Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

DavidHossack · Sep 21, 2002, 07:12 PM

Has anyone worked out how to enable the mouse shadow on non QE machines? I have not seen anything.

Or has everyone given up?

::maroma:: · Sep 21, 2002, 07:48 PM

If you don't see it, your video card doesn't support it.

spitty27 · Sep 21, 2002, 08:30 PM

why cant we make a patch or pref pane or app to enable shadow? by changing core graphics file

unfaded · Sep 21, 2002, 09:12 PM

Originally posted by spitty27:
why cant we make a patch or pref pane or app to enable shadow? by changing core graphics file

See the Blobber threads - for some reason, millions of colours does not like the shadowed cursor.

dark3lf · Sep 22, 2002, 02:16 AM

It was supported in earlier Jag builds, why not now? When you make an alias, you get a shadow on that....

Adam Betts · Sep 22, 2002, 02:40 AM

Originally posted by dark3lf:
It was supported in earlier Jag builds, why not now? When you make an alias, you get a shadow on that....

Software-rendered mouse and Hardware-rendered mouse is two different things. On slow machine, you'll see little lag in Software-rendered mouse. More likely Apple pulled this so they can improve it for next version release. Maybe they want to save some features for 10.3 so they'll have more than 150 features or people are going to get pissed off

DavidHossack · Sep 22, 2002, 09:34 AM

If somebody could come up with a patch app so at least those of us with unsupported graphics cards could try it it would be great.

I would like to see if the cursor lag is noticed or not on my iBook since I like the idea of a shadow on my cursor.

Another idea would be a app that added a shadow behind the cursor and kept up with it whatever cursor was showing-the hand would also have the shadow on it then and all the photoshop cursors etc. Perhaps this may be an idea.

Anybody want to try?

Bartman · Sep 22, 2002, 09:44 AM

I have a powermac g3 blue and white (with a g4 550mhz upgrade and radeon 7000 PCI)and I get the shadow mouse "sometimes". I didn't try the QE hack, but sometimes when I switch resolutions or launch a game, I end up with the shadowed mouse,,, the same happens on my powerbook G4 (original).
I don't think a mouse shadow puts a significant load on the processor or require a high end video card. Someone come up with a patch...
Apple, are listening (reading) ??

CheesePuff · Sep 22, 2002, 10:05 AM

Originally posted by DavidHossack:
If somebody could come up with a patch app so at least those of us with unsupported graphics cards could try it it would be great.

I would like to see if the cursor lag is noticed or not on my iBook since I like the idea of a shadow on my cursor.

Another idea would be a app that added a shadow behind the cursor and kept up with it whatever cursor was showing-the hand would also have the shadow on it then and all the photoshop cursors etc. Perhaps this may be an idea.

Anybody want to try?

So you would rather have a slower computer just so you can have a light drop shadow that you can not even see on your iBooks LCD screen? Sheesh...

And as someone said above, if you're video card doesn't support it, then you're out of luck.

DavidHossack · Sep 22, 2002, 01:06 PM

So you would rather have a slower computer just so you can have a light drop shadow that you can not even see on your iBooks LCD screen? Sheesh...

I just want to see what hit there is. I would prefer a consistant and beautiful operating system to an ugly but fast one. That is why I have always used X on my iBook since I got it. (I used 10.0.3 first) I wouln't have bought an 500Mhz G� iBook if I wanted a speed deamon.

And as someone said above, if you're video card doesn't support it, then you're out of luck.

It seems to support the shadow on the copy, wait, and make alias cursor just fine. I just want to try it on the pointer as well. I can see the shadows on all these on my iBook screen since I have played round with the calibration.

Adam Betts · Sep 22, 2002, 01:08 PM

Originally posted by DavidHossack:
I would like to see if the cursor lag is noticed or not on my iBook since I like the idea of a shadow on my cursor.

I'm using TiG4 and some cursors such as Copy, Move, etc really does lag if you have little CPU power left. You expect it would work smoothly on your iBook G3? Nah, I doubt it.

Adam Betts · Sep 22, 2002, 01:12 PM

Originally posted by DavidHossack:
It seems to support the shadow on the copy, wait, and make alias cursor just fine. I just want to try it on the pointer as well. I can see the shadows on all these on my iBook screen since I have played round with the calibration.

You will only see those cursors at a very short time so Apple didn't bother to remove them. You see regular mouse everyday so it's a different story.

DavidHossack · Sep 22, 2002, 03:53 PM

Well it looks like I am on a losing battle.

I tried dragging stuff round with the copy and alias cursor and didn't see much lag (i.e. I never noticed).

As proof that I am a bit Psycho with my computers I used to run iTunes1 on a imac with 8.6, have edited MacOsX mail to be brushed metal, revamped most apps with either better icons, changed UIs, deleted random bits of Classic Photoshop7 to make it X only etc. I am not scared of braking stuff. Many years ago I had a 7.5 machine that looked more like MacOs8 did than MacOs8.

cla214 · Sep 22, 2002, 04:23 PM

Weird... I had never had the shadow on normal mouse until I changed to color depth to thousands. Then, preferring millions of colors to a drop shadowed mouse, I switched back. However, the mouse has stayed shadowed. How odd.