Submission details
Better mouse acceleration curve / Better "mousing feeling"
Users typically move their mouse 1 km per workday. The precision and speed with which they can reach their targets are a prime element whether they use their time optimally or lose time with every interaction.
Users can currently specify a general "speed" how fast their mouse moves. But there is a lot more to it. A unchangeable "mouse acceleration curve" defines how much even faster the mouse cursor moves across the screen when the physical mouse has a higher tempo. Compare how much you have to physically move your mouse across the table to cross the whole screen in very slow speed and very high speed: in high speed, it's less then half of the same distance. This is what we're talking about here. Not the absolute "mouse speed" setting, but the difference the mouse pointer takes when moving the phyiscal mouse over the same distance, but with different speeds.
This acceleration is defined in a "mouse acceleration curve". Mac OS 1-9 had a gentle, forgiving curve. The change to Mac OS X brought with itself a different curve, which was more mechanical, with seemingly "hard steps" where a bit more speed of the physical mouse meant a sudden hard jump upwards in speed of the mouse pointer.
Most people just realize that the mousing feeling of Mac OS X is "a bit strange". This is about this quirk.
This behaviour can currently be changed with the utility "SteerMouse", but the utility is expensive, plus we expect good behaviour out of the box.
- You're welcome to promote this item.
- If you're happy with the current mousing feeling, you shouldn't demote this one.
- If you have more insight, you're welcome to add your comments.
- Supply a better mouse acceleration curve with the default install of OS X.
- Add a way for people to select different curves via the command line.
High
High
Not fixed
Discussion (10 comments)
"If you're happy with the current mousing feeling, you shouldn't demote this one."
That doesn't make sense to me, because your first solution is to change the default. I don't know if your idea of a "better" default curve would equal mine, and I'm quite satisfied with the current default.
If your solution had omitted the part about changing the default and *only* read "Add a way for people to select different curves via the command line," I would have promoted it instead of demoting it.
I'm sorry, but this community has already gone the way of the dodo. Too many aggressive people, not enough niceness.
Goodbye.
Don't know if that "goodbye" means nevermind, but my opinion is, I'm happy with how it works now - changing the default would obviously upset the people who like it now, and adding a way to change it in the command line makes it pretty unaccessible to a lot of people who never use terminal or even know what it is. People who want to add options sometimes don't understand why people demote the suggestion, but it's mostly because if ALL suggested options were added there would be too many options, which in itself is confusing. Sounds like what's needed here is a freeware program that gives options for changing mouse acceleration.
And in any case, the word "speed" when talking about mouse speed isn't quite right, since it definitely affects the acceleration of the mouse - I guess it's just been the word associated with the idea for so long that everyone understands its meaning (or just tries out different "speeds.")
One word: Steermouse
I don't have any idea what he was all saying, but I find the mouse working perfectly - even in applications like Photoshop or Illustrator, where mice precision is really important. I just don't get what the problem is here.
And, erm, "If you're happy with the current mousing feeling, you shouldn't demote this one." - everybody should use this catchphrase to make sure their ratings can only go up.
What Apple should provide is the possibility to edit this thing in the Preferences - most people won't dig deep into the mouse preferences, but people who want it to change can change it. But I'm not asking Apple to speed time on this one, since it won't bother more than ten people.
can't believe this was voted down.
Some foo' said get steermouse = admits there is a problem but prefers an external app to change this O_o
This is the single greatest reason why I perfer Windows to OS X. Too bad cos I really like the UI of OS X
An additional option in the mouse prefpane to set the acceleration would be nice. For those who are just fine with the mose acceleration there is no need to change this option. But in case someone feels uncomfortable, there should be an option to change this behaviour.
Normally i have a m$ optical mouse connected to my macbook pro. The supplied mouse driver offers to set that acceleration curve. But if I connect my logitech mouse there it is again: the sluggish, too fast for the full screen, and to slow for small range motions ... and i can't set it anywhere.
So, this shouldn't be a driver specific option, but a system wide one.
I just found a freeware utility that can adjust mouse acceleration, it's called iMouseFix:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/30303
I personally use USB Overdrive which is shareware. I only use it for adding button shortcuts, but it definitely allows you to adjust mouse acceleration and even DPI sensitivity:
http://usboverdrive.com/
iMouseFix doesn't "fix" the mouse! What it does is to completely disable the acceleration - at least in newer OS versions. I tried it and it doesn't make anything better ...
USB overdrive really solves the problem, I'm currently using it with my mightymouse bluetooth (what a crappy mouse ...) and it works perfectly.
Nonetheless, I think this is worth to integrate an option for those who feel uncomfortable with the mouse acceleration curve.
abitgone wrote on August 28, 2008, 9:33pm
"If you're happy with the current mousing feeling, you shouldn't demote this one."
I'm -really- happy with the current mousing feeling - can I demote it now?
(-1)