Here are the gestures that I use. You can see they are all straight lines.
I've tried more complex gestures but I've found not using them much over time. Currently, I only use straight-line gestures. Unfortunately, they often get detected incorrectly (different gesture triggers, nothing happens).
I'd be fine if there's a setting for a simpler and more reliable heuristic that only cares about the direction of the line. Just an angle, that's it.
<3 BetterTouchTool
I'm in the process of switching to Apple's machine learning framework for recognizing drawing gestures. As soon as this is done, straight lines will work fine 
I want to second this: as others mentioned in other threads, I'm actually using a completely different application for my gestures because, the straight-line stuff is to important.
You want to map your most frequent actions to the cheapest input.
E.g. I map the gesture "Down" to "Close Tab".
I'm not sure how much I'm adding to the conversation here, I just want to express how surprised I was with your implementation: I'm sure that it took you a while to do but, as it stands, as far most gesture junkies are concerned, it's literally as though you did not even offer the feature.
I'm greatly looking forward to the new one. 
Has there been any progress on implementing straight lines? Currently the configuration window for gestures still indicates that straight lines cannot be used.
I cannot support the request for the reliable recognition of straight-line gestures enough. I couldn't if I tried.
Mouse gestures is the one thing I use BTT for.
I've spent hours upon hours trying fine-tune the quirks of the existing engine (no matter the required recognition certainty it always prefers diagonal gestures to horizontal and vertical, it goes nuts after each reload until one opens settings, the rotation tolerance is pure madness, etc., etc.) — and still it messes up every forth or fifth gesture.
Which makes it more of a nuisance than a help.
Windows has had StrokesPlus and StrokesPlus.Net for a more than a decade. It works like a dream recognising those. Is free. I cannot believe a paid application, an app so feature rich as BTT — would be missing this simple a feature this late in its development.
Again, I cannot support the request for better simple gestures recognition enough.
Please, do tell me that something is in the works in this department.
Thanks so much.
Hello, Andreas. Could you please tell if there is any progress with this? Can we expect gesture recognition to become better any time soon?
Thanks so much!
Nearly 5 years after the thread starter first commented: are there any plans on implementing straight lines? Sadly, this is the main feature I need from BTT resp. when using mouse gestures.
straight lines have been supported for 1 or 2 years already 
Their confusion is probably because when drawing a new mouse gesture the screen still says "Don't draw pure straight lines, they are currently not supported (include at least one curve)."
Also, I discovered that setting "Number of points to sample per drawing" to 0 and then trying to draw a mouse gesture causes BTT to crash. Of course, there's no actual reason to set that to 0 so it's not a big problem.
ah thanks I'll update that text!
Holy cow, gestures have crashed my BTT for years so I've never used them. Your comment about having samples per drawing at 0 fixed it (I don't know why I had it set like that)! Andreas, if you can edit out that option it might help some other people!
Hello, Andreas!
Could you please tell what do you mean by "straight lines have been supported for 1 or 2 years already"?
Is there some switch in the drawing configuration to tell the thing that the gesture I mean is a straight line, not a curve?
Because, as it is, and as it has been for the last four years, the recognition of straight line gestures has been the one, the only, and the most irritating source of frustration about your wonderful app.
I do have many and many keyboard shortcuts set up, but what I use BTT for the most — is straight line gestures in browser.
As you can see above in this very thread, I'm far from being alone.
Very simple system: 8 directions, 45° step. N, NE, E, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. All eight used. Open, close tabs, next, previous tab, copy, paste, etc..
It does not work some thirty percent of the times.
Worse than that. Each time it doesn't recognise the intended gesture — it does recognise it as another, next to it clockwise or counterclockwise, and — triggers that.
Half the times I, say, draw a W line, a perfectly straight W line (which is set as 'prev. tab'), it gets recognised as NW one, which is 'close tab'. Which I have to reopen, then try the same gesture again for the sake of sticktoitiveness. And it would misfire again. And this fun goes on and on, and really defeats the purpose of using gestures in BTT at all. For years now.
I come from Windows where there is the utility StrokesPlus where these mouse gestures work like a charm, 10 out of 10, 100 out of 100.
Please, do hear us. It is a considerable source of frustration, and it has been that for years and years now.
Straight lines seem to be a very simple (straightforward, if you excuse the pun) thing to recognise. And, obviously, are the very first thing people are setting up when they get to it. Yet they are recognised the least reliably.
You have told me years ago that the recognition engine you use is not yours and you have no control over it. Maybe you could think of making straight lines a sort of gestures of their own? Maybe a box one could tick in the configuration process, so the thing would know that I mean a straight line, and only the start and end points should be considered. Without using that third-party engine: simply calculate the angle the between the two forms and compare it to the others in the 'straight' category.
Please, do consider this.
And — thank you so much for your hard work!
@Mark_K ah yes if you have the NW/SW/SE/NE lines in addition it can still be problematic. I have implemented a "short circuit" for straight line gestures, but it wasn't enabled yet. In 5.274 alpha you can try it by naming your gestures either
up, down, left, right, up-left, up-right, down-right, down-left
or
south, north, east, west, north-west, north-east, south-west, south-east
In my tests this has worked well. Maybe I'll add it explicitly to the recording UI.
Hey, Andreas!
What a beaut you are!
I've tried the alpha, renamed the gestures, and — it definitely does seem to work much more reliably. Have only used only over some half an hour and a hundred times, and — haven't had one misfire yet.
Thank you so very much! This is such, such an important feature for me! Thank you!
