3 ms·

I know this is probably a losing battle, but I have to try: The cursor is the text insertion point. The thing that moves when you move the mouse and is arrow-s

I know this is probably a losing battle, but I have to try: The cursor is the text insertion point. The thing that moves when you move the mouse and is arrow-shaped by default is correctly called the pointer.

webwielder2 11y ago
The name of the thing is whatever people refer to it as.
dalke 11y ago
The publication record shows that "mouse cursor" is completely acceptable. For examples from https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mouse+cursor%22 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mouse+cursor%22 : Smalltalk-72 manual (1976), page 2 - http://mame.myds.me/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Smalltalk-72_Instruction_Manual_Mar76.pdf http://mame.myds.me/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Sma... : > The Mouse: The little rectangular object with three buttons that usually sits to the right of the keyboard is called a mouse. Move it around while watching the screen. An arrow (mouse cursor) will be moving in response to it. This is how we point to objects on the screen. Raster Graphics for Interactive Programming Environments (1979) - http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/CSL-79-6_Raster_Graphics_for_Interactive_Programming_Environments.pdf http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xer... > Graphical input. The user is provided with a "mouse," a coordinate input device with three pushbuttons. The mouse rolls along a table top and is tracked by a cursor that moves on the screen. The mouse can thus be used to point to objects already displayed on the screen, or simply to identify a coordinate position. The Blit: A Multiplexed Graphics Terminal ("Sometime in 1983", by Rob Pike) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.611.4835&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.611... > The state of mouse input is reflected by the cursor tracked by the mouse as it is moved. Usually, the cursor is an arrow pointing to the pixel at the mouse’s location. A program may change the cursor to reflect its state. A Study in Interactive 3-D Rotation Using 2-D Control Devices" (1990) - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/publications/3-D%20rotation%2088.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/public... > If the mouse button is depressed while the mouse cursor is inside the circle, left-and-right and up-and-down movement of the mouse will rotate the object left-and right and up-and-down on the screen. Fluid DTMouse: Better Mouse Support for Touch-Based Interactions (2006) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.416.277&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.416... > For example, once you have moved the mouse cursor over a small target that is to be dragged, you do not want the act of switching to mouse dragging mode to move the cursor off of the target .
- pvg 11y ago
  And both used interchangeably in this collection of draft Mac documentation from the early 80s (it is labeled 'Inside Macintosh Vol 1' but isn't really) https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_applemacIn84_27699101 https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_applemacIn84_27699101: Cursors A cursor is a small image that appears on the screen and is controlled by the mouse. (It appears only on the screen, and never in an off-screen bit image.) Other Macintosh documentation calls this image a "pointer", since it points to a location on the screen. To avoid confusion with other meanings of "pointer" in this manual and other Toolbox documentation, we use the alternate term "cursor".
tomjakubowski 11y ago
In emacs the text insertion point is, well, the point. The visual indicator of the point's position is called the cursor.

webwielder2 11y ago

The name of the thing is whatever people refer to it as.

dalke 11y ago

The publication record shows that "mouse cursor" is completely acceptable. For examples from https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mouse+cursor%22 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22mouse+cursor%22 : Smalltalk-72 manual (1976), page 2 - http://mame.myds.me/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Smalltalk-72_Instruction_Manual_Mar76.pdf http://mame.myds.me/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Sma... : > The Mouse: The little rectangular object with three buttons that usually sits to the right of the keyboard is called a mouse. Move it around while watching the screen. An arrow (mouse cursor) will be moving in response to it. This is how we point to objects on the screen. Raster Graphics for Interactive Programming Environments (1979) - http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/CSL-79-6_Raster_Graphics_for_Interactive_Programming_Environments.pdf http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xer... > Graphical input. The user is provided with a "mouse," a coordinate input device with three pushbuttons. The mouse rolls along a table top and is tracked by a cursor that moves on the screen. The mouse can thus be used to point to objects already displayed on the screen, or simply to identify a coordinate position. The Blit: A Multiplexed Graphics Terminal ("Sometime in 1983", by Rob Pike) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.611.4835&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.611... > The state of mouse input is reflected by the cursor tracked by the mouse as it is moved. Usually, the cursor is an arrow pointing to the pixel at the mouse’s location. A program may change the cursor to reflect its state. A Study in Interactive 3-D Rotation Using 2-D Control Devices" (1990) - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/publications/3-D%20rotation%2088.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/asellen/public... > If the mouse button is depressed while the mouse cursor is inside the circle, left-and-right and up-and-down movement of the mouse will rotate the object left-and right and up-and-down on the screen. Fluid DTMouse: Better Mouse Support for Touch-Based Interactions (2006) - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.416.277&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.416... > For example, once you have moved the mouse cursor over a small target that is to be dragged, you do not want the act of switching to mouse dragging mode to move the cursor off of the target .

pvg 11y ago
And both used interchangeably in this collection of draft Mac documentation from the early 80s (it is labeled 'Inside Macintosh Vol 1' but isn't really) https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_applemacIn84_27699101 https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_applemacIn84_27699101: Cursors A cursor is a small image that appears on the screen and is controlled by the mouse. (It appears only on the screen, and never in an off-screen bit image.) Other Macintosh documentation calls this image a "pointer", since it points to a location on the screen. To avoid confusion with other meanings of "pointer" in this manual and other Toolbox documentation, we use the alternate term "cursor".

tomjakubowski 11y ago

In emacs the text insertion point is, well, the point. The visual indicator of the point's position is called the cursor.