Adjust the 'aim' of the mouse pointer

Question

Level 1

9 points

Adjust the 'aim' of the mouse pointer

Hello,

Back in the days of Tiger I used a little haxie called Might Mouse from Unsanity. This allowed me to tweak the click point of the mouse cursor. By default the click point of the mac's cursor is a few pixels within the cursor image itself.

Call me crazy, but I feel the 'aim' of the mouse cursor should be the very tip of the mouse. If you're unsure of what I'm talking about, click and drag on an empty space on the desktop. You should be creating a selection square. If you're dragging down and to the right, the bottom right corner of the square will line up with upper left of the mouse cursor. Now notice where the selection box meets the mouse. It's not exactly at the tip of the mouse, but a few pixels behind the tip.

When you magnify the mouse cursor, this issue is magnified as well. With the upgrade to leopard most Unsanity apps are broken... And for all intents and purposes dead.

Does anyone know of an app that lets you adjust the click point or 'aim' of the mouse pointer? I thought I'd eventually just get used to it, buts it's driving me crazy!

Thanks.

Dual 1.42 (PPC), Mac OS X (10.5.4), 2GB RAM

Posted on Jul 9, 2008 4:22 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jul 9, 2008 5:07 PM in response to scooterbaga

Look at the following:

PinPoint
MondoMouse
SteerMouse

Can all be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

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Answer 2

scooterbaga Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 9, 2008 6:43 PM in response to Kappy

Pinpoint- Used to create animations around the mouse, and maybe custom cursors. But I'm ignorant of how to use quartz composer to make my own cursor to use in the app.

MoundoMouse- Used to resize and move windows with mouse movements (w/o actually clicking the window) ...Might keep this one for the ‘window focus follows mouse’, reminded me of the old UNIX box I worked on for a few years. The mouse focus can be very handy.

SteerMouse- Used to add more control to unsupported mouses and extra control over tracking/acceleration and cursor snapping to buttons. ...Might keep this one. Hopefully I can turn down the horizontal scrolling speed of the scrollball... always seems way to fast. Not sure as it needs a restart, and I'm converting vids...

*...Sadly, none of these seem to have the feature I was talking about. Please let me know if I missed something.*
However, thank you for your response!

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Answer 3

roam

Level 6

13,637 points

Jul 9, 2008 8:08 PM in response to scooterbaga

Hi

The tip of the mouse is the first black pixel on its point, not the white outline. It has also been like this in previous OS versions. I guess you have got used to the way you had changed it and now the normal position seems odd.
Can you 're-educate' your eye to look at the black point?
This is just a small point!

regards roam

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Answer 4

scooterbaga Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 10, 2008 3:27 AM in response to roam

Oh believe me, I've tried. It doesn't help that the windoze I use at the office works the way I've described. In that "OS" the tip of the pointer is the visible tip. I've also got the mouse pointer on my mac at 2x the normal size due to the high resolution of the monitor. This makes the white outline larger, and magnifies the issue. I've also tried shrinking the mouse pointer, but the issue is still there, plus the pointer is more difficult to see.

I've been working with the mouse pointer on my mac the 'normal' way for over six months since the upgrade to leopard. I still stumble over the mouse aim thing every day. It's also hard to believe only one program out there had that particular function. I'm surprised more photoshopers and the like don't run into this problem... This should just bug the crap out of anyone that needs pixel perfect precision.

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Answer 5

roam

Level 6

13,637 points

Jul 10, 2008 3:37 AM in response to scooterbaga

Frankly this doesn't bug me at all, and I have used free-hand mouse tracing of linework in photoshop for years and still I can be surprised at the accuracy I can achieve.

Until you raised this matter I was not even aware it was an 'issue'; certainly isn't one for me. That why I posted the first post saying Mac OS X's pointer hasn't changed in years, and I think for the good reason that it works just fine. I'm sorry the white border trips you up.

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Answer 6

scooterbaga Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 10, 2008 3:49 AM in response to roam

I've been on both sides of this argument. Back when I worked at a mac lab, some long-time windows users would notice this and complain. For once I have to admit, I think they were right. Logically, it's just odd that the aim of the cursor would be 'underneath' the tip, regardless of the border. Being used to the way something works doesn't mean it's the 'right' way.

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Answer 7

biovizier

Level 5

7,931 points

Jul 10, 2008 4:55 AM in response to scooterbaga

I have long believed that this is one of the clearest examples demonstrating that Apple no longer "gets" good GUI design. Who thought that having the hot point at anywhere other than the tip of the arrow was a good idea? Who would even consider it in the first place?

I would suggest submitting feedback on the subject, but I can't find the link at the moment, and clearly Apple is ignoring feedback on this issue anyway.

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