Ignored modifier keys

An ignored modifier key lets one press of a draw button through as an ordinary click. Hold the key, press the draw button, and the program under the pointer gets the press exactly as if Input.Observer weren't running: a right-click opens its context menu, a right-drag does whatever that program does with one. No gesture starts, no trail is drawn, and nothing is matched.

The default ignored modifier key is Ctrl. With it, Ctrl+right-click and Ctrl+right-drag always reach the program.

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General

Starting a gesture

Draw buttons

Left buttonRight buttonMiddle buttonSide button 1Side button 2

1

Ignored modifier keys

Holding any of these keys when you press the gesture button skips gesture capture for that press.

CtrlShiftAlt

1. Open the General page.
2. In the Starting a gesture card, click the keys you want in Ignored modifier keys ①. Click a selected key again to remove it.
3. Save.

The rules

• Only Ctrl, Shift and Alt can be ignored modifier keys. Win can't. A configuration file that names any other key has it removed when it loads.
• None, one or several. With none selected, every draw-button press can start a gesture.
• Any one is enough. With several selected, holding any one of them ignores the press. Releasing some of them doesn't matter while another one is still held.
• Either side. Left and right Ctrl both count as Ctrl, and so on.
• Checked only at the press. What counts is what you hold at the moment you press the draw button. Pressing the key after a gesture has started doesn't cancel it; it counts as a modifier pressed during the gesture (Modifiers and timing).
• One press at a time. Each press of the draw button is checked on its own. There is nothing to switch on or off.

An ignored modifier key affects only the press of a draw button. It does not affect hotkeys, text expansion or global events. A mouse-button global event for that button still fires (Global events); Draw button released does not, because no gesture started.

Ignored keys as gesture modifiers

A key can be an ignored modifier key and a gesture modifier at the same time, with one limit:

Timing of the gesture trigger	Can it use an ignored modifier key?
Before	No. Holding the key when you press the draw button stops the gesture from starting, so this trigger could never match. The modifier picker refuses the key and says why.
After	Yes. Press the key after the gesture has started.
Either	Yes, but only the "pressed during" half can ever match.

Example, with Ctrl ignored and a Swipe left trigger that needs Ctrl, Either:

• Hold Ctrl, then press the right button: the right-click goes to the program. No gesture.
• Press the right button, start drawing, press Ctrl, finish: the trigger matches.

Simple mode doesn't show timing, and a new trigger uses Either. So in Simple mode a gesture with Ctrl as a modifier works only when you press Ctrl after you start drawing, as long as Ctrl is an ignored modifier key.

Other ways to pass a click through

• To leave a whole program alone, use an ignore group.
• To leave a part of the screen alone, use an exclusion zone.
• To pause everything, turn off Enabled on the tray menu (The tray icon).
• To let only the next draw-button press through, run an action that calls the EngineDisableNextGesture builtin, for example from a hotkey (Builtins).