uControl Contributions

Shane Celis's uControl is an outstanding GPL utility that extends the Mac OS X human interface event system (HID). Originally created to offer limited keyboard remapping, uControl has grown to become a powerful utility for tweaking Mac OS X.

I'm pleased to have contributed the following features to uControl...

Many Windows laptops implement trackpad scrolling in their trackpad drivers. Although Apple PowerBooks have long had pads with similar capabilities the PowerBook trackpad is controlled by custom Apple firmware connected to the ADB bus. Prior to recent PowerBook models Apple did not offer any scrolling features.

As a part of my desire to have this feature on my PowerBook I developed a feature for uControl which allows one to use the trackpad as a scroll wheel when a modifier key (typically the "Fn" key) is held down. Shane, uControl's author, was kind enough to make my patch a part of the standard distribution of uControl.

I'm still working on ever better trackpad scrolling for PowerBooks. See the SideTrack page for the latest developments.

uControl has the ability to remap the PowerBook keyboard Function keys (F-Keys) so that you can use F1 through F11 without needing to hold the "Fn" modifier key.

Apple took this longstanding feature of Mac OS 9 away with the move to Mac OS X. Although Apple finally reintroduced this feature in Mac OS X 10.3.3, users of other versions of Mac OS X are left in the cold. uControl now offers a means to take control of the F-Keys again on systems where Apple doesn't offer that functionality.