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Or actually the program's icons.
A little icon, from whatever programs are running. Look at your taskbar for an example. You move your mouse and a little string of programs follows it.
If you move the mouse a little, they don't move, but if you move too far, then they start moving. That way you
can click on the icon trail on a specific program to bring it up. You can adjust the length that the mouse must move before the icons move along with the cursor. The default is set at 4 cm or 1.5 inches. Hover the mouse over a certain icon, and it tells you which program it is.
Let's pretend you have the Internet , NotePad, Paint, and UT2004 running. Following your mouse is the Internet icon, the notepad icon, the paint icon, and the UT2004 icon.You want to play UT2004, so you stop the mouse, move onto the UT2004 icon and click, ah the game pops up.
Right click the desktop and an options has been added. "Remove ProgramTrail". Click that and the string of programs dissappears.
Pie menu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_menu
Radial context menu [Acme, Mar 30 2005]
Programs follow cursor
http://www.oldjewel...bullseye/index.html
Circular file launcher: baked except it shows programs you wish to run, not those currently running [Acme, Apr 06 2005]
[link]
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If you read closely, when you move the mouse a little bit, they don't move. Maybe about 1.5 inches or 4 cm. |
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EDIT: You can adjust the follow length.
Sorry about the confusion, half. |
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I think the follow length should self-adjust to the length of the icons. |
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Good point. Maybe it auto adjusts, and you choose the ratio movement distance to the of length of trail. |
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Yes, [DF], this is what I meant. Or the trail could just shrink.
I think that instead of moving when it reaches a certain distance, it should move all the time, but freeze if you move the mouse in the direction of the MouseTrail. |
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There will be options. Lots of options. You could increase it to 3" or decrease it to .5". Maybe pressing and holding the left mouse button for 2 seconds gathers the icons to the mouse point. |
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I don't get it. Is this an alternative to the task-bar for choosing between already running programs? How is it better? Do the icons continue to follow your cursor when you are working within one of the programs? |
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Sort of. More of a taskbar that follows you around in the form of small icons, so you don't have to always go down to the bottom of the screen, especially when the taskbar get filled. |
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Basically alt tab (apple tab) and a straightened-out pie menu? |
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Banana cream for me, please. |
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I think all of these trailing icons would drive me crazy and particularly if there was a lag (the first 4cm of cursor motion), but someone might like it. |
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(-) Pie menus are a good idea because they don't require you to hit something; you can mouse ahead, and it doesn't matter where exactly you are. This idea, in contrast, is just making an already terrible situation even worse by not only requiring me to hit something, but requiring me to hit a jerkily moving target. |
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