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Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

blog.vjeux.com

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Re: Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

#2
So you go to a malicious website and it's able to move your mouse around or lock it in place. That would not be a good situation to be in, especially for the segment of the population that doesn't understand keyboard shortcuts (which would, presumably, allow escape from this). Even if it's not used maliciously, it seems very plausible that it would be used to make advertisements harder to avoid (on websites like Hulu that run ads during a video, preventing most users from being able to go elsewhere during them could be a tempting idea).

I get why something with this effect is necessary if we are to have FPS games running in the browser, I just don't think that it's a good idea to allow websites to do so without explicit user permission. Admittedly, there are few things I hate as much as programs moving my mouse around, so I'm a bit biased.

Re: Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

#3
post #2

So you go to a malicious website and it's able to move your mouse around or lock it in place. That would not be a good situation to be in, especially for the segment of the population that doesn't understand keyboard shortcuts (which would, presumably, allow escape from this). Even if it's not used maliciously, it seems very plausible that it would be used to make advertisements harder to avoid (on websites like Hulu…

The article's suggestion does not say the mouse would be moved or locked by the web program. The program would be able to hide the cursor (which it can already do) and receive 'virtual' mouse coordinates.

My main concern is number overflow for long-running applications, but I seriously doubt this will be a problem for anyone.

I don't see any security problems with the proposed solution (though I don't claim to be a security expert!).

Re: Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

#5
post #3
post #2

So you go to a malicious website and it's able to move your mouse around or lock it in place. That would not be a good situation to be in, especially for the segment of the population that doesn't understand keyboard shortcuts (which would, presumably, allow escape from this). Even if it's not used maliciously, it seems very plausible that it would be used to make advertisements harder to avoid (on websites like Hulu…

The article's suggestion does not say the mouse would be moved or locked by the web program. The program would be able to hide the cursor (which it can already do) and receive 'virtual' mouse coordinates. My main concern is number overflow for long-running applications, but I seriously doubt this will be a problem for anyone. I don't see any security problems with the proposed solution (though I don't claim to be a s…

I may be hugely misreading the article, but when it says "The mouse will be anchored to that position and the mousemove events are going to set a virtual position" and "Everytime the user moves the mouse ... the cursor is moved to the center of the screen" I find it difficult to interpret that in any way that doesn't effectively mean that a website is able to move or lock the cursor. I admit that I use cursor and mouse interchangeably, when they're actually not the exact same thing, however.

Re: Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

#6
I believe you are talking about mouse lock (http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72754), something Sirisian and me (but mostly Sirisian) have been trying to push into the browsers (right now chrome and hoping the other browsers catch on).

There are many problems regarding this idea, specially security for the user, this is why it's hard to convince the people of the benefits for RTS and FPS games.

Re: Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

#7
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article's suggestion does not say the mouse would be moved or locked by the web program. The program would be able to hide the cursor (which it can already do) and receive 'virtual' mouse coordinates. My main concern is number overflow for long-running applications, but I seriously doubt this will be a problem for anyone. I don't see any security problems with the proposed solution (though I don't claim to be a s…

I may be hugely misreading the article, but when it says "The mouse will be anchored to that position and the mousemove events are going to set a virtual position" and "Everytime the user moves the mouse ... the cursor is moved to the center of the screen" I find it difficult to interpret that in any way that doesn't effectively mean that a website is able to move or lock the cursor. I admit that I use cursor and mou…

Okay, I missed "The mouse will be anchored to that position" part. I really disagree with this part of the proposal. Thanks for pointing it out.

However, the comment about the cursor moving to the centre of the screen is an implementation detail. At least on Windows, you need to centre the mouse cursor for something like this because the OS won't (easily) give you actual virtual coordinates.

Re: Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

#8
I think a much simpler idea would to have a onmousedelta event which fires whenever the mouse moves and that tab has focus (including outside window boundary) and includes a .deltaX and .deltaY event property.

That way, the user has full control over their mouse and you can also develop fps games.

Re: Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

#9
post #6

I believe you are talking about mouse lock ( http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72754 ), something Sirisian and me (but mostly Sirisian) have been trying to push into the browsers (right now chrome and hoping the other browsers catch on). There are many problems regarding this idea, specially security for the user, this is why it's hard to convince the people of the benefits for RTS and FPS games.

Thanks for pointing out the bug report, this is great to see that this issue is being worked on. I hope that my proposal will help you model the API.

Re: Idea: mouseFreeze, A solution for Browser FPS Games

#10

I think a much simpler idea would to have a onmousedelta event which fires whenever the mouse moves and that tab has focus (including outside window boundary) and includes a .deltaX and .deltaY event property. That way, the user has full control over their mouse and you can also develop fps games.

What happens when the user moves the cursor outside the window, and then clicks? Or moves the cursor into a hot corner of the screen, activating something like a screen saver?

Deltas are necessary but are only part of the solution.

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