Beryl and Enlarged Mouse Pointer

[Robert Cole]

Kristian Lyngstøl wrote:
> On 5/24/07, Robert Cole <rkcole72984 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello, everyone.
>>
>> I had read somewhere that there existed a Beryl plugin for the purpose
>> of enlarging the mouse pointer.  Is this true?  I've been experimenting
>> with Beryl, and it uses hardly any RAM or CPU time on my system.  I'm
>> just completely amazed by it!  the only drawback for me right now is
>> that I do not know if anything exists to enlarge my mouse pointer.  Is
>> there anything out there like this?
>
> The only thing that exist is an option to enlarge the pointer while
> using Beryl's inputzoom plugin, which means that it'll be
> enlarged(zoomed) as you zoom in, which I suppose doesn't really cover
> what you need.
>
> I'm working on Compiz' zoom plugin over the summer as a Google summer
> of code project, and I'll need to enlarge the mouse pointer here too.
> Since I'm already doing
> that, it shouldn't be a problem to add a factor to enlarge the mouse
> pointer when zoomed out too. Though the correct approach would
> probably be increasing the size of the original pointer.
>
> What are your use cases for this? Temporary enlarging it, or more
> permanently, for instance?
>
> There has long been talk about making Compiz (and Beryl) render the
> pointer it self through the compiz core, so there will probably be
> some more general work in this area too.
>
>> Thanks for any input.  I look forward to seeing what comes from Beryl as
>> far as accessibility.
>
> Not much, since Beryl is merging with the Compiz community, but you'll
> probably see some accessibility enhancement from former Beryl
> developers (like myself).
>
Hello, Kristian, and thanks for your reply.

As far as my use, I would use it as a screen magnifier.  I have very
limited vision (20/2000 in my right eye, and no vision in my left with
no possible correction for either eye).  I have enough sight, though, to
work on the computer using a screen magnifier.  Right now I use
gnome-mag, and ti works just fine, but Beryl/Compiz seem to work much
more smoothly and take up less resources on my system.  Needless to say
I am grateful for both, as I am now able to use Ubuntu as my primary OS
rather than Windows. :)  With Beryl/Compiz, however, I cannot find the
cursor on-screen as it doe snot enlarge when I use the zoom feature.  I
am unsure of how to set it so that the cursor does enlarge on zoom, though.

I'm not too worried, right now, about pointer tracking as long as I can
find the pointer on screen. :)  I'm just amazed with how all of this works.

If I can offer any input, as I've mentioned before, please let me know
as I use the magnifier function both in Ubuntu and Windows very
heavily.  Unfortunately, however, my programming experience is very lacking.

nonce again, thanks for your response.

Take care.