME_VARIATION - mouse acceleration, pointer speed and similar settings you currently have in place will affect this.

Here's the code:

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use Time::HiRes qw{gettimeofday tv_interval};
use Tk;

use constant {
    MAX_TIME_VARIATION => 0.01,
    X_MIN_DISTANCE_VARIATION => 25,
    Y_MIN_DISTANCE_VARIATION => 18,
    X_UNIT_SCROLL => 4,
    Y_UNIT_SCROLL => 3,
};

my $mw = MainWindow->new(-title => 'Mouse Gesture Test');
$mw->geometry('1200x900+50+50');

my $w_text = $mw->Scrolled('Text',
    -scrollbars => 'osoe',
    -wrap => 'none',
)->pack(-fill => 'both', -expand => 1);

my ($xpos, $ypos);
my $t0 = [gettimeofday];

$w_text->bind('<Motion>', [\&mouse_gesture, Ev('x'), Ev('y')]);

populate_text_widget($w_text);

$mw->Button(-text => q{Exit}, -command => sub { exit })->pack();

MainLoop;

sub mouse_gesture {
    my ($w, $x, $y) = @_;

    # Once-off initialisation
    if (! defined $xpos) {
        $xpos = $x;
        $ypos = $y;
        return;
    }

    my $t1 = [gettimeofday];

    if (tv_interval($t0, $t1) > MAX_TIME_VARIATION) {
        $t0 = $t1;
        $xpos = $x;
        $ypos = $y;
    }
    else {
        if (abs(abs($xpos) - abs($x)) > X_MIN_DISTANCE_VARIATION) {
            $t0 = $t1;
            for (1 .. X_UNIT_SCROLL) {
                $w->xviewScroll($xpos < $x ? 1 : -1, q{units});
            }
            $xpos = $x;
        }

        if (abs(abs($ypos) - abs($y)) > Y_MIN_DISTANCE_VARIATION) {
            $t0 = $t1;
            for (1 .. Y_UNIT_SCROLL) {
                $w->yviewScroll($ypos < $y ? 1 : -1, q{units});
            }
            $ypos = $y;
        }
    }

    return;
}

sub populate_text_widget {
    my $w = shift;

    my $long_string = '';
    for ('a' .. 'z') {
        $long_string .= $_ x 20;
    }

    for (1 .. 500) {
        $w->insert('end',
            "This is line $_. It's really long ... $long_string\n"
        );
    }
}
[download]

Enjoy!

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.