The arrow on my computerscreen that I control with the mouse always points north-north west. Well I want one that points in the directien the mouse points in.
Variations on a compass theme spring to mind.-- zeno, May 25 2007 Halfbakery: Directional Cursors Directional_20CursorsSimilar. [jutta, May 25 2007] Scanner Mouse http://www.engadget...ner-mouse-hands-on/Contains dual lasers to detect orientation [iaoth, Jan 31 2011] Nice, although it should point in the direction of movement, rather than the direction the mouse is facing.-- hippo, May 25 2007 Why would this be helpful?-- theleopard, May 25 2007 i agree with the cat. why? how would it work for trackpads? do you really want an extra program running in the background all the time dynamically changing the direction your pointer points in? would it require a special mouse pad so it could detect the direction your mouse is facing?
and again, why?
assuming rsi means repetitive stress injury, how would this help?
BTW: the arrow on your computer screen you control with your mouse is simply called a pointer.-- bleh, May 25 2007 //Why would this be helpful?//
//and again, why?/
The real question is why the hell are you asking this question?
This is the half bakery for goodness sake. By its very definition a half baked idea is one that simply doesnt have a good answer to that question. ITs about fun or interesting ideas.
Its not called the Goodreasonbakery, the Helpfulbakery or the practicalbakery for a reason.-- jhomrighaus, May 25 2007 point taken, my apologies.-- bleh, May 25 2007 In Word, placing the pointer in the left margin changes the direction to N-NE.-- xandram, May 25 2007 I'd like this, and it's certainly possible (you'd have to have hardware in the mouse and driver support). If nothing else, it would be *really* funny if a viewer doesn't expect it.
See the link for a very similar idea that gives more of a practical justification for wanting this.-- jutta, May 25 2007 I like this. I want this. I want it right now.-- Noexit, May 25 2007 I want this for those times when I lose the pointer against the right-hand side of the screen.-- pertinax, May 25 2007 You could do this with OS/2. Can you not do it with Winders?-- Galbinus_Caeli, May 25 2007 No matter where the pointer (thank you [Bleh]) is on your screen it could always point to the quassoint or somewhere else or on demand directions.
Why? Just for fun and indeed an unsuspecting user might be baffled.
Good for or against rsi because suppose if you are clicking a lot and pointing the pointer all over, imagine you also try to point the pointer in the direction you are going. My guess is that people will automatically react to this. Anyway, your wrist will get a lot of soothing action and excercise instead of being held rigid which causes the pain.-- zeno, May 25 2007 If you could combine this with an applet that generated a geometric increase in the mouse sensitivity you could have great fun with your colleagues' PCs. It would be like watching a very small person trying to take a boisterous Great Dane for a walk on a frozen lake.-- DrBob, May 25 2007 The game Breakquest has this. It's cool-looking but does make it slightly harder to click on things.-- 5th Earth, May 25 2007 Hmmm....-- BJS, May 26 2007 If it points in the direction of movement, and if it looks cool, then you get a bun.
P.S. Somebody with a little programming skill could probably make this, as long as the Windows source code allows it to.
P.P.S. And I'm pretty sure the 'arrow thingy' is called a cursor, not a pointer.-- croissantz, May 29 2007 I thought the cursor was the blinky line thingy when you're typing in a form.
A quick google and wikipedia search later:
A pointer is a type of cursor. A cursor is simply an indicator of where input is being entered on the screen. While wikipedia directed "mouse pointer" to cursor, a google definition search turned up many results which substantiated my initial claim.-- bleh, May 29 2007 Id like to see the butt end of the pointer always point to the center of the screen, so when at the extreme edges of the screen the point is flush with the corner.
Just this would mean less mouse movement to get to buttons at the egdes.-- Giblet, May 30 2007 Wii has this-- WilliamSharkey, Apr 28 2009 //why//
So if you forget what you previously clicked on, just follow the arrow backwards and you can refresh your memory.-- phundug, Apr 28 2009 Isn't the arrow point to indicate an accurate pixel position for clicking?
If the pointer was really smart, the arrow would change direction indicating the closest button/link/element that can take a clicking.-- wjt, Apr 28 2009 The cursor is implemented as a small pixel-matrix, that can be any combination of white, black or translucent pixels. It can be altered at any time, though i guess not constantly. The cursor mods that produce sparks or vapor trails behind the cursor usually do not touch the matrix thingy, so i am not sure whether this could be done simply. But i like the idea.
How would you detect the direction the mouse is facing?-- loonquawl, Apr 28 2009 according to the direction of the arrow...-- pashute, Jan 31 2011 A Scanner Mouse (see link) can detect orientation because it has two lasers. In other words, it's like two mice in one. It needs this because it also functions as a hand scanner, but a fun tech demo for the Scanner Mouse would indeed be a mouse pointer that changes orientation with the mouse.-- iaoth, Jan 31 2011 Mmmm... the mouse could be used as a steering wheel of sorts.
Other side advantages (if two laser systems are used to implement the rotation sensing):
They could vote so that tracking is more consistent: discard the temporarily stupid input.
Great for skiing games, with turning and sliding.
On a document, rotation left/right might be used for scrolling-- Ling, Jan 31 2011 random, halfbakery