Cursor active region

[bpedit]

I notice the arrowhead cursor selects the area under its approximate geometric center. Is there a way to adjust it such that it selects what is under the tip of the arrowhead?

[Callum]

Hi Bpedit,

 

Please could you provide the document in question if thats possible and tell me what the zoom level of your document is?

 

Thanks

C

[Gear maker]

FYI I think this would be the same as I had brought up about a year ago.  I still have a problem with this.  I thought the problem went away at one time, but I guess it was just my luck then was better as I am seeing it again lately. 

 

[bpedit]

14 hours ago, Callum said:

Hi Bpedit,

Please could you provide the document in question if thats possible and tell me what the zoom level of your document is?

Thanks

C

 

I'm working at about 100%. My current page is a bead loom pattern, many small rectangles forming a rectilinear matrix. Each rectangle abuts its neighbors with no space in between and no overlap except for the 0.1 point lines defining the borders. I am constantly selecting these rectangles in order to color the beads.

[firstdefence]

Tried this myself and made a short video to demonstrate.

 

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

Tried this myself and made a short video to demonstrate.

What did you use to magnify the area around the pointer? I can see that the document zoom is set to 100% but it is hard to tell what, if any, effect magnifying that area might have on what  x/y coordinates the pointer is using as a reference.

 

I did a simpler test on my Mac: I moved a document beyond the upper left edge of the window, set the zoom level to exactly 200%, & watched the ruler lines while I tried selecting items near the upper left edge of that window. From what I could tell, the uppermost black pixel of the pointer is the reference point for selections. (On Macs at least, there is a 1 px white border around the pointer icon, so there is a white pixel above that black one, but it is not the reference point.)

 

Also, System Preferences > Accessibility > Display allows one to enlarge the pointer size. Using that to bump up the pointer to around 20% larger than normal, I still get the same results -- the top black edge of the arrow pointer is always the reference point for selections.

[firstdefence]

@R C-R It was an effect in the recording app not a system tool, I used it to show better detail of what is happening at 100% What it shows is the tip of the pointer is within the bounds of the square above but it selects the square below it, but if the point tip is the selector it should have selected the top square. Obviously the sensitive area is larger than the radius of the pointer icon and it will select the majority.

[firstdefence]

@R C-R I've just found out that Mac has a little utility called Grab that allows you to take a screen grab with the cursor displayed, just ,cmd. space and type Grab, from the prefs you can select a pointer then just do a <cmd> + <shift> + 3 the screen grab below shows that the pointer in this position will select the bottom square even though the tip is within the bounds of the top square.

 

 

Grab Prefs

[R C-R]

The problem I have with Grab is it uses whatever pointer is set in its preferences instead of whatever one the app would normally use (& from what I can tell, may not use a larger than normal one if that is set in System Preferences > Accessibility > Display) so I don't trust the accuracy of what it shows.

 

I also tried System Preferences > Accessibility > Zoom to magnify the screen at the system level to 4X normal size. As with all my other tests, the the uppermost black pixel of the pointer remains the reference point for selections. So I am not seeing selections made from the geometric center or anywhere else. I don't have a clue why we get such different results.

[bpedit]

7 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Tried this myself and made a short video to demonstrate.

 

 

Thank you, that does show the issue.

 

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

I did a simpler test on my Mac: I moved a document beyond the upper left edge of the window, set the zoom level to exactly 200%, & watched the ruler lines while I tried selecting items near the upper left edge of that window. From what I could tell, the uppermost black pixel of the pointer is the reference point for selections.. . .

 

If there is no other object beneath the cursor it will behave as you observed. But, as in firstdefence's example, try selecting a rectangle in a row other than the bottom. The issue only occurs when there is another object, other than the one desired for selection, immediately adjacent and occupying the bulk of the area under the cursor. It feel as if the cursor selects the object occupying the greatest area under its entire graphical outline.