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Operating System Specific Discussions => Amiga OS => Amiga OS -- Development => Topic started by: Ancalimon on April 15, 2003, 03:23:43 AM

Title: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: Ancalimon on April 15, 2003, 03:23:43 AM
As we all know we usually look at mouse pointer while using our Amigas. And I have been dreaming of different moving mouse pointers.

Could any of you programmers code a little commodity that changes the behaviour of moving mouse pointer?

EX: I`d love to see  mouse pointer moving smoothly. You start moving the mouse and pointer slowly starts to move gaining more speed. And When you stop moving the pointer, it slowly stops. You can even decelerate by moving the mouse in opposite direction the ponter is currently moving to. There could be even different settings to change the behaviour. (ie: shaking pointer, drunken pointer, rock solid pointer,etc)

The effects should be controllable enough but still there should be an option to make a maniac moving pointer.

Please :)  I`d love to see such a toy utility soon :) It could even be included in AmigaOS4
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: iamaboringperson on April 15, 2003, 03:28:17 AM
it would need more than just a commodity i think
very hacky

i remember a while ago seening some program that made the computer really awquard to use
it would move the pointer randomly, select requesters at random and type stuff - as though the computer were haunted :-o

i think it was on an AF cover cd
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: Ancalimon on April 15, 2003, 03:35:42 AM
Do you have any idea what needs to be changed in order to program such a commodity? I have very little knowledge I`m afraid. I wouldn`t be able to program such code. :(

But I`m sure even if it comes out to be a very hacky program, it wouldn`t cause any crashes. After all we all see such moving pointer in some games. (i think i`ve seen it last on WarCraft3 and maybe Diablo2) and even some Amiga games.
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: iamaboringperson on April 15, 2003, 03:41:20 AM
Quote
Do you have any idea what needs to be changed in order to program such a commodity? I have very little knowledge I`m afraid. I wouldn`t be able to program such code. :(
input.device handles that mostly
you could replace it, or patch it
im not really into hacks, so i couldnt be bothered

Quote
But I`m sure even if it comes out to be a very hacky program, it wouldn`t cause any crashes. After all we all see such moving pointer in some games. (i think i`ve seen it last on WarCraft3 and maybe Diablo2) and even some Amiga games.

if you see an automatic moving pointer under intuition games - there could be an OS legal way to reposition it
i know you can find its location, but perhaps later ill check the RKRM's to see if you can write its location
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: Roj on April 15, 2003, 12:10:23 PM
Quote
EX: I`d love to see mouse pointer moving smoothly. You start moving the mouse and pointer slowly starts to move gaining more speed. And When you stop moving the pointer, it slowly stops. You can even decelerate by moving the mouse in opposite direction the ponter is currently moving to. There could be even different settings to change the behaviour.


That's easy if you've got a CSPPC. Just play ten MPegs and an MP3 at the same time, and viola! :crazy:
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: Thomas on April 15, 2003, 01:27:36 PM

Shouldn't be too hard to write such a program. Either a commodity (don't know much about that) or an input handler. I already wrote a handler that swallows mouse button events that arrived too fast. Should be possible to hold back some events and to send them later.

Bye,
Thomas
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: lempkee on April 15, 2003, 03:38:57 PM
hmmm nice idea....

btw....post number 300 now :P
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: Thomas on April 16, 2003, 07:24:46 PM

Here it is: a small joke program to "smoothen" your mouse movement.

Hope you like it. :-D

http://home.t-online.de/home/thomas-rapp/download/smoother.lha

Start it once to activate and again to deactivate.

From the shell you have some parameters to play with.

Of course there is no warranty at all. If it causes damage, bad luck.

Bye,
Thomas
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: alx on April 16, 2003, 08:33:24 PM
Quote
i remember a while ago seening some program that made the computer really awquard to use
it would move the pointer randomly, select requesters at random and type stuff


So what - Windoze had that built in :-)

(You know - computer would freeze for a while then go bezerk, randomly opening menus, moving the pointer - once it even deleted some files of mine and tried to shut down!)
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: LP on April 17, 2003, 01:23:08 AM
You can get animated pointers off the Aminet
There is quite a lot of them out there...

Most of them buggy though
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: iamaboringperson on April 17, 2003, 01:27:30 AM
complete waste of time i think!
reminds me of some program that was available long ago, that would add sound effects and crap to just about every action
utter rubbish.
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: Ancalimon on April 17, 2003, 04:45:15 AM
Thomas! Thx a lot! :)

I tried smoother. And I must say I LOVE IT ;)
Default divisor value of 5 would be better. It works very nicely here. And it could even be added to user-startup.

Please improve this little beast!

I want to be the first beta-tester for smoother :)

This thing is the most visible utility on my system. Now bug reports are coming.

1)("EDIT" 1. problem is fixed. It was a small commodity called TwitchyMouse interfaring with smoother causing this)
I`m using Dopus Magellan2 currently.
And mouse clicks are somewhat problematic.
It seems like clicks are stuck.
for example i click on an empty space in dopus to select some icons, when i relese lmb it doesnt sense it.
Using L-Amiga Alt works as a normal left mouse button. But using mouse, it gets stuck.

2) When using MCP`s solid window move and size patches, I cant move windows using lmb. Could be something interfaring with priorities? I`m also using Executive.

3) When moving pointer in diagonal directions, when i stop moving mouse, it continues to move like I dreamed of :D but soon before it stops moving, it changes it direction. (ie: im moving towards up-left. I stop moving mouse as soon before it stops it starts moving only left or only up

Thanks again for this great little beast :) Every Amiga User should have it :) It makes even moving your pointer fun.

BTW: Is it possible to add another option so we can control how much it continues to move after we stop moving mouse? Also can we set the acceleration and deceleration?
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: Thomas on April 17, 2003, 04:39:45 PM

The problems may be fixed now. Please try again.

As for the option, no, it does not work this way.

The algorithm maintains the "real" mouse position (where the mouse pointer would be if the patch wasn't installed). Now the actual mouse pointer is always accelerated towards this "real" position. Acceleration value is the distance divided by the "divisor" parameter.

This way it works as if the mouse pointer was connected to the "real" (invisible) position by a rubber band. The only changeable parameter is the divisor.

Well, we are on a programmer's forum here. You could ask for the source code and adjust it yourself. I really don't wish to put so much brain work into this.

Bye,
Thomas
Title: Re: A Toy Utility for pointer
Post by: Kronos on April 17, 2003, 05:00:02 PM
Moving windows under Amibient with this just looks
hillarious  :-D  :-D  Completly useless waste of time ...

I like it  :-P