Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cbmvax!rutgers!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Dmouse and 15 color pointers
Message-ID: <8810071717.AA06705@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 7 Oct 88 17:17:10 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 26

Mike Shawaluk (...!uunet!uwmcsd1!lakesys!mikes) Writes:
:I hate to expose my total ignorance of the programming aspects of the Amiga,
:but I have to ask this dumb question: since Intuition (or some such entity)
:allows the mouse pointer to be changed to some arbitrary shape/size/pattern,
:be it arrows, clouds, or whatever, why can't a program simply change it to all
:transparent background color, thus making it invisible?  Or, does Intuition
:step in at this point and complain, figuring that the user has no right to do
:this?

	Well, sorta.  But you see, the '15 color pointer', animated pointers,
etc... are usually low level hacks and while they might appear to be 
compatible with Intuition, they are not compatible with other programs which
have to, er, stoop to the same sort of programming to accomplish a task.  It
simply isn't possible for DMouse to detect, in any easy way, these various
hacks.

	And, of course, DMouse can't be going in changing things behind
people's backs.  I certainly cannot change the actual bitmaps associated
with the sprite!  What I do do is change the copper list to point to my own
(blank) sprite, which isn't too bad since the particular parts of the copper 
list involve are never really read by the system, only written to, and 
certainly not read or written by the application directly.  The system 
doesn't care if I change some of the stuff and I don't care if the system 
changes it back.

						-Matt