[HN Gopher] Mouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)
___________________________________________________________________
Mouse Cursor History (and why I made my own)
Author : nailer
Score : 73 points
Date : 2023-04-17 11:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| Very interesting video! I have to say I have not really
| considered changing my cursor much since the heyday of ~2006
| Myspace cursor type things. I've sent this tab to my home desktop
| to give it a try when I get home.
|
| I often find myself gravitating towards sleeker, flashier looking
| cursors (like a chevron) but sooner or later get annoyed or
| confused and switch back to the old angled-triangle-wtih-tail.
|
| I'm interested if anyone else has thought more about mouse
| cursors in recent years and what your findings were!
| Kwpolska wrote:
| I tried his cursors for a moment and they looked strange to me. I
| went back to my cursors of choice, which are the auto-generated
| black cursors from Windows 10/11. (Accessibility - Mouse pointer
| and touch - lime cursor - Choose another color - black. It looks
| good at 1x and 2x.
| fwlr wrote:
| If I used Windows I would definitely use that cursor pack!
|
| Only partially related but Posy is a great creator, his DSM LCD
| video is one of my all-time favorite videos.
| https://youtu.be/eGQQWIbD-nM
| RistrettoMike wrote:
| An excellent YouTube channel, and some excellent cursors --- I've
| used them on all my Windows machines after having found this
| video last year.
|
| Thanks, Posy!
| DonHopkins wrote:
| His rainbow wait cursor, the Apple beachball, and the original
| Apple logo are all going to get banned in Wisconsin, Australia,
| and Saudi Arabia.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-03-24/...
|
| https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/05/24/australia-idahobit-pe...
|
| https://www.outlookindia.com/international/saudi-arabia-crac...
| throwaway290 wrote:
| It's an exaggeration because bans in question are very local
| but yeah, I didn't know this was a thing in US/AU...
| lflfidk wrote:
| The link about the US is about not using public money to
| promote a political agenda
|
| The link about AU is about one company not using corporate
| funds to promote a political agenda
|
| The link about Saudis Arabia is a wholesale ban on anyone
| selling rainbow toys because they might be related to the
| political agenda
|
| These things are in no way the same. There is a huge
| difference in deciding how business or tax funds are
| appropriated and choosing not to spend those funds promoting
| a controversial worldview and outright banning expression of
| support for that worldview, which is what the Saudis did
|
| The grandparent post is extremely disingenuous
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Teachers wearing rainbow colors is using public money to
| promote political agenda?
| stonogo wrote:
| I support their cause, but they are paid with public
| money and it is well established that school boards can
| institute dress codes. It's up to the voters whether
| these are the dress codes they support. Turnover on the
| school board is the right way to fix this.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| How is promoting heterosexuality or straight marriage or
| religion or banning gay symbols not also promoting a
| political agenda?
|
| Your post (the first and only on your green account) is
| extremely bigoted. Did you really make a new account just
| to post that bigoted remark? Is it because you don't want
| your bigotry associated with you real name? Are you going
| to continue to post bigoted remarks from your "lflfidk"
| account?
|
| Why are you and your ilk so irrationally overwhelmed with
| moral panic, implying the original rainbow Apple logo and
| beachball wait cursor have a political agenda that children
| need to be protected from? Why are you bigots so
| politically and irrationally afraid of rainbows?
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Video is from 2018, title should be updated.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| I always assumed the Mac cursor is black just to be different
| from Windows, but the narrator in the video prefers it black, so
| maybe it is just another small thing that Apple got right and
| Microsoft didn't.
|
| btw. random fact: the Mac cursor stays the same when switching to
| dark mode. Just something I checked just now (I don't usually use
| dark mode).
| jameshart wrote:
| The inverse (Windows deliberately not looking like Mac) seems
| likely to have been at least partially responsible. Apple were
| litigious about their design language - with the 'trash can'
| being a particular point of contention. Microsoft were probably
| at least a little cautious about looking too Mac-like. Indeed
| Apple in the end did sue MS for stealing 'look and feel'
| elements in 1988 (literally the context in which the term look-
| and-feel was popularized), ultimately unsuccessfully - except
| for the trash can being recognized as distinctive enough to not
| be allowed to be copied, leading to Windows' 90s classic
| 'recycle bin'.
| adzm wrote:
| You can invert the cursor color on windows fwiw
| yamtaddle wrote:
| You can change the colors (the default is black with a white
| outline, not just black) on Mac, too.
| kryptiskt wrote:
| I used to find it irritating that I had to jiggle the mouse
| to find the cursor, because it doesn't really stick out on
| screen when it is white or black and I have a lot of screen
| area. Then I tried turning the cursor yellow with a black
| border. It is great, it's obvious where it is with a glance
| now.
| jicea wrote:
| Intrigued by your comment, I've just tried it. Man, it's
| really working. It's really effective, I'll try to adapt
| to the colours and see if I keep it!
| crazygringo wrote:
| Windows 1.0, with a white cursor, was released in November
| 1985.
|
| Mac OS 1.0, with a black cursor, was released in January 1984.
| Its predecessor, Lisa OS, with a black cursor, was January
| 1983.
|
| So if anything, maybe Windows cursor was white just to be
| different from Mac.
|
| But also, according to Wikipedia, Windows 1.0 was inspired by
| Visi On [1], which also used a white cursor (pointing upwards,
| rather than up-left) [2]. So it might have just copied that?
|
| But just from a logical standpoint, Mac always used a white
| document area with black text in windows, where it would make
| sense to have a black cursor easy to see. While Visi On
| continued the MS-DOS/terminal tradition of white text on a
| black background in its windows, where a white cursor would be
| more visible. But a quick Google search though doesn't seem to
| produce any authoritative answer for why Windows 1.0, with its
| white backgrounds, would choose a white cursor. All I can find
| is [3] but it's paywalled and none of the usual cache/archive
| services can access it.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_1.0x
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visi_On
|
| [3] https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-default-mouse-cursor-
| black-...
| [deleted]
| webwielder2 wrote:
| Possible subtitle: Or How Apple Got It Right Once Again
| StuckDuck wrote:
| Woah, I have been watching all of this guy's videos recently, I
| love how deep he dives into niche topics. His video on segmented
| displays got me very interested in the clever designs that came
| out of technical constraints, and challenged me to get back to
| design a little bit. It's nice to see him linked here
| alexb_ wrote:
| I use his mouse cursor pack - it's worth installing and is
| absolutely awesome. Posy is one of my favorite creators on
| YouTube currently - his dedication to using zero stock footage,
| zero stock music (he produces all of the music in his videos!),
| and very high quality production/in depth knowledge make his
| videos super amazing to watch.
| SKRUZO wrote:
| Been using his cursor pack since I first saw this video a couple
| of years ago. It was actually a pretty interesting history to
| learn about, and he made some really nice, simple cursors!
| nailer wrote:
| Timestamps:
|
| History of OS cursors from System 1.0 to recent MacOS, and
| Windows 1.0 to Windows 10: https://youtu.be/YThelfB2fvg?t=169
|
| How the current Windows 10 cursor is wonky:
| https://youtu.be/YThelfB2fvg?t=430 (probably the most interesting
| part of the video)
|
| He ends up fixing the wonky mouse cursor in Windows and makes the
| download available in the show notes.
| http://www.michieldb.nl/other/cursors/
| grrdotcloud wrote:
| I didn't click but thought "why would you want to log your mouse
| movements? Analyze them to what end? I suppose you could automate
| or infer something from the trails? Number of clicks? Keyboard to
| mouse frequency, time spent.
|
| Then started working though the logging, insights while reading
| the comments.
|
| Pressure sensitive mouse buttons may be helpful. Same with haptic
| feedback when dragging over heavier buttons.
| Krutonium wrote:
| I still own a Logitech iFeel mouse from the late 90's early
| 2000's. It's a heavier mouse that offers force feedback on the
| desktop, specifically as you move over icons and such. It also
| gave force feedback in games, such as Half Life.
|
| Unfortunately on Windows the drivers havn't worked since
| probably XP, but on Linux I did figure out how to drive the
| motor, and wrote a PoC to get it working again. It'd need
| support from the DE and games to really be useful, though.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Great video.
|
| I hadn't known of the creator's cursor set, but like him I've
| found that a black, white-outlined cursor is generally more
| visible/usable which in combination with the awkward shape of the
| default Windows cursors led me to install ported macOS cursors on
| my Windows machines. Under Linux, the white-outlined black
| cursors that ship with major DEs look good enough as is so there
| I just use those.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-04-18 23:01 UTC)