Smart Scroll X adds 'kinetic' scrolling to Mac OS X
Like that kinetic scrolling on the iPhone so much that you want it on your Mac? You'll definitely want to check out Smart Scroll X, a third-party application I read about on MacUser. The app is $19, but there's a free trial, which I took full advantage of to show you a short video demonstration. Smart Scroll X is easy to configure for a mouse, trackpad or keyboard and I like how you can reverse both the X- and Y-axis control. Even better is the Grab-and-scroll, a function similar to the Flicks navigation we Vista Tablet PC users have enjoyed.
I could see this coming in handy for folks that are tired of scrolling again and again in the page of an app since this works not just with Safari, but in native Cocoa apps on the Mac. It was a huge help to me earlier today in TextEdit for example. You can really get around fast with this software. Oh, and sorry in advance if I get you sea-sick with all the scrolling in this vid!
Kevin- Your Youtube vids are extremely clear. I do videos with a little handheld vid machine called the Flip Video. When I show the vids on a connected computer or TV, the pix are crystal clear, but when I put them on Youtube they come out MUCH less clear than yours. Is there a commercial or higher def setting available on Youtube, or perhaps you just feed in much better video so when Youtube compresses it, it looks that much better. Any thoughts will be appreciated.
Posted by: Al | February 20, 2008 at 05:09 PM
Al, I'm naturally photogenic. That's all I can say. ;)
Seriously, there are so many factors involved, but I think the key is to encode your video in H.264/MPEG-4. Bear in mind that we also have a YouTube Directors account, so our videos can be up to 100 MB in size. That gives us room to boost the bit-rate or play with settings as needed. For this particular video, I actually encoded it for VGA, or 640x320. Most of our prior vids are 480x320. That may be helping this particular one as well. The key is to have high-quality video as your source. Hope that helps a little!
Posted by: Kevin C. Tofel | February 20, 2008 at 05:32 PM
As usual OSX $20 add-on that has been Windows freeware since Win98 (MouseIMP Pro).
Posted by: bmhome1 | February 20, 2008 at 10:30 PM
As usual "Er, no." The features may look similar in a bullet point list, but actually using the thing is worlds apart. MouseIMP Pro is nice but this is something else!
Posted by: another sadly deluded individual | February 21, 2008 at 06:16 AM
Just wanted to note that there is a FireFox extension called "Grab&Drag" that does the same thing (on Macs and PCs) for free. It however obviously only works in FireFox of course. Might be interesting for some people nevertheless. I use it on both my Vista Desktop and my Q1 Ultra and like it very much.
Also, newer Logitech Mice (the MX Revolution as well as the VX Nano) have that feature built into the hardware (flywheel) and the driver. Works quite well, even if it's not as versatile as other solutions.
Posted by: Andreas | February 21, 2008 at 07:31 AM
I am a Grab&Drag user on Firefox for a long time ! No options but really good for free.
Posted by: Lorie Ghamy | February 21, 2008 at 08:09 AM
Version 2.5.0.3 of Grab&Drag has plenty of options, similar to Smart Scoll X!
Posted by: Andreas | February 21, 2008 at 08:53 AM
Pointing your video camera at the screen is rather hokey, you should try Snapz Pro X.
(got mine with MacHeist)
Posted by: TranceMist | February 29, 2008 at 02:19 PM
I agree about Grab & Drag. Same thing, and free for Firefox. Just configure it to the left mouse button and kinetic scroll all you want: http://grabanddrag.mozdev.org/index.html
Posted by: Reggie | February 29, 2008 at 03:29 PM