If there's a more appropriate forum for this, please move it there.

Hi there. I whipped up a little program in Visual Basic 6 to control the mouse using absolute positioning on Synaptics touchpads. It will appear as a little eye icon in your system tray. This may or may not be more comfortable to use in all of Windows, but if you want to play osu! with a touchpad, you NEED this. It actually works very well. I for one, have it in my Startup. I use the toggle shortcut mentioned below whenever I decide to play osu!.

You can configure the corners of the screen to be mapped to different positions on the touchpad if you want. Just click the buttons on the form, and hit space while your finger is on the position you want.

You can also hold Shift+Ctrl to temporarily disable Absolution, or use Ctrl+Alt+A to toggle it on and off as you will.

Don't know if you have a Synaptics Touchpad? That's easy to find out. Just grab the generic Synaptics driver installer, and run it. It's right here: http://www.synaptics.com/support/drive.cfm

If you have a Synaptics Touchpad, it will install or update the touchpad drivers on your system. But if you don't, then it will tell you so and exit.


A few caveats, though:
- It _will_ take some getting used to, but it's not hard by any means.
- Before using this program with osu!, you must set osu!'s sensitivity to 1.0x. Use an external mouse, or do it before starting SynAbs.
- Before going into standby, right click on the tray icon and disable Absolution. The cursor is unresponsive before logging in if you don't. You can also hit Ctrl+Alt+A before logging off and after logging on, or when you log back in, hit Shift+Ctrl and it will come back.


Without further ado, here's the download link:
http://eternaleon.googlepages.com/SynAbs.zip

I'd be happy to address any problems or add whatever features that I can. I'm not a stellar VB6 programmer by any means, but I'll do my best. Enjoy!


Updates:
10/27 - Vertical scrolling is functional + misc. changes in code
10/29 - Corners can now be redefined; changes saved in an INI file
11/2 - Shift+Ctrl temporary absolution disable + Ctrl+Alt+A absolution toggle hotkey
1/30 - The program now works. I blame it entirely on Vista.

V_v
O_O
^_^
You, good Sir, have just won 5 Internets.

It makes me sad my Sony laptop doesn't use a synaptics touchpad .

I just noticed something: If you set mouse sensitivity at 4, you can use a touchpad combined with this program to get an INSANE amount of bonus points. >:3

What, on spinners? That's frightening. O_O;

Well, in any case, thanks for the compliment. Sorry the program won't work with your laptop, Peppy. Out of curiosity, what kind of drivers does it have?

Update!!!

Vertical scrolling should now be functional. I don't have a horizontal scrollbar, though; if anyone would like to help me get it implemented, PM me and I'll let you know how you can help me.

If vertical scrolling is NOT working for you, let me know, and I will look into it. PM me and I'll let you know how you can help me as well.

Also, if you know how to intercept a standby message in VB 6, so that I can unacquire the device before standby and re-acquire it after, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could share that gem of info.


Simply re-download the program for the update.

Update!

You can now redefine the top left and bottom right corners of the touchpad. Instructions on how to do so are in the about window (just double click the eye). These custom settings will be saved in an INI file named SynAbs.ini.

I still need help getting horizontal scrolling working, and I also need help with the standby thing. If anyone can help, that'd be greatly appreciated.

ARGH. I'm triple posting.

Anyways, this new update adds two useful features for those who want to use SynAbs in everyday Windows use.

1. Shift+Ctrl - Temporary Absolution disable
If you need to be precise anywhere for some reason, and this actually happens a lot, just hold Shift+Ctrl. As long as this key combo is down, the pointer will move in relative motion. Upon releasing it, absolute motion will resume.

2. Ctrl+Alt+A - Toggle Absolution
It's just a useful hotkey shortcut to toggle absolution.

Right now, these features can't be disabled or configured. Next update will add stuff to the about window to configure this.

Hi, I just "borrowed" from work, but got this message when opening your application

"Component 'SynCtrl.dll' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid"

The SynAbs.exe file is only 40kb. Any idea what's wrong?

This means that the laptop you are using doesn't have a synaptic touchpad. In short, you can't use this app.

Not necessarily. When I switched to XP from Vista, I had that same strange problem. I even had the blasted source of all everything and it didn't work. I fixed it, but due to lack of interest toward the program, I chose not to bother with updating it.

I've uploaded a zip file, and this time it has the DLLs in with it for good measure. Give it a shot and see if it works now.

http://eternaleon.googlepages.com/SynAbs.zip

I've also realized that using SynAbs in normal Windows activity quickly becomes a pain in the ass. Good thing I added that Ctrl+Alt+A shortcut.

Sorry. Most touchpads can only use fingers. Some can use pens, but I don't know of any, nor do I know if they'll work. This program maps the corners of the touchpad to the corners of your screen, so using your finger won't be that bad.

That is, if this program works for you. I still haven't recieved any feedback on it yet.

Yay, this laptop has a Synaptic and it works with SynAbs.

This will take some zetta getting used to.