Topics

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General Software Discussion / Idea: Wavy mouse or motion mouse (or something)

« on: November 24, 2021, 01:24 PM »

Hey all,

Hope this is the right place for this.  Previous post got moved around a bit and I forgot where I posted it first.  I did a donation code once before and it went pretty well! 

Anyway- this is a fun one.  Summary-  Long ago, for the Apple Macintosh system 7, there was a simple little app that made the mouse cursor point in the direction you were moving it.  Now I found this app very very neat and played with it all the time.  Looking to recreate it for windows 10 (+).

I'm not sure if it's possible, of course.  Depends on what Windows will let you do with the cursor.

How to describe the motion?    It's actually kinda hard to describe or possibly visualize.

Take a piece of paper, ideally one you cut out into the shape of a cursor.  Make it large, using maybe a half sheet or a full sheet of paper.  Or at least just take half a sheet.  Put it on some very smooth surface where you have a lot of room to move.

Take your finger, or the eraser side of a pencil and put it on the very tip of the arrow, or on the very edge of a corner of the paper.  That corner is the tip of the arrow.  Now move the arrow around your surface.  See how the arrow 'follows' your movement?  How it keeps turning to point in the direction you're moving?  THAT'S all this cursor program did. 

Another way to visualize it is to watch this video of the old video game Time Pilot.  But imagine that the ship is actually moving, not the background, of course: https://youtu.be/cNv0_wY5jp8

That's as best as I can describe the mechanics- the force is applied at the very tip of the arrow, and the rest of the arrow body behaves like normal physics would.

I constantly found myself doing loops on my way to 'ok' buttons, or min/maxing windows, etc.  It was honestly fun.  And this was a long time ago so I was a lot younger then, lol....


Is this possible in Windows?  Anything else like it?  Anyone interested in coding it?

Thanks!


(Previous DC project was 'enfolder', by vic, found here:  https://www.donation....msg446282#msg446282)

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Living Room / 'Culture question' about DonationCoder - How are things done here?

« on: April 30, 2021, 10:40 AM »

Hey everyone,

Apologies if putting this here isn't the best place.  Didn't seem to fit anywhere else.


I'm new here, and had some questions about the culture here, how things are done.  I found this place, I forget where, probably Reddit.  Someone was suggesting here as a place where one can go and request programs to be made in exchange for donations.

I have several things I love to be coded.  I posted one to get started, a simple thing to select files, right click and create folder for those selected items.  It's over in the requests board.

But since then I've been wondering-

1- A couple people replied specifically to tell me that they weren't interested in coding that.  That was the whole point of their post.
2- A user did pick up my task.  He said "I'm on it" and created a github, etc. etc.

So some of this was unexpected and looking at the effiency of his posts and updates, etc.  I started to have some questions and wanted to just clarify some things.

Why would someone post just to tell me only that they're not interested in taking the project.  Probably it's nothing, just 'how he is', which is fine and cool, but I wanted just to check on that to see if I'm missing something.  Also- with the donations and expectations.  What's expected in terms of a donation?  The word 'donation' implies 'optional'.  I'm happy to donate something, I'm not saying I want stuff done for free.  (Although, of course, that would be awesome).  But I guess I'm seeing that there's a range of potential culture (behavior) between "yeah, chip in if you found it useful" and probably "people expect a donation (and it should be within <number> and <number> based on <factors>).

So tl/dr- how are things done here in terms of 'why' people take tasks and what the expectations are in terms of donations.  I understand in advance that the answer might not be cut and dry and will depend on a lot of factors, the person coding, the difficulty of the project, the time it takes, etc. etc. etc.  Just looking to increase my understanding of the culture here.

Thanks!

3

General Software Discussion / Idea: 'Enfolder'- Select a group of files, right click, select 'Enfolder', Windo

« on: April 06, 2021, 03:24 PM »

Had this idea for a while.

I'd love to be able to select a group of files/folders, then right click and select the option 'Enfolder' and Windows creates a folder and places all of my selected files into that folder.

Would save several clicks of create new folder, select files, move.

Ideally you'd get a chance to name the folder somewhere in that process.  I'm not a coder but I bet that increases the complexity of the program significantly.  I'd be happy even if that wasn't an option.  Or maybe the folder was still selected after the move so you just type in the name. 

But the main thing is the simplicity of selecting-->right-click-->'Enfolder'. 

Having to run a program, or enter fields, etc. all make it just as complicated as doing it manually.