On Sat, 2010-02-06 at 00:55 +0300, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote: Someone had submitted a patch for it years ago and they weren't showing up for bulia in Win2000 if I recall correctly, so they were backed out. Cheers, Josh

On Fri, 2010-02-05 at 20:06 -0400, bulia byak wrote: Do recall if you had done a backtrace at that time? I'm curious if it was the code or potentially a library issue. Cheers, Josh

Alexandre Prokoudine wrote: I don't think "full greyscale + alpha channel" means colored :) JF

On Feb 5, 2010, at 4:01 PM, Joshua A. Andler wrote: If people can run some checks, we can revisit this. I know that I've seen gdk_display_supports_cursor_color() and gdk_display_supports_cursor_alpha() in GDK so we should be able to leverage those in doing the right thing.

On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 12:07 PM, ~suv <suv-sf@...58...> wrote: Previously OSX used a four-way arrow, like Windows. I do not understand how the new arrow cursor, with clearly visible single-pixel tip, is not a precision improvement over this :) The four-way arrow and hand were terrible with regard to precision, not to mention their inconsistency across platforms. Now you can actually see the point that you're clicking, it's not obscured by the cursor anymore. I think that just needs some getting used to. Yet this is consistent with most other Inkscape custom cursors, which typically also have two parts: a pointer (usually a cross) and an icon. The only difference is that here, the pointer is an arrow, not a cross. But this is justified by the fact that it is a second cursor in a tool, whose first cursor is also an arrow, so we're improving consistency here. Unfortunately that default arrow is not Inkscape-custom, it is the system arrow cursor and so is different across platforms and cursor themes. I made the mouseover/drag arrow as close as possible to the default Windows arrow, which I suspect is our largest user base. It is also fairly similar to the default Ubuntu cursor. It works worse, admittedly, on OSX where the default arrow is black, not white. But I think that even there, it is at least not worse than the old one which wasn't even an arrow at all. We might indeed use hand-only cursor for panning canvas. But not for object dragging and mouseovering - this is a different situation altogether. It has been Inkscape's big usability advantage that it shows you at once, by changing cursor, that you're over a selectable object. I just made this feature more consistent and precise. I'm not sure what is meant by "arrow emphasized as pointer" - if it's an arrow it's pointer enough, no? :) As for hand, I think it works fine, but please feel free to suggest another icon. What pair of icons would be easy to recognize _and_ be related _and_ clearly denote the "something can be selected here" and "you're dragging the selection" ideas? -- bulia byak Inkscape. Draw Freely. http://www.inkscape.org

Thank you for taking the time to answer to my initial reactions after working with the new cursor for only a short peroid of time! On 8/2/10 00:31, bulia byak wrote: Yes, I know and I will ;) Most often I adapt easily to existing limitations or new changes - however it seems as if I picked the wrong topic to speak up about some of my doubts... ? This seems to be the main reason for my initial irritation after noticing the new cursor for the select tool: The new white arrow is way bigger than the black system arrow used on Mac OS X when not hovering a selectable object. This makes switching to the custom cursor visually awkward (as if the cursor jumps - it doesn't, I know ;-) and distracting (inverting the color). GIMP 2.6.8 on OS X uses the four-way arrow as symbol with the arrow cursor for the move tool - personally I think I'd prefer this for Inkscape's select tool as well. It would make the transition to the new custom cursor easier for Mac OS X users (re-using the previous cursor as symbol for the new arrow cursor) and reserve the hand tool for a new panning tool/custom cursor. Not knowing a lot about the techniques used to display cursors I think this could be due to what Alexandre asked for - 'full greyscale + alpha channel'? Gimp's cursors appear different to me as in: - the arrow is bigger in relation to its accompanying symbol - the arrow is lighter, the symbol seems to be rendered slightly darker see above: I'd prefer to keep the previous four-way arrow as accompanying symbol for the two-part custom cursor of the select tool. Could the state of "you're dragging the selection" be indicated e.g. by always showing the rotation center of the object while dragging instead of changing the custom cursor? ~suv