This may sound like a stupid question

[james_davis_nicoll]

But does anyone else out there ever have trouble spotting the mouse arrow on the screen? I can't figure out if this is just another example of how lousy my eyesight is or if my aging mouse has an exiting failure mode.

Comments

[slrose.livejournal.com]

Yes. It usually seems to mean a problem, either with the computer or the mouse.

In your case, I would suspect cat hair to be the culprit.

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

Could be either or both. I have trouble with some screens and not others. Different lighting seems to have an effect too. Of course, weird eyes run in my family, so I usually just blame my eyes.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I do; moving the mouse around helps, my eyes are better at spotting motion than shapes (especially since I don't know which shape the mouse cursor has at any given time).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It's a Logitech no tracking ball type mouse and this particular one has been going senile for a while.

[james-angove.livejournal.com]

Yes. And its apparently a common enough complaint; my Logitech mouse software has a key-binding to briefly highlight the cursor with a bullseye thing.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yes, I definitely loose the cursor now and then. Especially if it's disappeared for a little bit and I didn't keep my eyes fixated on the last-known-location. Like Seth, I find moving it around helps. Though sometimes even that takes a while, I've got a fair amount of screen real estate, a 19" lcd and a 17" CRT.

The "mouse trails" option might make it easier to keep track of, if you have this problem frequently. Control Panel / mouse and then hunt around, since it depends on the exact drivers I think. Or you might find the visual result too distracting to live with.

[sraun]

My laptop mouse driver has this nifty 'hit Control, see a series of circles converging on the mouse icon'.

My mouse cursor disappears in favor of my insertion point indicator under circumstances I can't fully account for. Moving the mouse makes it reappear.

[rpresser.livejournal.com]

Many laptop drivers have a "hide mouse cursor while typing" option.

Happy trails to you?

[(Anonymous)]

> The "mouse trails" option might make it easier to keep track of, if
> you have this problem frequently. Control Panel / mouse and then
> hunt around, since it depends on the exact drivers I think.

To you or anyone - I'm baffled. Since I'm nearsighted I found mouse trails helpful. But I recently upgraded (get ready, this is pathetic) from Windows 98 to 2000 and now the trail ends. How do I enable them again?

Re: Happy trails to you?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Control panel -> printers and other hardware -> mouse -> pointer options is how it worked in NT.

Re: Happy trails to you?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I should mention that I started having some weird driver problems as soon as I turned the mouse trails on and they have not happened since I turned it back off again.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

It has a tendency of blending in and camouflaging itself, I swear.

[dagbrown.livejournal.com]

Remember that old "mouse trails" feature? Wasn't that awesome? I found myself wishing for it today, when I lost my mouse cursor.

I swear, the mouse cursor is nowhere near as easy to see on modern LCDs any more. Maybe it's because I grew up with an Amiga with its giant red-and-black-and-white garish mouse cursor that anyone could see.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

In Windows XP (sp2), choose the Mouse control in the Control Panels group; there should be "Visibility" group under the "Pointer" tab. There you should be able to enable mouse trails, and a "ping" feature that pings the mouse's current location when you press the CTRL key.

In Mac OSX, your options are less varied by default -- open System Preferences and choose the Universal Access preference pane; in the "Mouse" tab, you can adjust the size of the cursor arrow.

With either OS, there may be third-party widgets that will enhance your options.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Huh. Look at that. "Hide pointer while typing" was set to "yes".

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Wow. Mouse trails are kind of pretty.

[julesjones]

Well, that explains it...

But yes, I occasionally have trouble seeing the cursor even when it's there, especially if my eyes are a bit bleary. You may wish to consider using mouse trails if you're still having trouble.

[bwross.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's close to the reason I felt I couldn't really answer the question. I have my XWindows system set up to hide the cursor a few seconds after it stops moving, so I don't expect to see it (although I pretty much know where it is because my window manager is set to select windows on mouse-over, not clicks).

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Another thing I like to do is use the Windows Standard (Extra Large) mouse cursors. The default mouse cursors were designed for 640x480, not 1600x1200.:-)

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Whenever I lose the mouse cursor, I just move it up and left - it's guaranteed to hit the top left corner of the screen eventually.

[rgovrebo.livejournal.com]

I've got perfect vision, and the mouse pointer is always disappearing for me.

Obviously if you want high resolution, you should also accept that nothing on the screen should be visible without a magnifying glass.

An even bigger peeve is the cursor of single-pixel thickness they insist on using in editor windows like the one I'm typing in now.

[kowh.livejournal.com]

Apart from the ping or mouse trails as others have mentioned, you can also change your cursors. Under XP you can go to the "Pointers" tab of the "Mouse" control panel and set it to "Magnified."

I don't need glasses and even I'll lose the cursor if I step away and come back to the computer. Often end up giving the mouse a shake to make it stand out.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

When I have that problem, I just swirl it over to the right, where I have the taskbar hidden. When the taskbar comes up, I know the mouse arrow is there. You can change your arrow to lots of other sizes and pictures.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

That happens to me sometimes.