Mac Style "Find cursor" ease of access (shake to find)

[lordlycastle]

Whenever you lose your mouse, on multi-monitor set up it can be difficult to find it. So implement the mac's shake to increase size features as shown here.

[hugobloem]

A similar feature is available if you press the CTRL key. It can be found under Settings>Devices>Mouse>Additional mouse options>Pointer options>Check: show location when CTRL is pressed.

[lordlycastle]

@hugobloem thanks for pointing that out. That'll do for now. Pretty hidden setting IMO.

[SocietasEvanescentes]

Yes. The CTRL look is ugly. They need to update it with fluent design. It looks like it came straight from Windows Vista.

[niels9001]

Super useful feature. I have a 3 monitor setup with different screensizes and lose my mouse almost every day while not always having my other hand on the keyboard.

There seems to be a Windows app doing this. On Mac, it's called 'Shake to Find'.

More info on the Windows client: https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/shake-to-find-cursor-windows-10/

Could we update the topic name to represent 'Shake to Find' so it's easily to track?

[huysentruitw]

If there's any interest in this feature, I'm volunteering to get working on this.

[jhv2017kam]

From #9409:

When having several screens you some times loose track of the mouse, enabling press ctrl to highlight mouse pointer with circles helps but not always visible enough.
But it would be nice if there was a taskbar icon with an arrow pointing at the mouse
alternative there could be an indication on the miniature of all screens in the Short Cut guide e.g. a crosshair

motivation: I some times work on a setup with four monitors: three 24" and on 37" (4k)

[niels9001]

@huysentruitw: If there's any interest in this feature, I'm volunteering to get working on this.

@crutkas FYI

[huysentruitw]

I had a short discussion about this with @crutkas on Twitter some time ago. He pointed (see what I did here) out that resizing the mouse cursor is not a public API. In this repository there seem to be 2 intern projects started around this topic, but the code is premature AFAICS. Maybe we should nag the Windows API team first to add a mouse-resizing API?

Other options are to draw a circle around the mouse, but that will never look as sleek as the MacOSX feature.

[jhv2017kam]

@huysentruitw
Did you se my idea about a task bar icon with an arrow pointing at the mouse?

[huysentruitw]

@huysentruitw
Did you se my idea about a task bar icon with an arrow pointing at the mouse?

Yes, but I'm not a fan of that either as users have many configuration options for their taskbar, would be hard to handle all cases. F.e. how usefull would that be on a 49" ultra-wide, with taskbar aligned to the left?

[niels9001]

I had a short discussion about this with @crutkas on Twitter some time ago. He pointed (see what I did here) out that resizing the mouse cursor is not a public API. In this repository there seem to be 2 intern projects started around this topic, but the code is premature AFAICS. Maybe we should nag the Windows API team first to add a mouse-resizing API?

Other options are to draw a circle around the mouse, but that will never look as sleek as the MacOSX feature.

https://twitter.com/ClintRutkas/status/1321142508756238338?s=19

Raymond Chen did a pretty nice concept drawing a 'spotlight' on top of the mouse cursor. Except for nagging the Windows API team (which we should!), we could maybe think of different ways of highlighting the cursor?

[jhv2017kam]

@huysentruitw

You could change the size/length of the arrow depending on how far away the mouse is.
But I guess there could be some work in figuring out where the taskbar icon it self is located

[huysentruitw]

I had a short discussion about this with @crutkas on Twitter some time ago. He pointed (see what I did here) out that resizing the mouse cursor is not a public API. In this repository there seem to be 2 intern projects started around this topic, but the code is premature AFAICS. Maybe we should nag the Windows API team first to add a mouse-resizing API?
Other options are to draw a circle around the mouse, but that will never look as sleek as the MacOSX feature.

https://twitter.com/ClintRutkas/status/1321142508756238338?s=19

Raymond Chen did a pretty nice concept drawing a 'spotlight' on top of the mouse cursor. Except for nagging the Windows API team (which we should!), we could maybe think of different ways of highlighting the cursor?

That looks cool! I only wonder how performant that will be when painting an overlay like that on a 5120x1440 resolution with a standard graphics card.

[jhv2017kam]

@huysentruitw

FWIW: Greenshot (https://getgreenshot.org/) does something similar when "Capture region" (never tried to use that for locating mouse though)

[crutkas]

@niels9001 i have access to Raymond’s stuff and well chances are use that as a base.

[niels9001]

@niels9001 i have access to Raymond’s stuff and well chances are use that as a base.

Sharing is caring 😁

[absalan]

@huysentruitw Any update on this?

[huysentruitw]

@absalan Not from my side. I'd prefer a mac-style enlarging cursor above the last proposed spotlight-solution. But for enlarging the cursor, we would need the Windows team to expose an API to do it, otherwise we'll have to fiddle with mouse cursor (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winuser/nf-winuser-setcursor) on the fly and that code can get pretty messy. Knowing that the Windows team already has that code for the 'Mouse pointer' dialog:

[absalan]

@huysentruitw Thanks for reply. To be honest I found your idea to be the best for me at least. When you have more then 5 monitors, sometime it really annoying to find the cursor. But when all the screens goes dark and focus goes to the cursor with a white circle around it, it will be much easier to find the cursor. I wish we could add that feature to PowerToys. I'll try if I can write some code with some hacks to do that.

[G3NSVRV]

@huysentruitw This one has resize?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/windows.ui.core.corecursor?view=winrt-19041

[crutkas]

@G3NSVRV / @absalan best of my knowledge, both those APIs for for the actually app. If i'm wrong, happy to check out a POC.

[eried]

would not be easier to overlay a fake cursor? (instead of enlarging the real one)

PS: I have been looking for a solution (because the CTRL one it is quite ancient feeling) without much luck i.e. http://spinalcode.co.uk/2018/11/06/windows-shake-to-find-cursor/

[G3NSVRV]

would not be easier to overlay a fake cursor? (instead of enlarging the real one)

PS: I have been looking for a solution (because the CTRL one it is quite ancient feeling) without much luck i.e. http://spinalcode.co.uk/2018/11/06/windows-shake-to-find-cursor/

that is the worst solution, the new cursors on win10 I believe are not ani files anymore, and behaves like if they were SVG files, since the resize and colouring is more seamless/accurate, and does not pixelate.

[jibbers42]

Unless I'm misunderstanding, it seems like the current plan might be to use a hokey. Please consider making this feature shake to activate (or an option for shake and/or hotkey). Reasons:

• I rarely look for my mouse before I start moving it. I tend to think I know where it is already or that I will find it as soon as it moves a bit. If it don't see it right away then I give it a shake. My hand is already on the mouse so why make the cognitive switch to position for and activate a hotkey? This works great on both Ubuntu and MacOS.
• I dislike the old-school "radar" assist because it's Ctrl to activate and that means it's activating constantly while I work.

[MikeBee]

If there's any interest in this feature, I'm volunteering to get working on this.

I'm very interested. Is there an option to see/compile your fork, or is it private?

[jim0203]

I was working with a client this morning who would love to have access to a "shake to find" cursor. It seems like a lot of people prefer it to the "control to locate" functionality you get in Windows. Has there been any progress on this?

[crutkas]

in pull request :)

[dedavis6797]

Resolved with v0.49.0.

[xylplm]

Now double-click to find the pointer is not easy to use. Many times I can't click. Multiple desktops are full screen operation. It is hoped that there will be other solutions, at least in the current Mac, shaking the mouse and zooming in is the optimal solution. It does not affect mouse events, and the mouse can be found.

[franky920920]

Now double-click to find the pointer is not easy to use. Many times I can't click. Multiple desktops are full screen operation. It is hoped that there will be other solutions, at least in the current Mac, shaking the mouse and zooming in is the optimal solution. It does not affect mouse events, and the mouse can be found.

We are discussing this in #14028. 😄

[danmoseley]

Some folks on this thread may be interested in trying out the upcoming crosshairs feature as well -- #15632

[IveMalfunctioned]

Lol literally suggesting to Microsoft that they copy Apple

[lordlycastle]

@IveMalfunctioned This is an accessibility feature. Yes it should be copied. Apple does not own idea of accessibility. And there is no need to fix something that’s broken.

Lots Of Love! ❤️