[comp.sys.amiga] Dmouse and 15 color pointers

blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (10/03/88)

Matt, I've run into a slight problem with Dmouse's pointer blanker. It
doesn't blank a 15 color (attached sprite) pointer. This is hardly
surprising since I had never seen a 15 color animated (yes, ANIMATED!)
pointer until a couple of weeks ago. 

What happens is the first 3 colors get blanked, but the extra colors are
still there. This can be a bit distracting when you've got part of an
erupting volcano or a writhing snake on the screen. :-)

Would it be much trouble to blank another sprite? 


Now about these animated pointers. Tim Kemp of Columbus, Ohio has written
a program that will let you animate the mouse pointer. It does this by
assembling a series of pictures you've drawn up. They can be the usual 3
color (plus transparent) and 16 pixels wide, or 15 colors and 32 pixels
wide. 

There are some great pointers in the collection I got: the snake and
volcano mentioned above, a spinning pointer, spinning Boing! ball, the
US flag waving in a breeze, a smiley face (from the yellow button, not
Usenet) that mutates into a little monster, and even a swimming fish
(dedicated to Fred!)

I hadn't heard of these until they were shown off at last month's user
group meeting, so I figure that there are a lot of people out there that
haven't seen them either. Now this is a totally trivial and useless
program, but the entertainment value ranks up there with Leo's Robotroff.

So how to distribute this neat hack across the net? The binaries group
seems to have gone dormant again, and a 50K file is a bit much to post
in this group. (There is no source included in the package I recieved.)
Should I just send it to comp.binaries.amiga, and hope the logjam breaks
soon?

	Blaine


PS Looks like I won't make AmiExpo after all. :-(
   When's the next big Amiga gathering anywhere between Utah and the 
   west coast? Is Comdex going to have much Amiga activity?
-- 
Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland    580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108
UUCP Addresses:  {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne
        	 utah-cs!esunix!blgardne        usna!esunix!blgardne
"Nobody will ever need more than 64K."    "Nobody needs multitasking on a PC."

blgardne%esunix.uucp@cunyvm.cuny.edu (10/04/88)

From: Blaine Gardner <blgardne@esunix.uucp>
Subject: Dmouse and 15 color pointers
Keywords: partially blanked animated pointers
Message-ID: <990@esunix.UUCP>
Date: 2 Oct 88 22:42:51 GMT
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
To:       amiga-relay@UDEL.EDU
Sender:   amiga-relay-request@UDEL.EDU

Matt, I've run into a slight problem with Dmouse's pointer blanker. It
doesn't blank a 15 color (attached sprite) pointer. This is hardly
surprising since I had never seen a 15 color animated (yes, ANIMATED!)
pointer until a couple of weeks ago.

What happens is the first 3 colors get blanked, but the extra colors are
still there. This can be a bit distracting when you've got part of an
erupting volcano or a writhing snake on the screen. :-)

Would it be much trouble to blank another sprite?

Now about these animated pointers. Tim Kemp of Columbus, Ohio has written
a program that will let you animate the mouse pointer. It does this by
assembling a series of pictures you've drawn up. They can be the usual 3
color (plus transparent) and 16 pixels wide, or 15 colors and 32 pixels
wide.

There are some great pointers in the collection I got: the snake and
volcano mentioned above, a spinning pointer, spinning Boing! ball, the
US flag waving in a breeze, a smiley face (from the yellow button, not
Usenet) that mutates into a little monster, and even a swimming fish
(dedicated to Fred!)

I hadn't heard of these until they were shown off at last month's user
group meeting, so I figure that there are a lot of people out there that
haven't seen them either. Now this is a totally trivial and useless
program, but the entertainment value ranks up there with Leo's Robotroff.

So how to distribute this neat hack across the net? The binaries group
seems to have gone dormant again, and a 50K file is a bit much to post
in this group. (There is no source included in the package I recieved.)
Should I just send it to comp.binaries.amiga, and hope the logjam breaks
soon?

    Blaine

PS Looks like I won't make AmiExpo after all. :-(
   When's the next big Amiga gathering anywhere between Utah and the
   west coast? Is Comdex going to have much Amiga activity?
--
Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland    580 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108
UUCP Addresses:  {ucbvax,allegra,decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne
             utah-cs!esunix!blgardne        usna!esunix!blgardne
"Nobody will ever need more than 64K."    "Nobody needs multitasking on a PC."

dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (10/04/88)

:Matt, I've run into a slight problem with Dmouse's pointer blanker. It
:doesn't blank a 15 color (attached sprite) pointer. This is hardly
:surprising since I had never seen a 15 color animated (yes, ANIMATED!)
:pointer until a couple of weeks ago. 
:
:What happens is the first 3 colors get blanked, but the extra colors are
:still there. This can be a bit distracting when you've got part of an
:erupting volcano or a writhing snake on the screen. :-)
:
:Would it be much trouble to blank another sprite? 

	Real simple.. turn off mouse blanking (-m0).  The mouse stays on
forever.  Apart from that, I'm not going to anything about it because it
would clearly be nothing but a big hack!  And not all that many people would
benefit from it either.  Besides, I'm already going into a system copper
list to do the blanking... the only thing in DMouse I had to cheat to get
working.

					-Matt

mikes@lakesys.UUCP (Mike Shawaluk) (10/07/88)

In article <8810040743.AA03497@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
> . . . Besides, I'm already going into a system copper
>list to do the blanking... the only thing in DMouse I had to cheat to get
>working.
>
>					-Matt

I hate to expose my total ignorance of the programming aspects of the Amiga,
but I have to ask this dumb question: since Intuition (or some such entity)
allows the mouse pointer to be changed to some arbitrary shape/size/pattern,
be it arrows, clouds, or whatever, why can't a program simply change it to all
transparent background color, thus making it invisible?  Or, does Intuition
step in at this point and complain, figuring that the user has no right to do
this?

I mean, sorry for bring this idea up if it's so obvious & has been tried 100's
of times before, but it seems that it ought to work.
-- 
  - Mike Shawaluk       (...!uunet!uwmcsd1!lakesys!mikes)

dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (10/08/88)

Mike Shawaluk (...!uunet!uwmcsd1!lakesys!mikes) Writes:
:I hate to expose my total ignorance of the programming aspects of the Amiga,
:but I have to ask this dumb question: since Intuition (or some such entity)
:allows the mouse pointer to be changed to some arbitrary shape/size/pattern,
:be it arrows, clouds, or whatever, why can't a program simply change it to all
:transparent background color, thus making it invisible?  Or, does Intuition
:step in at this point and complain, figuring that the user has no right to do
:this?

	Well, sorta.  But you see, the '15 color pointer', animated pointers,
etc... are usually low level hacks and while they might appear to be 
compatible with Intuition, they are not compatible with other programs which
have to, er, stoop to the same sort of programming to accomplish a task.  It
simply isn't possible for DMouse to detect, in any easy way, these various
hacks.

	And, of course, DMouse can't be going in changing things behind
people's backs.  I certainly cannot change the actual bitmaps associated
with the sprite!  What I do do is change the copper list to point to my own
(blank) sprite, which isn't too bad since the particular parts of the copper 
list involve are never really read by the system, only written to, and 
certainly not read or written by the application directly.  The system 
doesn't care if I change some of the stuff and I don't care if the system 
changes it back.

						-Matt