2007/01/25 - FingaMIDI Development Ceases
Having finally got round to investigating the possibility of updating FingaMIDI to accomodate the newer (USB trackpad) machines, I have decided that it is not feasible to continue with the project. Unfortunately, Apple do not publish source code for their USB trackpad driver as they did for earlier ADB versions. This means that continuing with FingaMIDI would necessarily involve developing and maintaining a clone of that driver, a bigger task than all the rest of the project put together and more duplication of effort than I'm willing to take on. Many thanks to all of you who provided feedback and encouragement over the last three and a bit years.
2005/02/23 - New PowerBooks
The new (Feb 2005) PowerBooks use USB for internal connection of keyboard and trackpad, so FingaMIDI will not work with these models (it relies on an ADB driver). This is unlikely to change in the near future because:
- the new trackpads may not support absolute mode (although they probably do)
- the trackpad USB packet format would need to be reverse-engineered
- the driver code would have to be ported to a USB driver
- I don't have the time or resources (a new PowerBook!) to work on this at the moment... hopefully this will change in the future.
2005/01/05 - FingaMIDISwitch 0.2 beta
FingaMIDISwitch is a simple and lightweight menubar status item that allows you to switch quickly and easily between MIDI and pointing modes. You can switch by using the built in menu or by setting a hotkey that will work regardless of which application is active. You can download it here.
2004/12/24 - FingaMIDI 2.0 Released
This release is the latest stable version of FingaMIDI. You can download it here. FingaMIDI 2 requires OS X 10.3 Panther.
2004/04/18 - FingaMIDI 1.2 for Panther Released
This release fixes a problem experienced by MAX users whereby only x-axis data was correctly parsed by MAX's ctlin object. It is a recommended update for MAX/MSP users and anyone experiencing similar problems. The 1.2 release can be downloaded here.
2004/04/14 - FingaMIDI 1.1 for Panther Released
This release is a Mac OS X 10.3 Panther compatible version of FingaMIDI 1.0. There are no new features, but the latest (10.3.2) Apple ADB mouse driver code has been merged into the kernel module. You can download the 1.1 release here.
2004/03/16 - FingaMIDI 1.0 Released
There have been no major changes since RC2. This release is still officially 10.2/Jaguar only, results are unpredictable with 10.3/Panther. You can download FingaMIDI 1.0 here.
FingaMIDI is a replacement driver for the ADB trackpad found in Apple G4 PowerBooks and second generation (white) iBooks. It allows the inbuilt trackpad to be used as a three-axis MIDI controller, sending x, y and z (pressure) data as parameter change messages. OK, its not really pressure data but capacitance, which is proportional to the area of finger(s) or palm in contact with the pad. The trackpad button sends user-configurable note on and note off messages.
The software consists of four parts:
- Replacement trackpad driver kernel extension
- User-space CoreMIDI driver
- Preference pane
- Command line tool to allow switching between modes
Screenshots of FingaMIDI 2.0 PrefPane. Click for larger image.
FingaMIDI binaries and source code are available under the terms of the Apple Public Source Licence (APSL).
- Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar (for 1.0 and earlier)
- or 10.3 Panther (for 1.1 and later)
- Type 4 ADB trackpad (i.e. pre-2005 TiBook or similar)
The latest stable version can be downloaded here. See ReadMe.rtf (included in the download) for installation instructions.
FingaMIDI comes with absolutely no warranty. I make no promises about the performance or safety of FingaMIDI, but it works for me and it will probably work for you.
If you are having problems with FingaMIDI and can't find any answers in the documentation, leave a message in the Help forum and I will get back to you. Suggestions, feature requests and general feedback can be left in the Open Discussion forum or submitted via SourceForge's feature request system.
Developed by Stuart Yarrow, drawing on code from:
- ScrollPad by Heiko Hellweg
- OpenDarwin
Icon by Snowhouse