[loren s]

How come nobody has even made a program to make two mouse cursors yet ? It would reduce fatigue. And would just be dam faster. And cool like you are running a star ship. Even cooler in a 3d game or 3D modeling program.

[sideus]

[loren s]

whada ya mean

It is a power idea. Seems easy enough. Would be faster.

You don't type with just one hand and get fast results compaired to two hands. Two hands are better than one. Faster is better. Sounds smart to me.

[OwlBoy]

It's called damn right confusing.

Ever tried to use a mouse with the opposite hand?

-Owl

[jmiddel]

Being that I use two screens to work, the idea seems interesting.
How would one assign different IDs to the mice could be the question.

[Cipher13]

This would not be faster, usually, as most people have one unco-ordinated hand, for one thing; and also, this would mean you couldn't have a hand on the keyboard.

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by loren s:
How come nobody has even made a program to make two mouse cursors yet ? It would reduce fatigue. And would just be dam faster. And cool like you are running a star ship. Even cooler in a 3d game or 3D modeling program.

We built a Solaris based test system like this at university.
You could pass icons between hands and rip windows into multiple pieces. You could also "Throw" icons between hands. In testing one hand was always dominant an the the other hand was passive. I one hand would focus the action on on one item (hold the wastebasket open), and the other hand would initiate the action (throw the files into it).

Was crap.

[Uncle Skeleton]

seems to me the cursor always has your concentration. Do you ever use the mouse without looking right at the cursor? if not, how would you ever make use of two cursors? can you split your undevided attention?

[loren s]

One cursor blue the other black or green. Or whatever colors.

I can use both hans equally, plus read and mouse upside down. I have built my Game controler to ack like a mouse but the analog stick moves to fast. So I am going o sauder a track ball to the controler so I can have a mouse and a game pad with a million plus buttons.

I was hoping that one day I could get one of those Air cartft duo sticks with the throte to ack as a mouse. but it is to much $$$$ right now.

I try alsorts of different input devces so it never gets to tring. Like mapping the mouse keys to double click instead of double clicking with your finger.

I really wish that there was a pressuere based Blue tooth pen for mouse input.

But for now the two mouse thing would be nice. Is their no way to get it built ?

[mitchell_pgh]

I think just the opposite.

How can I get rid of the mouse.

I can't stand how Safari almost requires that you use the mouse when filling out applications (especially with drop down menus) There are ways around it, but it should be the default.

The less dependent upon the mouse you become, the faster you will become.

[loren s]

But as just another option would be great. Instead of not having it at all.

Other views of this are at OSX hints forum. I was hoping that I could find somebody there that could hack it in somehow

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showth...6912#post96912

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by loren s:
I was hoping that I could find somebody there that could hack it in somehow

Unless I'm missing something big, this sounds like a nightmare to implement. Aside from the technical problems (the OS as well as many apps are designed with one mouse in mind), it would create a million user-interface issues -- what happens when two hands drag a window in opposite directions? Can one hand edit a window's contents while another has a menu open? What happens if the user clicks on a background window while a menu is open?

And, of course, the solutions to user-interface issues would likely create technical problems of their own.

In short, I expect it would be pretty hard to implement and most people don't have the coordination to operate two mice simultaneously -- making it a way more trouble than it's worth.

[redJag]

You can't compare two-handed mousing to two-handed keyboarding. The way computers are setup, it just wouldn't work. It's possible that a completely new GUI would make this useful. Two handed keyboarding: two hands doing the same task. Two handed mousing: two hands doing two different tasks. It is very hard in a graphical interface for humans to perform to tass *simultaneously* because we can only focus our eyes on one thing.

However, this would not be difficult to implement. The problems mentioned above are simple to fix:

>what happens when two hands drag a
>window in opposite directions?

Obviously, the user would be able to set a dominant cursor, like most people have a dominant hand. The default would be the right cursor, as in real life the right hand is most commonly dominant.

>Can one hand edit a window's contents while
>another has a menu open?

Yes..but once an action is invoked from the menu, it will be applied to the content in the window at the time. Alternatively, no.

>What happens if the user clicks on a
>background window while a menu is open?

Three possible solutions in a single monitor setup: the menu loses focus, the window does not gain focus, or whichever the dominant mouse is trying to do.

One thing that would solve the majority of "issues" would be a two monitor/workspace solution. One mouse per.

Summary: not a good idea with this OS.

[Boondoggle]

I'm thinking about a good-cursor/bad-cursor scenario...