Hand Cursor instead of Arrow Cursor

[nmendes]

Some people (specially older people) don't "get" that you should click and drag the mouse to move freely in the panoramas, even with instructions and all.
Is there a way to change the cursor from the standard arrow one to a hand cursor?

[cheathamlane]

Some people (specially older people) don't "get" that you should click and drag the mouse to move freely in the panoramas, even with instructions and all.
Is there a way to change the cursor from the standard arrow one to a hand cursor?

There's a special parameter just for old people ;) : useHandCursor

Check the documentation under spot object parameters.
( hotspots.html#Spot_object_parameters )

[nmendes]

Yes, I know there's a parameter like that, but only for spot objects. I was talking about the full panorama area.

[zleifr]

Well if you just want the hand cursor, I think you'd have to write a plug in for it, which would *probably* be very simple, *probably* just a few lines, telling it to use the hand cursor, but I don't know much about changing cursors in flash.

On the other hand, I might have a better solution for you:

attached it a plug that makes the pano follow the mouse around, but gently. I have noticed that all my clients seem to "get" that much more quickly.

or

I have seen on viewat.org that they pop up a hotspot in the beginning that gives instruction, and then after 5 or so seconds fades away.

[Kallikanzaros]

Wow! Than plugin should be part of the official release! very useful (i did something similiar in the old Director days, controlling quicktimeVR, but it never worked as smooth as this.

[zleifr]

I posted that plug-in to the forum quite a while back (2-3 months) so it has been floating around for a while. I am glad you like it.

I forgot to mention that there is one useful parameter you can set:
in global section external.panofollowsmouse.speedLimit=x

This changes the maximum speed of the motion. By default it is at 0.25, as I like a measured pace, so as not to induce nausea.

Also, note that the motion seems to me to be optimal with the behavior=2 param set in the parameters section.

[Aifos]

i vote for a handcursor plugin!!!

zleifr plugin is very usefull, but not the same than a handcursor.

zleifr thanks for that! iґll try to implement it.

[zleifr]

Ok, so does the idea of having a hand cursor always visible seem like it would make the hotspots less obvious? I think it would, because the cursor wouldn't change onOver for the hotspot.

[Aifos]

ok, so instead of HANDcursor, it could be a cursor with 4 arrows up.down.right.left
and over the spot it changes to a hand.

[nmendes]

Well if you just want the hand cursor, I think you'd have to write a plug in for it, which would *probably* be very simple, *probably* just a few lines, telling it to use the hand cursor, but I don't know much about changing cursors in flash.

On the other hand, I might have a better solution for you:

attached it a plug that makes the pano follow the mouse around, but gently. I have noticed that all my clients seem to "get" that much more quickly.

or

I have seen on viewat.org that they pop up a hotspot in the beginning that gives instruction, and then after 5 or so seconds fades away.
zleifr: Thanks a lot, that's perfect for this! Way better that using instructions or a hand cursor and such, at least for that's what I think. Let's see what's the reaction of the users.

[suastegui]

Although I'm not a AS3 coder, here's a small addition to zleifr's plugin for a custom cursor.
Maybe a good starting point for the real ones.

[zleifr]

Suastegui: GREAT! That is exactly how I would do it. I haven't tried it on a pano yet. with the mouse.hide() method, does the mouse still click? and fire all its events? That is my only question about that.

Oh, and I am not anything anyone would call an AS3 coder myself, either, so don't be shy. I just have the gumption or patience or stupidity to bumble through till I get it right.

And the other thing that I would do to make the hand cursor appear over hotspots is put an OVER event on hotspots and get the target of it just like tooltips does, and then check if buttonMode is by chance set to 0 and then if NOT, unhide the mouse and the hand cursor will appear, and then put an OUT event on hotspots that brings back the custom cursor.

Zephyr

[suastegui]

Thank you Zephyr. I did this thing in a few minutes, as the code snippet is really small. Mouse clicks etc are still active, but in fullscreen mode both your plugin and my addition to it do not work.
As you may see in the new cursor graphic, everything is still very rough and I'm sure somebody can easily add more options to it.
Thanks again for your plugin.

Joop

[zleifr]

It should be noted, for anyone else who is interested, that to my knowledge it is only in fullscreen in Safari (which is Safari's fault) that it doesn't work.

[jaaaab]

Hi,

Are we talking about something like this?

mouse demo (http://www.immersive.fr/panos/?pan=paradisdeco&type=flash2-2&sc=mouse&margin=auto&w=900&h=500)


That was some plugin i starded but hadn't time to finished yet, there are some bugs particurlarly with hotspots in the panorama, and it bugs with other application windows....

Will keep you in touch when i finished this.

Cheers.

[Kallikanzaros]

Thanks for the heads up about the speedlimit parameter, zleifr! I use it to stop the panorama movement when a hot spot has been clicked (since pan.disablepan=1 does not seem to affect your plugin).
Is there any way to configure your plugin so it doesnt stop when the mouse passes hotspots?

As you can see here http://www.tanjaunlimited.se/filer/galleri/
the movement stops everytime the cursor passes one of the hotspots (the photos) and does not resume until you move the cursor anew.

cheers
j

[HansNyberg]

Jaaaab this hand freezes at least in Safari fullscreen.
First time I had to use Esc to get out.

Hans

[cheathamlane]

Yes, same here -- Jaaaab's hand cursor freezes in the middle of the screen in full-screen, in Safari. I can still manipulate the pano, but the cursor is "stuck".

[zleifr]

Hans, Cheathamlane: It isn't really freezing, your invisible cursor is still moving around. The problem is the same old Safari fullscreen bug. Jaaab's plugin just hides the standard cursor, tracks the mouse and sets a hand image to the position of the hidden mouse pointer. Safari in fullscreen loses the ability to track the mouse.

[Kallikanzaros]

Strange, that bug does not occur on my Safari (3.0.4 on Leopard) in fullscreen. During the loading proccess i have two cursors, but after the loading is finished i have just the hand cursor. Perhaps you are using an old version of Safari?

[zleifr]

I am still using 10.4.... so maybe the safari fullscreen bug is finally fixed...


Z

[jaaaab]

Hi,

Yes i think anything we do, this feature has to be implemented in Denis Hotspots plugin because we need to catch the event when mouse is over a hotspot to get its bmp back to normal or handcursor.

On windows with fullscreen mode, the cursor i made works, we only see a "one finger handcursor" for few seconds, then it get to modified handcursor.

++

[HansNyberg]

Just updated to Safari 3.04
No mouse over functions still.

I did not say that the handcursor is not working. It just makes some very unpleasnt movements and especially at hotpots it may dissapear or freeze the window.

Hans