Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mcnc!decvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!enea!tut!santra!jmunkki
From: jmunkki@santra.UUCP (Juri Munkki)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Setting cursor position and mouse speed.
Summary: Large crosshairs...why not?
Message-ID: <10069@santra.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jan 88 16:04:41 GMT
References: <2532@auscso.UUCP> <7272@apple.UUCP> <888@thorin.cs.unc.edu> <7279@apple.UUCP>
Reply-To: jmunkki@santra.UUCP (Juri Munkki)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 33

In article <7279@apple.UUCP> lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) writes:
>In article <888@thorin.cs.unc.edu> steele@unc.UUCP (Oliver Steele) writes:
>>... how does Apple recommend for people writing paint programs, for
>>instance, to show that a grid or other constraining factor is in effect?
>I think the philosophy should be that the user is in control of the mouse
>and the cursor.  Therefore, the user can move the cursor anywhere on the
>screen (even between grid points).

Right! It's a very good rule not to constrain the mouse. The only place I
would allow cursor reposisitioning is in games (as in MacLanding) that will
break anyway sooner or later. :-) (Game programmers think they can forget all
rules of compatibility just for the sake of speed...they never think of
making speed an option and writing stuff twice: an optimized version and
a compatible version...the future machines will be faster so the optimizing
might be wasted on them anyway.)

>If the program has some sort of gridding on, then it acts as a constraint on
>the object being manipulated and not on the cursor position.  In this case,
>moving the mouse a tiny bit will move the cursor, but won't make any change
>on the screen.

Macintosh programmer don't seem to like large crosshairs. I'd like to see
more draw and paint programs that can display window-sized crosshairs. The
cursor can still be visible, but the crosshairs will show how the grid
constrains movement.

As far as I can see large crosshairs aren't mentioned in apple documentation,
but then again they aren't forbidden. Is there any reason they shouldn't be
used? (I remember seeing them somewhere...MacDraft perhaps?)

Juri Munkki
jmunkki@santra.hut.fi
jmunkki@fingate.bitnet