Nick Carroll

Once you have plugged in your USB Sensor Bar you will notice the markedly improved cursor movements. The Wiimote can now be used as a replacement for your mouse. You can move the cursor around by moving the Wiimote in the direction that you want the cursor to move. You can also press the A and B buttons for left and right click mouse functionality respectively.

To make the most of the Wiimote when working with Mingle it is worth installing the Mouse Gestures plugin for Firefox. You can activate a mouse gesture or Wiimote gesture by holding down the B button and moving the Wiimote around to activate a command. For example you can hold the B button and draw an X within Firefox to close a tab, or move the Wiimote upward then to the right to navigate to the next tab on the right.

I created a custom Wiimote gesture by registering a line of javascript for opening a web page with the gesture: Up, Down-Right, Up-Right, Down. This gesture launches Mingle in Firefox by associating the gesture with some javascript, ie window._content.document.location.href=”http://localhost:8080” (assuming Mingle is running on port 8080 on your laptop). The following screen shots convey this action, as well as a similar gesture for signing into Mingle by literally signing my initials on the screen with the Wiimote.

You can also lasso a bunch of links and all the links will open up in their own tabs. Navigating up and down a page is as easy as drawing up and down arrows respectively. The Wiimote just works beautifully with the Mouse Gestures plugin.