Author Topic: IDEA: Virtual Flashlight (Read 51,626 times)

anjan_oleti · « **on:** September 08, 2007, 11:39 AM »

I would like to have a software which would create a virtual spotlight or flashlight, wherever mouse pointer moves

Similar tools which work only with MAC:
omniDazzle (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidazzle/)
Mousepose (http://boinx.com/mousepose/)

Would like to have more features like 'hiding the mouse pointer' etc..

Thanks,
Cheers!

anjan_oleti · « **Reply #1 on:** September 08, 2007, 11:42 AM »

other features like... adjusting the size of glow, adjusting transparency level of rest of the desktop, applying that to a particular region/window (like in screenshot captor)...

jgpaiva · « **Reply #2 on:** September 08, 2007, 02:07 PM »

This is such a fun idea that i decided to do it.

I really can't see the point, though.. What would anyone want this for?

I made a really simple version (i can't mimic the mac version with that good shadow), just for you to play.
Unfortunatelly, it uses way too much processor power, which makes it a bit impossible to use on daily basis!

anjan_oleti · « **Reply #3 on:** September 08, 2007, 02:59 PM »

Oh! That was AWESOME!!!

Thanks a lot!!!

The point is... "It is very very useful for presentations over a projector"

Ofcourse, I would love to have the MAC kind with some cool options...

jgpaiva · « **Reply #4 on:** September 08, 2007, 03:46 PM »

Oh, ok, that makes sense to me.

You think that even with its current use of processor it's worth it? That i can't fix, unfortunatelly.

"adjusting the size of glow, adjusting transparency level of rest of the desktop" is very possible, if you'd like, i can add it.
The other stuff like hiding the mouse cursor or selecting an area is way harder (being that the latter i think is impossible).

mouser · « **Reply #5 on:** September 08, 2007, 04:02 PM »

that is really cool

anjan_oleti · « **Reply #6 on:** September 08, 2007, 05:12 PM »

Aah! that should be great! I'll be grateful

Oops.. I din't know those features were difficult.. Fine, forget it! I asked for them, because I had seen something like that in Screenshot Captor

Anyways, one more addon... if we could configure KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS to temporarily enable and disable, when the application is running in the background, it would be of help

anjan_oleti · « **Reply #7 on:** September 08, 2007, 05:15 PM »

Yeah! processor usage is high... but i dont think that would be much of a problem during simple presentations... i guess!

PhilB66 · « **Reply #8 on:** September 08, 2007, 06:19 PM »

That is awesome jgpaiva!

BTW, there's MouseLight and SpotOnTheMouse for Windows.

anjan_oleti · « **Reply #9 on:** September 08, 2007, 06:51 PM »

PhilB66! Thanks for the links..

MouseLight seemed nice, so i downloaded and tried it!
It uses TWICE as much CPU as the one jgpaiva created

As regards SpotOnTheMouse.. i liked the feature "click circles" (red circles shown when clicked)
otherwise, IMO it doesnt look too cool for a formal presentation

Just hope we can come up with something much better than either

jgpaiva · « **Reply #10 on:** September 08, 2007, 07:03 PM »

anjan_oleti: notice that i won't be able to do something as good as MouseLight, and it costs only 2.27 EUR

Probably it'd be quite a good deal, if you need so much of such a tool

anjan_oleti · « **Reply #11 on:** September 08, 2007, 07:31 PM »

Oh! Then its fine!

I'll get Mouse Light

Thanks for your efforts

Darwin · « **Reply #12 on:** September 08, 2007, 09:10 PM »

Heh, heh,... it's cool and I can *almost* see the point when making a presentation, but I'm not there yet. What IS the point of this? Anyone care to illuminate me?

lanux128 · « **Reply #13 on:** September 09, 2007, 03:30 AM »

this is cool, jgpaiva..

now, i'm using it to play fireflies with my kids . btw, the cpu usage is not that high on my pc.. maybe it's because of CPUIdle..

[attach=#]

cranioscopical · « **Reply #14 on:** September 09, 2007, 04:22 AM »

Quote from: Darwin on September 08, 2007, 09:10 PM

Heh, heh,... it's cool and I can *almost* see the point when making a presentation, but I'm not there yet. What IS the point of this? Anyone care to illuminate me?

You're shining us on, aren't you? Surely the point is obvious!
For example, in any presentation I make the audience is kept mainly in the dark.

kip · « **Reply #15 on:** September 10, 2007, 07:50 PM »

Guys,
Can't do any better in AHK than what has already been presented, however try this one written in Delphi. Its a bit rough and ready at the mo, but let me know what you think of it. I've not added any Registry keys to it, so it will always start with medium transparency and black overlay, however you can change the colours and transparency level from the icon in the Taskbar.

http://www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk/mouseshade.exe

lanux128 · « **Reply #16 on:** September 11, 2007, 12:16 AM »

kip, that was quite cool, i especially like the ability to change the background color but if you're planning to add the option to save last-used settings, please consider saving it to an INI file..

MouseShade
[attach=#]

Beth UK · « **Reply #17 on:** September 11, 2007, 01:16 AM »

Quote

this is cool, jgpaiva.. now, i'm using it to play fireflies with my kids

ummm... me too!

PhilB66 · « **Reply #18 on:** September 11, 2007, 01:40 AM »

@kip

CPU usage shoots up to 100% when moving the mouse pointer. Otherwise, it's a cool apps. I would like it to have a magnifier capability as well and yeah let it save settings to an .ini file as suggested by lanux128.

anjan_oleti · « **Reply #19 on:** September 11, 2007, 02:28 AM »

Oh KIP!!!

That was awesome... WHITE colour is interesting

Can we have a custom image if we need... how to change it?

mouser · « **Reply #20 on:** September 11, 2007, 07:08 AM »

Hey kip, that's great

one thing that might be really cool for these programs is, scroll wheel to zoom size of circle.

kip · « **Reply #21 on:** September 11, 2007, 05:58 PM »

OK folks, here's a little update. This version has three different shapes available and the settings are retained in an ini file - custom shapes could be implemented, but could also lead to problems with the transparency and view through, so left it for now.
Tried messing about with the scroll wheel idea, but that proved messy for a quick fix - the problem is that you are running an application, which is easy to capture mouse events in, but the mouse itself is in whichever is the next topmost window, so it needs a global mouse hook - will play about with that later.
Any further thoughts / ideas would be appreciated as this is a neat challenge.

Update v2

http://www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk/mouseshade2.exe

mouser · « **Reply #22 on:** September 11, 2007, 06:02 PM »

the mousewheel scrolling might have been an ideal case.. having 2 global hotkeys to enlarge or reduce the size of the circle would be almost as good.. just an idea though not saying it's a critical feature.

kip · « **Reply #23 on:** September 13, 2007, 05:49 PM »

Ok mouser, here we are, added the ability to vary the size by using the < and > keys. As I've used these two keys to modify the size, they are the only two you can't type through onto the underlying application. Size is not saved, unlike the other settings. Plus I've put it into a setup for easier removal later.

http://www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk/MouseShade2Setup.exe

I'm quite pleased with this now, so I've put it up on my site for general download. if anyone is interested in having a look at the other stuff try

http://www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk

OK final edit, I decided I liked the ability to type through and that some folks might want to use punctuation, so I've altered the size change keys to the UP and Down arrows. Same download link.

mouser · « **Reply #24 on:** September 13, 2007, 07:14 PM »

wonderful... and may i say you have some cool programs there on your site

can i make a small suggestion:
make the size modification hotkeys use some alt combination, it will eliminate the likelyhood of interfering with keys.
alt+arrow up and alt+arrow down are likely to be very safe to use, wheras some apps may need the regular arrow keys.