multitouch_midi_v1.dmg (Snow Leopard 10.6 only)

I just finished fighting my way through xcode and interface builder [1] to create an easily installed graphical version of my trackpad midi program. You can download it and run without having to compile from source. Installation:

Download it, Open it, drag to applications, start it. You probably won't hear any sound until after the next step.

You need something to turn my program's midi signals into sound. SimpleSynth is good. Download it, install it, run. Select "touchpad" under "MIDI Source" and you should hear notes as you move your fingers on the trackpad.

This is 10.6 only, and requires a trackpad or magic mouse. Let me know if you want it do have some new feature, or add it yourself and send me a pull request.

[1] That xcode is so gui based makes it really hard to search for help online. I got stuck trying to figure out how to make the checkboxes and pop up buttons I'd created in interface builder actually run code. The answer involves a little bit of IBOutlet and IBAction code and then a step where you drag from a graphical representation of your code to the button that should invoke it. That last step stumped me for far too long, mostly because it's hard to explain in words. "Connect your controller to the button by dragging the appropriate action." I think this may be one reason gui programming environments have not caught on as much as people expected: in a distributed environment where many people are learning on their own at their own computers, it's much easier to get help when everything that you have to do is text.