Exclusion zones
An exclusion zone is a rectangle on the screen where Input.Observer stays out of the way. A draw-button press inside it goes straight to the window underneath: no gesture starts. Use one for a spot where you need the plain right-click, such as a toolbar, a game's mini-map or a corner of a remote desktop.
Advanced mode. The Exclusion zones page is in the Engine section of the navigation, which the configuration window shows in Advanced mode only. So are the zones on the App groups page.
What a zone does
- A press inside the zone. A press of a mouse button the zone covers is passed to the window as a normal press. No gesture, no trail, no Draw button released event.
- A gesture that starts outside. A zone only matters where the press happens. A gesture that starts outside a zone and is drawn across or into it is not affected, as with the stroke in the picture.
- The wheel. A zone that covers the vertical or horizontal wheel never stops scrolling. Wheel ticks inside it just don't count as wheel modifiers for a gesture (Modifiers and timing) and don't fire the wheel global events (Global events). While a gesture is being drawn, its wheel ticks still count for that gesture.
- Only draw buttons. Only the draw buttons chosen on the General page start gestures, so a zone has an effect only on them. The mouse-button global events still fire inside a zone.
- Training. While you train gestures, zones don't apply.
A zone that follows The window is checked a moment after the press, because the window's size has to be read first. The press then reaches the window a moment late, which you normally don't notice.
Draw a zone
The page shows a picture of every connected monitor, with your zones on it, then the list of zones and the selected zone's fields.
- On the picture ①, drag across empty screen space to draw a zone. Or click + Zone: it adds a zone a quarter of the size of the main monitor, in its center, covering every current draw button.
- Drag the zone to move it, and drag the selected zone's edges or corners to resize it. The arrow keys move the selected zone by one pixel, or 10 pixels with Shift. To set it exactly, type Left, Top, Width and Height ②.
- To place a zone to the exact pixel over your real screens, click Show on screen ③. Every zone appears at full size over the screen; drag it, or its edges, then press Esc or click Done.
- Under Mouse buttons ④, choose which buttons the zone lets through. Turn on Vertical wheel or Horizontal wheel (tilt) if it should cover the wheel too.
- Name the zone, and save.
The picture of your screens is taken when the page opens. Refresh picture takes a new one and reads the monitor layout again. The picture stays in memory and is never saved, and the configuration window itself is left out of it.
The zone's fields
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | For you only. A new zone is named Zone 1, Zone 2 and so on. |
| Active | Off keeps the zone without using it. The switch is also on the zone's row in the list. |
| Left, Top | Where the zone's top-left corner is, in physical screen pixels: the pixels Windows counts before display scaling. Values can be negative for a monitor left of or above the main one. |
| Width, Height | The zone's size in physical pixels, at least 16. |
| Mouse buttons | The buttons whose press passes through. Only draw buttons matter. |
| Vertical wheel, Horizontal wheel (tilt) | Whether wheel ticks inside the zone are kept from counting as gesture modifiers and from firing wheel global events. |
| Follows | Advanced mode. What the zone's position is measured against (What a zone follows). |
A zone that is anchored to a monitor (Any monitor or The window) is kept on one monitor while you edit it: moving it hands it to the monitor under its center, and resizing it stops at that monitor's edge. A Stays put zone can span monitors, but stays on the desktop.
What a zone follows
Follows chooses how the zone's rectangle is used when you press a button:
| Choice | The zone is |
|---|---|
| Stays put (the default) | Exactly where it is drawn, whichever monitor the pointer is on. |
| Any monitor | The same distance from the top-left corner of the monitor the pointer is on, at the same size. It is not scaled to a bigger or smaller monitor. |
| The window | Placed on the top-level window under the pointer instead of a monitor. The monitor the zone is drawn on stands in for that window. |
For The window, four more choices say how the zone follows the window's size:
| Choice | Options |
|---|---|
| Left edge, Top edge | Proportional: the edge stays at the same share of the window's width or height. Fixed distance (the default): the edge stays the same number of pixels from the window's left or top. |
| Width, Height | Proportional: the size stays the same share of the window's size. Fixed size (the default): the size never changes. Fixed margin: the zone's right or bottom edge stays the same distance from the window's right or bottom edge, so the zone grows and shrinks with the window. |
Example: a zone drawn over the top 120 pixels of a monitor, with The window, Fixed distance for both edges, Proportional width and Fixed size height, covers the top 120 pixels of whatever window is under the pointer, across its full width.
Advanced mode. Follows and the edge choices are shown in Advanced mode only. In Simple mode a note under the zone says when the selected zone follows something other than Stays put.
Zones for one app group
The zones on the Exclusion zones page apply to every window. An app group can have zones of its own, which apply only to windows in that group, on top of the zones for every window. Edit them in the Exclusion zones tab on the App groups page (Advanced mode); they work exactly like the zones on this page. When any app group has zones of its own, this page names those groups.
A press inside either kind of zone passes through. In an ignored program, no press starts a gesture anyway (Ignore groups).
Problems shown under a zone
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| This zone lets nothing through | No mouse button and no wheel is chosen, so the zone has no effect. |
| None of these buttons draws gestures | The chosen buttons aren't draw buttons on the General page, so the zone has no effect until one is. |
| Not on a connected monitor | The zone overlaps no monitor that is connected now. It is kept as it is; move it if that monitor is gone for good. |
| Has no area | The width or height is zero or less (only possible from an edited configuration file). Enter a width and height. The zone's row in the list carries a warning dot. |