Multiple mouse cursors: ME WANT!

[SpiralOcean]

I've had the same wish, I think anyone can learn to be ambidextrous, and having two cursors would at least allow you to divide up the screen in half and cut down on cursor travel time.

Here's a company that allows you to use the entire hand... both hands to manipulate!

Check out the demo movies!

http://tactiva.com/demo.html

[texanpenguin]

Ambidextrous shmambidextrous; who wants to take up extra space on their desk for another mouse they'd use maybe one second every day (on the outside)?

I mean, you can pick up two pencils at once, but do you write letters that way? one hand doing page 1, the other doing page 2? We as a species can't focus our control over multiple things at once.

More useful (for this purpose) would be the cursor *splitting up into three (for example) cursors* when you hold Option (for example) over a sliders pane (such as the HSB adjustment panel) to drag all sliders at the same time.



That having been said, I would never, ever, ever use that feature.

But who knows?

[Mikuro]

I can't can't think of any case where I'd want to slide multiple sliders together as one, though.

We can control more than one object at a time pretty well. I don't type with one hand. I don't play video games with one hand. Heck, my hands move pretty dynamically and independently even when I eat (I'm a bit of a pig that way; my mouth is never empty for more than half a second). I see no reason why two mice would be overwhelming. (And yes, I can rub my belly and pat my head just fine! )

It definitely WOULD take some getting used to, though. I have a hard time using menus with my left-side mouse as it is. But no more trouble than I had with my right hand when I first started using computers. I'm confident I could adjust to it if I had proper motivation....but as it is I only need to use my left mouse when my right hand is busy with the number pad or something.

[chevy]

I am not sure how much two mouses with two cursors make sense with only one user, but there are other situations:

two users on one computer ! (and not only for gaming)
multi-finger input ! (like on a piano keyboard, for music or other art)
multi-dimensions manipulation ! (chemistry)

[SpiralOcean]

Having more than one cursor is great for any kind of visual work. When you work on a car, do you just use one hand because you can't focus on two? Working in an editing environment, I'm assuming that most editors would love to manipulate the video as if they were touching it. Watch Minority Report as an example. A person is more ingaged with two hands, they feel like they can move objects around and manipulate them.

When a sculpture works with clay, do they tie one hand behind their back because they cannot focus on two hands?

We are two handed creatures, we have already learned how to use two hands, just using one hand on the computer is like loosing an arm in real life.

I think the root of this discussion stems from the fact that some of the users here work only with text, and yes, with writing, you are only working with one cursor, one pencil. But there are other things that people use the computer for than just writing.

[adambyte]

Originally Posted by texanpenguin

We as a species can't focus our control over multiple things at once.

Oh... hell. Guess I'll have to stop playing guitar and piano.

[Viro]

Originally Posted by adambyte

Oh... hell. Guess I'll have to stop playing guitar and piano.

You do both of them at the same time?

[texanpenguin]

One other simple problem this idea presents is that of idiots.

I remember at school, you'd regularly get idiots plugging their mice into the side of your iMac (or the other side of your keyboard) and fighting the cursor with you, trying to get to the close button on the window you were typing in.

The only thing worse was when they plugged in another *KEYBOARD* and either typed Cmd+Q or Cmd+Power (which for some reason used to freeze every single iMac our school had).