Re: Alternative DnD cursors

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Johan Hanson <johan@obsession.se> writes:

> Damon Chaplin wrote:
> > 
> > Here's my attempt at some better DnD cursors.
> > Build & run the attached program to see them and compare them with
> > the current ones.
> 
> I think the "angle" type of cursors could be confused with the "angle"
> cursor images that are already in the standard X cursor font.

The "angle" cursors are the cursor DND cursors. Confusion with the
standard X cursors is one problem people don't have with them, in my
experience. Basically, they never appear in the same place.
 
> When it comes to the specific subimages, I would prefer a "hand" instead
> of the arrow for "move". It is the commonly used metaphor for moving things
> around. A hand image has been attached to this mail.
> 
> > Also, do we have to stick to a size of 16x16?
> > Maybe we could try to use nicer 32x32 cursors by default and fallback
> > to 16x16 if needed. (How many systems are limited to 16x16?)
> 
> IMHO, cursor size should be user-defined. Users usually change the size
> (or appearance) of their X cursors by replacing the cursor font file with
> another one. I think special cursors should be in a special font so that
> users would be able to customize the images.

No offense to those users smart enough to figure it out, users do
_not_ usually change the appearance of their cursors in this
way. Most users have no clue tht they _could_ change them in this
way.

> I don't have any problem with GTK installing an extra font.

I do. GTK+ has no business mucking with the user's fontpath, and
trying to install things in the standard X font directories is
not a good idea.

(
 - you might not have write access there
 - do you run mkfontdir
 - do you have to restart xfs? How do you run 'xset fp rehash'
   for all users that might be using the directory?
 - etc.
)

GTK+ probably needs a way of customizing the DND cursors (and other
cursors), but I don't think the X cursor font mechanism is
appropriate.

A customization interface needs to be:

 - available by a user without root privileges
 - available through a GUI
 - done in a robust way
 - preferably done in a way that changes take effect on the fly

GTK+ can only provide an enabling mechanism in this regard - 
not the full interface, of course.

Regards,
                                        Owen