Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
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Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
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Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#2The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"?
https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...
Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#3The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"? https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...
I saw this somewhere the other day - the explanation I saw there was that it makes the cursor seem more balanced
Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#4The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"? https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...
I saw this somewhere the other day - the explanation I saw there was that it makes the cursor seem more balanced
I was looking at both of them for probably a little too long, and I can't see it.
Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#5The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"? https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...
The web page which that image is sourced from[0] and the reddit page it is in turn sourced from[1] makes a lot of hand-wavey analogies to optical balancing (which is a real phenomenon[2]) but doesn't make any compelling arguments for why they apply in this specific case.
An alternative explanation is that this intentional imperfection exists to match the unavoidable imperfection which occurred when the cursor graphic was originally drawn as tiny low resolution 1-bit pixel art. It looks correct because we're used to it being slightly wrong. And when viewed at a normal size, the difference is barely perceptible anyway.
[0] https://mspoweruser.com/why-windows-10s-asymmetrical-cursor-...
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/TIHI/comments/fwnep0/thanks_i_hate_...
[2] edited, thanks jusuhi
Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#6The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"? https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...
[flagged]
Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#7I have no idea, but a wild guess is that with old hardware the "hot" pixel that could trigger the collision interrupt was fixed to the upper left corner of
the hardware sprite.
EDIT: Another thought that crossed my mind is that with very lo-res screens a corner is the only way to get a well defined and sharp (yet fairly wide) arrowhead. The trade-off would be the shaft being pixelated, but the tip is more important.
Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#8Xerox parc again. I have the feeling everything we have today was invented in this place. How was it possible that it was so successful and influencial?
Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#9The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"? https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...
The web page which that image is sourced from[0] and the reddit page it is in turn sourced from[1] makes a lot of hand-wavey analogies to optical balancing (which is a real phenomenon[2]) but doesn't make any compelling arguments for why they apply in this specific case. An alternative explanation is that this intentional imperfection exists to match the unavoidable imperfection which occurred when the cursor graphic…
I'm honestly not sure any explanation is needed here. Early UX design wasn't always done with as much thought and sophistication as today's software designers (are claiming to) apply. The first Windows systems had plenty of UI blunders that make the cursor thing look insignificant by comparison, and I can promise you they weren't all about "visual balance" or similar. Lots of them have carried over to later versions.
Re: Why is the mouse cursor slightly tilted and not straight?
#10The real question is: Why does Windows cursor look "imperfect"? https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/windows-c...
a recurring peeve of mine is small tooltips becoming unreadable underneath the cursor which blocks them from being read... then you move the cursor away the tooltip disappears from view... this could actually be fixed at some point in the future