How can I map keyboard keys to mouse axes in Terminal?

Question

How can I map the mouse axes to my keyboard keys in the Mac OSX 10.6 Terminal? For example, moving the mouse up (positive x) triggers a keypress of W. Is this built in, or do I need a software package? The only search results I found were for mouse-driver, which I don't have on my system.

Answer 1

There's Divvy, and SizeUp, and Flexiglass - they don't do exactly what you're after, but they do offer more flexible keyboard control over windowing. They're probably all worth a look.

http://mizage.com/divvy/

http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/

http://www.nulana.com/flexiglass

Good luck!

Answer 2

As a workaround you could write a command line tool to move the mouse cursor around and then use your shell's programmable key-binding options to execute this command line tool when a specified key sequence is entered.

/*

File: 
mvright.m

Compile with: 
gcc -Wall -Wextra -framework ApplicationServices -framework Foundation -o mvright mvright.m

Successfully compiled on:
Mac OS X 10.6.8

Usage:
./mvright
# in .bashrc; press ctrl-h keys to move mouse cursor to the right
bind -x '"\C-h": /usr/local/bin/mvright'  

References:

- "Controlling the mouse from Python in OS X",
  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/281133/controlling-the-mouse-from-python-in-os-x, 
  http://synergy-foss.org 
- "Move and click the mouse via code", 
  http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2008051406323031

*/ 


#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>
#import <ApplicationServices/ApplicationServices.h>


int main(void) {

   NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];

   // Get the current mouse location
   CGEventRef ourEvent = CGEventCreate(NULL);
   CGPoint ourLoc = CGEventGetLocation(ourEvent);

   //NSLog(@"Location? x= %f, y = %f", (float)ourLoc.x, (float)ourLoc.y);

   // The data structure CGPoint represents a point in a two-dimensional
   // coordinate system.  Here, X and Y distance from upper left, in pixels.
   CGPoint pt;
   pt.x = (float)ourLoc.x + 10.0;
   pt.y = (float)ourLoc.y;

   //NSLog(@"Location? x= %f, y = %f", (float)pt.x, (float)pt.y);

   CGEventRef eventRef;
   eventRef = CGEventCreateMouseEvent(NULL, kCGEventMouseMoved, pt, kCGMouseButtonCenter);

   //Apparently, a bug in xcode requires this next line
   //CGEventSetType(eventRef, kCGEventMouseMoved);

   CGEventPost(kCGSessionEventTap, eventRef);
   //CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, eventRef);

   CFRelease(eventRef);
   CFRelease(ourEvent);

   [pool release];
   return 0;

}

Answer 3

To receive mouse events in Terminal.app have a look at tools such as MouseTerm, USBOverdrive or ControllerMate!

If you feel like using a command line tool, have a look at altermouse.c as well (... possibly extended by using AppleScript).

For some X11 tools see xdotool and xautomation (the former being available via MacPorts).

Answer 4

You could also use KeyRemap4MacBook.

You can assign other keys to the mouse key actions by creating a private.xml. The test folder has an XML file with all the predefined remappings.