On Wed, 11 Jan 2023 13:41:02 +0000 Peter Flynn <pe...@silmaril.ie> said:

> On 11/01/2023 08:53, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
> > [...] chances are that if you can't see a cursor due to visual
> > acuity problems you can't make out other ui elements either and they
> > all need to get bigger.
> The actual answer is, we don't know. I need to arrange a proper 
> usability test in the labs in my college (which I can do, given the time).
> 
> > why not just wiggle the mouse? :) also produces motion.
> 
> If you have problems locating the mouse, wiggling is not as good as the 
> Ctrl key, which usually produces a vibrating expanding disc which is 
> much more easily visible.

as below - you want a larger thing that actually starts big and zooms down to
where the  pointer is causing motion that your eyes follow to that point and
then can discover the mouse - there is no such feature in e at this point.

> > but yes - a "fund my pointer" feature doesn't exist in e. you don't 
> > want to blink the cursor. you want some kind of "takes a lot of the
> > screen" animation
> No, I think people with this problem just want a bigger cursor. End of 
> story.

if it's 2x as big it's still a pointer on a busy screen full of content that if
you don't have the visual acuity to make out is still hard to see. we're
attuned to motion better than still content unless your eyesight is decent or
you are "trained" to look for shapes (trained here is just learning methods to
hunt down specific shapes visually even  if blurry).

> > e's pointer has that. e doesn't have anything to do with x cursor themes...
> 
> Can you describe for me the difference between e's pointer and an x 
> cursor? Is one logical and the other physical?

x cursors (libxcursor and x cursor themes) are "dumb" as i described. simple
images or a sequence of images to display. e renders its cursor live from the
same theme elements that make up everything else (border, backgrounds, buttons,
window borders) thus they can do everything any theme element can do. it's all
done the same way. thus these objects accept signals (like a mouse click),
scale liuke the theme and size like all of these other theme elements - cursor
is defined in the theme like everything else. efl apps do the same as e - they
use efl to render the mouse cursor if they need a custom one of their own.

as a result x cursors are very limited in what they can do. a set of N images
for sizing and then N images in sequence looping if you want animation and a
hotspot. that's it. e's cursors can do this and much more as they can be made
from multiple elements layered together with sizing/scaling rules as well as
animation that can have every element in the cursor do something different and
respond to events live (like a click). that's how the blue box that
resizes/moves is done. its just a semi-trans blue rect that is told to
transition between 2 or 3 or 4 states over a period of time. cursors get
signals when the pointer goes idle (doesn't move for a while) so it could blink
or pulse then fade out or something - up to theme. they also get signals when
you blank/unlbank/suspend/resume - the pointer can and does zoom into
nothingness then zoom back up again. any amount of signals can be sent to a
pointer and the theme can respond. x cursors are far more "dumb".

> Peter
> 
> 
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-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
Carsten Haitzler - ras...@rasterman.com



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