Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cbmvax!rutgers!mcnc!decvax!decwrl!labrea!rocky!ali
From: ali@rocky.STANFORD.EDU (Ali Ozer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Mouse Pointer Help Required
Message-ID: <1006@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 2 Feb 88 15:56:28 GMT
References: <168@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk> <3542@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Reply-To: ali@rocky.stanford.edu (Ali Ozer)
Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department
Lines: 28
Keywords: Help,Mouse Pointer

In article <168@gould.doc.ic.ac.uk> Peter Walkley writes:
>My friend wants a CLEAN way of getting rid of the mouse pointer, and
>then being able to restore it again.  He's writing a demo that grabs
>the display (i.e Ignores intuition), and wants the MP out of the way.

Among the answers posted so far, one involved using ON_SPRITE/OFF_SPRITE,
and the other involved changing Preferences image --- as long as there
is any chance the user might be interacting with any other tasks at the
same time, I think both of these methods run into problems... The
approved way to change the mouse pointer under Intuition is 
SetPointer/ClearPointer, which allows you to have a different mouse
pointer image for every window without having to do any shuffling of images.

Of course, without Intuition, you don't have a window or screen, and this is
not possible. So then you might want to use one of the above methods... 

I should add that in my opinion, people should make every effort to 
use Intuition before they give up --- I hope your friend didn't just 
discard Intuition aside without trying to use it. No matter what
program you are running, demo or game, I think being able to pull the
screen down and show the stuff going on the back adds a lot to the
impressiveness and wow-factor. That is one reason why I like Amoeba
as much as most of my commercial arcade-style games. Or look at
The Director --- it is Intuition-friendly, and it runs ANIMs almost as fast
as ShowAnim... It's sure wild to be able to pull screens up and down while
an animation is going on!

Ali Ozer, ali@rocky.stanford.edu