No longer maintained? Project dead? Powerful Feature Suggestions & reasons for project adoption!

[Nathan Gillette]

(Current project status)

This project appears to no longer be maintained, as no changes have been made to the source since 2013 and no other signs of life can be found.  For me, it stopped working after I upgraded my Linux OS, leading me to find a working alternative.  To my surprise, what I needed was included with the OS by default (syndaemon).  Upon researching, it appears this desired feature is a built-in standard option in both Windows 7 & 8 as well, removing the need for this 3rd party application entirely. 

It is my guess that after both Linux & Windows added touchfreeze features, the author deemed this project pointless to maintain and abandoned it to work on other projects.  If it were my project, I would abandon it too!  If you're reading this, Ivan, please update the project homepage on google code to reflect that the project is no longer maintained so that users don't waste time posting new "issues". 

Also, that'll open the door for others to revive & take-over this project.  While a basic on/off toggle option in OS's, there are many more features such software could potentially have, such as :

(Feature suggestions)

1) Application-specific customizations that change based on the active window, (i.e. allow keyboard+touch-pad in graphics editor, but not in a programming IDE or word processor).
2) Toggle features based on whether or not any app. is currently maximized on the screen.  Combine feature with #1 above.
3) Toggle features based on how much keyboard input has occurred since last click (i.e. freeze after 50 characters have been typed, but not before)
** Combine all of the above for "Freeze only when MS Word is full-screened AND I have typed 50 characters consecutively"
4) Allow highlighting of text while typing, but add selected text automatically to a custom clipboard to protect against accidental deletion/replacement (when ctrl+Z doesn't work)
5) Allow a "triple-click" or other mouse gesture to 'unfreeze' the touch-pad instantly...
6) Allow any pop-up window/program that stole focus (without any clicks) to over-ride the freeze, but... auto-record keystrokes (custom clipboard again) entered until mouse IS clicked
** Assume keystrokes before mouse movement/click belonged in previously-focused app., automatically paste recorded input when app. regains focus. 
7) Allow alt+tab and ctrl+tab to over-ride freeze, but not clicking on task-bar icons... letting power users quickly unfreeze and change apps.
8) Let user select what they DON'T want clicked when frozen... like disabling start menu, quick launch, task bar, tray, and desktop icons... allowing use of all software features.
9) "Only allow these programs" to become active when mouse is frozen in "This program". 
** Allow FTP client & web browser focus change when programming in IDE software, but nothing else.

Don't depend on any specific driver, hook into Windows API just like a key-logger.  Detect amount of keyboard and mouse usage and use to "adapt" the software to user usage.  Allow power-users to customize the heck out of this to go beyond simple touch-pad control to more broad program active/focus control to ensure app. doesn't lose focus for any undesired reason.  Protect especially against any buttons or actions that could cause loss of a lot of work.  "Accident prevention software".  Preferably track # of keystrokes without setting off key-logger.  WhatPulse and others have shown it *can* be done.

(Reasons for product adoption and expansion, why bother?)

The goal of TouchFreeze or any other similar app or OS toggle switch is to prevent mistakes and wasted time.  Mistakes like closing a window on accident without saving work, or accidentally losing app. focus of where you are typing (typing when no input box is active, keystrokes go nowhere and are wasted).  This can go much further than just generically  blocking clicks while typing and more towards dis/allowed mouse events and app. focus control for productivity.  One page of lost data input is worth a lot of time, and most of us cannot afford to lose that time.  Speaking of time, yours as a developer is valuable too - so if you're going to push the features this far, do so as a closed-source program and charge a really low and reasonable fee of $1-5 depending on personal/business usage.

If properly coded with all features listed, and hardware-independent... there's masses of users out there that'd happily pay a few bucks for all those features.  If reasonably sold at $2 per user license, most power-users on laptops would opt-in for a paid solution that increases productivity and prevents mistakes and frustration.  Companies would invest for their users to keep them more productive (by force).  Even as a primarily desktop user I'd find it useful for when I get too click-happy or when system is sluggish and falls behind the speed of my clicks, causing clicking mistakes.  I rarely pay for software, but for this, I'd shell out a few bucks.  Many selling points, would think it'd be quite an easy sell.

- - - - - - - - -

Feel free to delete this post if software becomes actively maintained again.

- - - - - - - - -

Ivan :

Thanks for all your hard work on this - it was a priceless tool to masses of users for many years. 
You have saved countless laptops from destruction by frustrated power users.  Thanks again!

- Nathan

[Ivan Zhakov]

On 14 February 2015 at 15:04, Nathan Gillette
<antimalw...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Nathan,

Thanks for your post. Feedback is very important for software
developers, especially for open source projects. Please some comments
inline.

> (Current project status)
>
> This project appears to no longer be maintained, as no changes have been
> made to the source since 2013 and no other signs of life can be found. For
> me, it stopped working after I upgraded my Linux OS, leading me to find a
> working alternative. To my surprise, what I needed was included with the OS
> by default (syndaemon). Upon researching, it appears this desired feature
> is a built-in standard option in both Windows 7 & 8 as well, removing the
> need for this 3rd party application entirely.
>
> It is my guess that after both Linux & Windows added touchfreeze features,
> the author deemed this project pointless to maintain and abandoned it to
> work on other projects. If it were my project, I would abandon it too! If
> you're reading this, Ivan, please update the project homepage on google code
> to reflect that the project is no longer maintained so that users don't
> waste time posting new "issues".
>
> Also, that'll open the door for others to revive & take-over this project.
> While a basic on/off toggle option in OS's, there are many more features
> such software could potentially have, such as :
>

I would like to say that project is not abandoned, it's not actively
maintained. There several reasons for that:
1. Yes, I've upgraded my laptop which doesn't have problem with
touchpad on it :)

2. There are some new restrictions in Windows 7 that makes hooking in
events used for TouchFreeze to work not so reliable: sometimes it
works, sometimes it doesn't. There are many bug reports that
TouchFreeze doesn't work in some configurations, but I cannot
reproduce in my test environment. Please note that TouchFreeze uses
the same API used by many keyloggers, so it's matter of time when it
will be prohibited completely. One solution would be to digitally sign
TouchFreeze executable, but certificate authorities don't provide
codesign certificate for personals.

3. Google Code stopped to accept new downloads. Shame on them:
http://google-opensource.blogspot.ru/2013/05/a-change-to-google-code-download-service.html

So I need to find some hosting to upload new download. Not a big
problem, just another bump on the road to have another release.

Despite of that many users download it every day and find it helpful.
One reason that there are millions of very old laptops with Windows
XP.

> (Feature suggestions)
>
> 1) Application-specific customizations that change based on the active
> window, (i.e. allow keyboard+touch-pad in graphics editor, but not in a
> programming IDE or word processor).
> 2) Toggle features based on whether or not any app. is currently maximized
> on the screen. Combine feature with #1 above.

Yes, Minecraft and Photoshop is the most widely reported:
https://code.google.com/p/touchfreeze/issues/detail?id=58
https://code.google.com/p/touchfreeze/issues/detail?id=62
https://code.google.com/p/touchfreeze/issues/detail?id=55
https://code.google.com/p/touchfreeze/issues/detail?id=21

> 3) Toggle features based on how much keyboard input has occurred since last
> click (i.e. freeze after 50 characters have been typed, but not before)
> ** Combine all of the above for "Freeze only when MS Word is full-screened
> AND I have typed 50 characters consecutively"
> 4) Allow highlighting of text while typing, but add selected text
> automatically to a custom clipboard to protect against accidental
> deletion/replacement (when ctrl+Z doesn't work)

I'm not sure if this could be easily implemented without using some
unreliable heuristics.

> 5) Allow a "triple-click" or other mouse gesture to 'unfreeze' the touch-pad
> instantly...

Just curious: what is the use-case for this functionality?

That are very interesting ideas. May be someone else will implement it
someday. But I would like to keep TouchFreeze is lightweight
swiss-knife like solution for exact one problem: prevent accidental
clicks while typing. Bugs should be fixed and required features, like
workarounds for Photoshop should be implemented, but I don't like the
idea to make TouchFreeze to be most important app on machine. Many of
suggested features should be fixed in IDE, text editors etc.

I'm still going to fix bugs someday, but need time and motivation for
this: I also have day job, other open-source projects, kids etc.

> Ivan :
>
> Thanks for all your hard work on this - it was a priceless tool to masses of
> users for many years.
> You have saved countless laptops from destruction by frustrated power users.
> Thanks again!
>

Thanks!

--
Ivan Zhakov

[Nathan]

Wow, that was a surprise.  I was expecting no answer, and got one within hours.  Guess that's what I get for assuming.

As for the triple-click... if "TouchFreeze" disables clicks... a "triple click" or other gesture would "over-ride" the frozen status of the touch-pad. 
That idea was intended for use only with configurable "freezing" - i.e. full touch-pad freeze (no movement or clicks), left-click freeze, right-click freeze, L+R click freeze
Again, suggested only in conjunction with the other feature ideas.

In regards to swiss-army knife... I agree that the TouchFreeze project should have the one purpose as you stated. 
What I was suggesting with all the other features is a "fork" of the project, as it'd obviously be doing a lot more than just freezing the touch-pad.

*Free* Google Code repository alternatives that include binary hosting :

     https://github.com/features        Most popular, a little more difficult for noobs to use and navigate to binary download link
     https://bitbucket.org/features     Most similar to Google Code, very simple navigation for easy noob access to binary download(s)

Thanks again for your honest and prompt response !!

- Nathan