Left Handed Mouse Pointer

I have USB overdrive installed, I've used it to switch the function of the left and right buttons, but my mouse cursor hasn't changed, and I don't see a way to do it. How did you change the actual mouse cursor using USB overdrive?

Sorry, I misread your post - you can't change the cursor appearance with USB Overdrive. This involves hacking the system to replace the image so a reliable add-on is what you need and I don't know whether one is available. A quick look in Google suggest only the one mentioned above - there are apparently hacks to get it to work in SL but frankly I wouldn't take the risk of making your Mac unstable.

yeah. i've found the same via google. it's pretty frustrating. i've used the mouse with my right hand for years but i have an RSI that i'm trying to take care of, so i want to switch to using the mouse with my left hand. the right-handed pointer is really frustrating, especially when i'm doing detailed graphics work, which i often am (and which was the cause of my RSI in the first place).

Oddly enough, I'm left-handed, and use a trackball on the left with the buttons reversed, and I don't have any problem with the pointer orientation, but I suppose it's a matter of how strongly left-handed you are (Chaplin has to have his violin strung with the strings in reverse order so he could bow with his left hand, and few lefties go that far - and imagine the confusion in an orchestra...). However the problem with any program which does this is that it's burrowing deep into the System, and these 'haxies' can cause a lot of problems.

that's interesting. chaplin's violin change doesn't sound so strange to me, given that i know it's possible to purchase left-handed guitars, for example. actually, i'm fairly certain i'm naturally a leftie, but i chose at a young age (wasn't forced) to use my right hand for writing because i saw how complicated it was to use my left.

do you have any links to the "haxies"? i'm frustrated enough with this that i want to look into it. don't know if i'll make the change, b/c i agree, i don't want to mess with my system too much, but - my google searches aren't turning up the actual details on how to do it. also, i have two macs, so i'm considering making the change on the one that i use less/that doesn't have all my important files to see how it goes.

Try this Google results page. The YouTube video is some kid explaining how to use Mighty Mouse with SL - I'd be cautious about that. There is also a page in there somewhere which I think attempts much the same thing, but I didn't go into all this in any great detail.

well, after a lot of research to make sure i wouldn't be destroying my computer, i did it, and it seems to be working OK. between the video and this blog post http://oesediez.blogspot.com/2010/12/customize-mouse-cursor-icons-on-snow.html i got it to work. they're both directions to do the same thing, just in slightly different ways. the blog post is by a developer who seems to know what he's talking about, and continues to update his blog - he posted that it was fine through all the subsequent snow leopard updates. he did everything through the command line - i just used drag-and-drop instead.

i read up a bunch on app enhancer, and this post http://unsanity.org/archives/000342.php convinced me that it's OK to install. i remember the days of mac os 9 extensions causing lots of problems, and the explanation here as to how APE is different makes sense to me. also, it looks like the rash of problems people had with it were during upgrading from tiger to leopard, and that there haven't been problems since then.

the only other issue, once it was installed, was changing the mouse icon. mighty mouse's enormous library didn't include a lefthanded mouse icon (?). i used the functionality from within mighty mouse that allows you to edit an icon in photoshop, and then copy it back into mighty mouse. before doing that i confirmed that i could revert to the original if something went wrong (you can). then i had to change the hotspot. but, after all that, it is working.

one thing is - there are still a number of icons within the adobe apps (ps, ai) that still point to the left (i.e. are oriented for right-handers), and these aren't changeable through mighty mouse. ahh well. at least i've got the arrow changed. i'm a bit mystified as to how it actually works, since from everything i read, snow leopard doesn't use image files for icons but rather renders them via code. but who knows - somehow it works. i just don't see why, given all of the accessibility options apple does include in OS X, they can't make this a standard option. quite annoying.

update, if anyone is reading this thread: shutting down and restarting resets the mouse pointer. i could go in and change it back, but then i'd have to re-edit the icon in photoshop, reposition the hot spot, etc etc. what a bother. so instead, i'm attempting to get used to the Way Things Apple Wants Them To Be.

thanks. i had found that blog link but i was hoping there was a hack that didn't involve mighty mouse. bits of the video look somewhat promising... we'll see. i'll report back.