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Simple but could work wonders:
Laptops mostly have a touchpad for moving these days, below a rectangular keyboard which is mostly crammed into a space equal to or slightly smaller than the screen.
Annoyingly it's often necessary to 'stroke' the touchpad a few times to move the mouse cursor large
distances on the screen.
Given that the screen and keyboard can be thought of as roughly the same dimensions (give or take a little aspect ratio adjustment) how about a system whereby pressing the laptop's mouse button in conjunction with a keyboard key takes the cursor quickly to a point relative to that on the screen?
Ie. press button plus '1' takes you to top left. Press button plus bottom right shift key takes mouse cursor to bottom right of screen.
This would make moving your mouse cursor large distances a lot faster and involve no extra hardware.
Combined with a little extra software you could make the cursor jump to the only viable destination in that area (like a 'Submit' button or something). There may be other enhancements too.
To avoid loosing your cursor on large jumps it might be best to use this with software that enlarges the cursor when moved then quickly shrinks it back to normal size.
HP 9816 Workstation with cursor "wheel"
http://www.old-comp...uter.asp?st=1&c=879
Of all the user interface devices I've used over the years, the flat wheel at the top of this keyboard that moved the cursor remains a favorite. [land, Oct 25 2005]
[link]
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I would rather use a mouse with an extra button to do that . |
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You could probably do this with a Kensington mouse - they have all sorts of things you can tie together with mouse, click and keyboard combinations, as well as mouse jumping. |
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Or an elaborate multi-footpedal arrangement? |
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Mouse jumping?
When I was at secondary school, there was this craze for tiny skate-boards, of about key-fob size. The boys who bought in to this tried to develop their skilz by flipping them around and pulling off tricks which looked quite unimpressive to the uninitated. |
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I was hoping this idea would be related to that. |
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About a thousand computing-years ago, I used an HP 9816 workstation whose keyboard featured a flat wheel (a rotary pulse generator, also called the "knob") in the upper-left corner, just above the function-keys that could be used to motor the cursor around the text-mode screen. It was amazingly efficient. |
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Because the knob was flat, textured, and had a slight rim, it was easy to park a finger on top and spin it very fast either way, moving the cursor horizontally. With shift, it moved vertically. |
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The fact that there was no limit, as there is with a mouse or trackpad, meant that it only took a second or two to move from anywhere on the screen to anywhere else, without taking your hands from the keyboard. |
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See the link section above for a picture of this ancient beauty. |
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Go back to the joynipple between the GHB keys. It works like a charm on my Toshiba, with no overshoots like I get with touchpads. |
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Better yet, include two small knobs on the corners of the keyboard, and manuever the mouse a la Etch-a-Sketch! |
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Why not set it up so that the presence of two fingers on the pad would accelerate the movement? |
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