Suggestion: Centered Mouse Pointer

[kas1e]

I personally never worry about it, but what i know for sure, that even small and little impovement always good, even if only few users will apprecate it. Option in input-prefs can be pretty fine, and adding of it for sure can't be hard (get x/y of current resolution, calculate the middle, put cursor on new position and add one more entry to input prefs which will trigger such a function). I mean it can't be big waste of resources if only anyone from dev-team will have motivatin to do so. And in end any user can setup it as they wish (by default just leave it as now, to avoid any "its not old amiga feel by default" )

[cha05e90]

I really don't see anything un-Amiga (nor the opposite) in this.

Heretic, heretic!

[chris]

Agreed, but this doesn't mean it couldn't be set to the middle of the current WB screen after IPrefs has finished setting it up, just that once during startup. It could be a separate command run from Startup-Sequence that did it.

Well, if it's a separate command you're after, that's easily done. Try this one from 1987 (works fine under OS4, I just tried it*): http://aminet.net/package/util/batch/MovePointer

Source code is in the archive too, so it can be built OS4-native if desired. I'm sure a tweak to make it move to the middle of the screen (calculate the co-ordinates of the middle of the screen) would be easy to add.

I did actually find another one that did the screen centring thing already, but it just crashed under OS4.

* although it seems to be affected by mouse speed settings, especially accelerated mode.

edit Scratch that, found one from 1995 that does exactly what you want, and works under OS4. http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/SetMouseV20

[nbache]

Well, if it's a separate command you're after, that's easily done. Try this one from 1987 ...

Yes, I know there are several of those; I used to use one (not sure if it was one of the ones you mention) back in the day under OS 3.x.

And I could of course just do that again, which would fill my personal need, but do nothing for everybody else.

Edit: I just found an old User-Startup in a backup from my old A1200 3.x machine; the file was last edited in 2002 (but that system was installed in 1996). It contained this line:

Work:PD/Tools/SetMouse/SetMouse 45 55 >NIL:

So I must have had something useful around that position on my WB back then - don't remember what. Might have been my MiamiDx operation panel, which would have made it easier to go online once booted.(Edit end)

@all:
My main reason for requesting this was that the pointer is half hidden up there in the corner; the fact that I have to move the mouse so far (to e.g. reach AmiDock at its default position at the bottom of the screen) is actually a bit less important for me, but still weighs in. 3 years ago, IIRC, I "only" used 1600×1200, now I have 2560×1600, so it's even more difficult to spot the half pointer in the corner (and the movement to the bottom is even longer).

Best regards,

Niels

[chris]

@nbache

Yeah, that's the one from my edit.

I don't see why your mouse pointer is half-hidden. On a CRT monitor it might be, but LCD screens show the entire frame. I would suggest your monitor settings are the problem here. If there's an overscan option switch it off.

[nbache]

@nbache

I don't see why your mouse pointer is half-hidden. On a CRT monitor it might be, but LCD screens show the entire frame. I would suggest your monitor settings are the problem here. If there's an overscan option switch it off.

It can be partly hidden if the hotspot of the pointer is not at the extreme top left corner of the pointer image. This was, IIRC, the case with default pointers on the previous OS versions. This has improved, it seems. So probably the real problem today is that it lands on top of the boing ball in the WB screen title bar and is therefore hard to distinguish from that, especially on a high resolution WB.

And no, I don't have any overscan defined. Actually, the Overscan prefs editor has been deprecated long ago, and I don't even have one.

Best regards,

Niels

[kas1e]

Just in case: Thomas upload os4 binary with source of small tool which set the mouse cursor in the middle: "MidMouse is a little small tool, which centered your mousepointer in the middle of the screen at the startup. Copy it to a place wherever you want and choose it over the WBStartup"

[nbache]

Just in case: Thomas upload os4 binary with source of small tool which set the mouse cursor in the middle: "MidMouse is a little small tool, which centered your mousepointer in the middle of the screen at the startup. Copy it to a place wherever you want and choose it over the WBStartup"

Nice. Good idea to make it a WB program, because it does only fully make sense to run when WB has loaded. All the previous efforts have been CLI (but work fine in practice if started after IPrefs, which is true when running from User-Startup).

I'll check it out.

But now I'm starting to become picky: Why limit ourselves to the center? With SetMouse, I can place the pointer anywhere by X/Y arguments. I've been using SetMouse for some days now, with -1 -1 (center) as arguments. But I think my conclusion is that I'll change that to something closer to my AmiDock in the bottom right, because that's where I almost always go first, e.g. to start a browser.

So for now, I'll stick with SetMouse.

Best regards,

Niels

[whose]

It shouldnt be too hard to alter the function of MidMouse in order to make it "more configurable". AFAIK Thomas always supplies the sourcecode to his little tools/examples.

If I find a little time to tune it, I will do. Some WBArgs/Tooltypes parsing and its still a utility for WBStartup use If theres need for a Shell version, it should be easy to do, too (I mean a combined version. ReadArgs() parsing for Shell parameters and Tooltypes if started from WB).

[chris]

It can be partly hidden if the hotspot of the pointer is not at the extreme top left corner of the pointer image. This was, IIRC, the case with default pointers on the previous OS versions. This has improved, it seems.

OK, that's a valid concern.

And no, I don't have any overscan defined. Actually, the Overscan prefs editor has been deprecated long ago, and I don't even have one.

I meant in the monitor settings (on the monitor itself). LCD TVs have an option for overscan, which stretches the picture out slightly to remove the edges that aren't visible on a CRT. If you're using a TV masquerading as a monitor (or vice-versa, or whatever) it might have the same option.