cursors

When composing documents in OS X, sometimes moving the cursor around with arrow keys is more convenient, and a bit more accurate, than using the mouse.

The arrow keys therefore offer a great advantage both in offering a precise input option (one tap moves over one character, or up one line, etc.), but also in that they are right there on the keyboard. However, if you are unfamiliar with the modifiers you can use with the arrow keys to place your cursor faster, you may resort to pressing and holding them to get the cursor where you want it.

Recently … Read more

"Cursors, foiled again!" There's no need to swirl your cape and twirl your mustache, if you have Aha-soft's ArtCursors program. This shareware cursor creator and manager lets you design your own cursors for Windows. You can build and edit whole libraries of cursors with it. A simple wizard-type process makes it so that almost anyone can use ArtCursors to customize a computer's cursors, and in ways that maybe you haven't even thought of yet!

From ArtCursors' installer we chose between the registered version and the trial version, which is free for 30 days and … Read more

After upgrading Mountain Lion, you might find odd problems such as Safari crashing, or the system not showing the appropriate cursor at times, either in Safari or in other programs like Microsoft Office. When you might expect to see the standard arrow as the mouse pointer, the cursor will instead look like a crosshair or another alternate cursor.

This problem is not widespread by any means, and seems to be rooted around the user installing an incompatible Adobe PDF viewer Web browser plug-in.

Since Safari provides built-in PDF compatibility, for most people there has been no real need for an … Read more

A few users who have upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion are noticing what appears to be a bug involving sound processing on their systems. When the problem occurs, the Mac's audio output will begin to stutter and the mouse cursor will pause and jump. At times the system may become unresponsive when the stuttering happens, but usually continues working again after a moment or two.

The cause of the problem is not clear at the moment, as it seems to come and go unpredictably, and also happens in a number of different software and hardware setups. While some … Read more

Cursors are necessary and useful, but every now and then they can get in the way. You might find them blocking the text you're typing in a word-processing document, hovering over the forehead of someone in a video you're watching, or presenting a distraction during a slideshow. This is a problem that can be easily solved with AutoHideMouseCursor. This simple utility can automatically hide your cursor after a specified period of time, keeping it out of the way until you need it again.

The program's interface is straightforward; there are check boxes to disable the program, have … Read more

The bottom-right corner of your desktop display will forever be known to most people as the place you put your mouse cursor when watching a movie or video in full-screen mode. If you want to view your movie or game sans mouse, your only real option is to move the mouse to the edge of the screen. Hopefully, there's no hidden control bar there, because that would cause it to display instead.

The problem is, at least on newer versions of Windows, that the cursor isn't designed to disappear after a period of inactivity. To solve … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions about a change to system colors, how to access lost e-mails in Time Machine, cursor repetition not working after upgrading to Lion, and DiskWarrior not being able to fix damaged file resource headers. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present answers here, we welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your own suggestions in the comments.

Question: Restoring system colors MacFixIt reader Margo asks:

A short while ago I discussed some tips for handling text in OS X, which included the use of the Option and Command keys for selecting various portions of text in a document.

In response to this article, a couple of MacFixIt readers wrote in with extra tips and suggestions, some of which may be useful for people who regularly compose text. Keep in mind that not all text editors are built to handle these options, but those that use Apple's Core Text libraries should be able to use at least some of them.

Cursor movement

When typing up documents or entering data into forms or other text fields on your Mac, being able to navigate through the entered text can be exceptionally useful.

You might need to copy a section of text, delete it, rearrange words, or enter a new idea within a paragraph. While you can use basic arrow keys or the mouse to target your desired text, some options exist in OS X to make this easier.

By default, a basic text object is a single character in the horizontal direction, and a single line in the vertical direction. When you invoke an … Read more