In computing, a pointer or mouse pointer (as part of a personal computer WIMP style

of interaction)[10][11][12] is a symbol or graphical image on the computer monitor

or other display device that echoes movements of the pointing device, commonly a
mouse, touchpad, or stylus pen. It signals the point where actions of the user take
place. It can be used in text-based or graphical user interfaces to select and move
other elements. It is distinct from the cursor, which responds to keyboard input.
The cursor may also be repositioned using the pointer.

The pointer commonly appears as an angled arrow (angled because historically that
improved appearance on low-resolution screens[13]), but it can vary within
different programs or operating systems. The use of a pointer is employed when the
input method, or pointing device, is a device that can move fluidly across a screen
and select or highlight objects on the screen. In GUIs where the input method
relies on hard keys, such as the five-way key on many mobile phones, there is no
pointer employed, and instead, the GUI relies on a clear focus state.

The pointer echoes movements of the pointing device, commonly a mouse, touchpad or
trackball. This kind of pointer is used to manipulate elements of graphical user
interfaces such as menus, buttons, scrollbars or any other widget.

Appearance

A wait cursor replaces the pointer with an hourglass.

The pointer hotspot is the active pixel of the pointer, used to target a click or
drag. The hotspot is normally along the pointer edges or in its center, though it
may reside at any location in the pointer.[14][15]

In many GUIs, moving the pointer around the screen may reveal other screen hotspots
as the pointer changes shape depending on the circumstances. For example:

In-the text that the user can select or edit, the pointer changes to a vertical bar
with little cross-bars (or curved serif-like extensions) at the top and bottom —
sometimes called an "I-beam" since it resembles the cross-section of the
construction detail of the same name.
When displaying a document, the pointer can appear as a hand with all fingers
extended allowing scrolling by "pushing" the displayed page around.
Graphics-editing pointers such as brushes, pencils, or paint buckets may display
when the user edits an image.
On an edge or corner of a window the pointer usually changes into a double arrow
(horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) indicating that the user can drag the
edge/corner in an indicated direction to adjust the size and shape of the window.
The corners and edges of the whole screen may also act as hotspots. According to
Fitts's law, which predicts the time it takes to reach a target area, moving mouse
and stylus pointers to those spots is easy and fast. As the pointer usually stops
when reaching a screen edge, the size of those spots can be considered of virtual
infinite size, so the hot corners and edges can be reached quickly by throwing the
pointer toward the edges.[16][17]
While a computer process is performing tasks and cannot accept user input, a wait
pointer (an hourglass in Windows before Vista and many other systems, spinning ring
in Windows Vista and later, watch in classic Mac OS, or spinning pinwheel in macOS)
is displayed when the mouse pointer is in the corresponding window.
When the pointer hovers over a hyperlink, a mouseover event changes the pointer
into a hand with an outstretched index finger. Often some informative text about
the link may pop up in a tooltip, which disappears when the user moves the pointer
away. The tooltips revealed in the box depending on the implementation of the web
browser; many web browsers will display the "title" of the element, the "alt"
attribute, or the non-standard "tooltips" attribute. This pointer shape was first
used for hyperlinks in Apple Computer's HyperCard.
In Windows 7, when Windows Touch was introduced in the mainstream to make Windows
more touch-friendly, a touch pointer is displayed instead of the mouse pointer. The
touch pointer can be switched off in Control Panel and resembles a small diamond
shape. When the screen is touched a blue ripple appears around the touch pointer to
provide visual touch feedback. When swiping to scroll etc., the touch pointer would
follow the finger as it moves. If touch and hold to right-click is enabled,
touching and holding will show a thick white ring around the touch pointer. When
this ring appears, releasing one's finger would perform a right-click.
If a pen is used the left-click ripple is colorless instead of blue and the right-
click ring is a thinner ring that appears closer to the pen tip making contact with
the screen. A click (either left or right) will not show the touch pointer, but
swiping would still show the pointer which would follow the pen tip.
Also, the touch pointer would only appear on the desktop once a user has signed in
to Windows 7. On the sign-in screen, the mouse pointer would simply jump to the
point touched and a left click would be sent on a tap, similar to when a touch
input is used on operating systems before Windows 7.
In Windows 8 and above, visual touch feedback displays a translucent circle where
the finger makes contact with the screen, and a square when attempting to touch and
hold to right-click. A swipe is shown by a translucent line of varying thickness.
Feedback can be switched on and off in Pen and Touch settings of the Control Panel
in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 or in the Settings app on Windows 10, and feedback can
also be made darker and larger where it needs to be emphasized, such as when
presenting. However, the touch pointer is normally less commonly visible in
touchscreen environments of Windows operating systems later than Windows 7.
The mouse-over or hover gesture can also show a tooltip, which presents information
about what the pointer is hovering over; the information is a description of what
selecting an active element is for or what it will do. The tooltip appears only
when stationary over the content. A common use of viewing the information is when
browsing the internet to know the destination of a link before selecting it, if the
URL of the text is not recognizable.
When using touch or a pen with Windows, hovering when supported or performing a set
gesture or flick may show the tooltip
I-beam pointer

The I-beam pointer.

The I-beam pointer (also called the I-cursor) is a cursor shaped like a serifed
capital letter "I". The purpose of this cursor is to indicate that the text beneath
the cursor can be highlighted and sometimes inserted or changed.[18]

Pointer trails and animation

An example of mouse pointer trails.

Pointer trails can be used to enhance its visibility during movement. Pointer
trails are a feature of GUI operating systems to enhance the visibility of the
pointer. Although disabled by default, pointer trails have been an option in every
version of Microsoft Windows since Windows 3.1x.

When pointer trails are active and the mouse or stylus is moved, the system waits a
moment before removing the pointer image from the old location on the screen. A
copy of the pointer persists at every point that the pointer has visited at that
moment, resulting in a snake-like trail of pointer icons that follow the actual
pointer. When the user stops moving the mouse or removes the stylus from the
screen, the trails disappear and the pointer returns to normal.

Pointer trails have been provided as a feature mainly for users with poor vision
and for screens where low visibility may become an issue, such as LCD screens in
bright sunlight.

In Windows, pointer trails may be enabled in the Control Panel, usually under the
Mouse applet.
Introduced with Windows NT, an animated pointer was a small looping animation that
was played at the location of the pointer.[19] This is used, for example, to
provide a visual cue that the computer is busy with a task.[20] After their
introduction, many animated pointers became available for download from third party
suppliers. Unfortunately, animated pointers are not without their problems. In
addition to imposing a small additional load on the CPU, the animated pointer
routines did introduce a security vulnerability. A client-side exploit known as the
Windows Animated Cursor Remote Code Execution Vulnerability used a buffer overflow
vulnerability to load malicious code via the animated cursor load routine of
Windows.[21]

3D cursor

An example of a 3D cursor in a 3D modeling environment (center).

The idea of a cursor being used as a marker or insertion point for new data or
transformations, such as rotation, can be extended to a 3D modeling environment.
Blender, for instance, uses a 3D cursor to determine where operations such as
placing meshes are to take place in the 3D viewport.[22]

See also
Susan Kare, designer of several of the common cursor shapes
Microangelo Toolset
Mouse Sonar
Screen hotspot
Throbber
Tooltip
Cursorial
References
Bardini, Thierry (2000). Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the
Origins of Personal Computing. Stanford, USA: Stanford University Press. p. 95.
ISBN 978-0-80473871-2.
Markoff, John Gregory (2005) [2004-06-11]. "2. Augmentation". What the Dormouse
Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. Penguin
Books / Penguin Random House LLC. pp. 123–124. ISBN 978-1-10120108-4. ISBN 1-
10120108-8. Retrieved 2021-08-26. pp. 123–124: […] Although it is commonly believed
that the story of how the mouse got its name has been lost in history, Roger Bates,
who was a young hardware designer working for Bill English, has a clear
recollection of how the name was chosen. […] He remembers that what today is called
the cursor on the screen was at the time called a "CAT". Bates has forgotten what
CAT stood for, and no one else seems to remember either, but in hindseight, it
seems obvious that a CAT would chase the tailed mouse on the desktop. […] (336
pages)
Markoff, John Gregory (2013-07-03). "Douglas C. Engelbart, 1925–2013: Computer
Visionary Who Invented the Mouse". The New York Times. Archived from the original
on 2021-06-15. Retrieved 2021-08-26. […] When and under what circumstances the term
"the mouse" arose is hard to pin down, but one hardware designer, Roger Bates, has
contended that it happened under Mr. English's watch. Mr. Bates was a college
sophomore and Mr. English was his mentor at the time. Mr. Bates said the name was a
logical extension of the term then used for the cursor on a screen: CAT. Mr. Bates
did not remember what CAT stood for, but it seemed to all that the cursor was
chasing their tailed desktop device. […]
FIX: The caret shape appears as a thick rectangle after you switch from the Korean
Input Method Editor (IME) to English in Visual FoxPro 8.0
U.S. Patent #4197590
Kiesling, Charles. "US Patent 3531796: Blinking cursor for crt display".
US3531796A - Blinking cursor for crt display - Google Patents. Retrieved 2022-01-
06.
"Text size comment share tweet email Print Charles A., Sr. Kiesling obituary".
Star Tribune. Star Tribune. Retrieved 2022-01-06.
"Who invented the blinking cursor". mouse - Who invented the blinking cursor -
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ATSUI Programming Guide: Caret Handling, page 32.
Markoff, John (2009-02-16). "The Cellphone, Navigating Our Lives". The New York
Times. New York. Retrieved 2011-12-14. [...] so-called WIMP interface — for
windows, icons, menus, pointer [...]
Hinckley, Ken (December 1996). "Haptic Issues for Virtual Manipulation".
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paradigm dominates modern computing systems.
Hinckley, Ken. "Input Technologies and Techniques" (PDF). Microsoft. Retrieved
2011-12-14. Researchers are looking to move beyond the current "WIMP" (Windows,
Icons, Menus, and Pointer) interface [...]
"Document from 1981 reveals why mouse cursor is tilted and not straight". Archived
from the original on 2014-02-17. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
"Mouse". Archived from the original on 2009-02-03. Retrieved 2008-05-29.
"Setting a Cursor's Hot Spot". 2008-05-02. Archived from the original on 2008-05-
02.
Hale, Kevin (2007-10-03). "Visualizing Fitts' Law". Particle Tree.
Atwood, Jeff (2006-08-09). "Fitts' Law and Infinite Width". Coding Horror.
ComputerHope.com
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Distributors. p. 24. ISBN 978-81-269-0752-6.
Lock & Philander (2009). Michael Sangster (ed.). FCS Systems Analysis & Design L4.
Pearson Education South Africa. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-77025-428-2.
McClure, Stuart; Scambray, Joel; Kurtz, George (2009). Hacking exposed: network
security secrets & solutions (6th ed.). McGraw Hill Professional. p. 177. ISBN 978-
0-07-161374-3.
"3D Cursor — Blender Manual". docs.blender.org. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cursor.

Creating and controlling browser cursors
Cross-browser CSS custom cursors
Installing A Cursor On Your Computer
Windows Desktop Application Design Guidelines: Common Pointer Shapes
Apple Human Interface Guidelines: Pointers
Categories: Graphical user interface elementsUser interfacesUser interface
techniquesVirtual realityHuman communicationHuman–machine interaction
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