this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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Asklemmy
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On Android, it's probably a little utility software called Quick Cursor (it's not FOSS). It's incredibly convenient being able to spawn a cursor on your phone from thin air that you can use to reach the "unreachable" portions of your screen, especially if you are holding your phone with one hand. Besides being a "phone touchpad" it has a bunch of ways of triggering actions/shortcuts, for example: volume or brightness control, launching an app (I use it for launching a floating calculator, notes...), opening notification shade, copying text (it can copy any text that is under the cursor, even if it's not selectable)...
It's not that I couldn't go without it, but it changed the way I use my phone and it would feel really weird without it. It feels like it should be a part of the OS.
Used this for all of 10 seconds and fell in love.
wow this will legitimately improve my life daily, thanks for sharing
That seems like a wonderful function. Considering android support external mouse with cursors. I hope someone can make a FOSS version and put it in F-droid.
This is a nice share. I have used Edge Gestures for years (made by the same dev who created Square Launcher, which was my daily driver coming off Windows Phone) and this is a nice augmentation to that.
I am curious about the usefulness of the functionality behind the paywall. It looks like some of the app launching features could replace what I use edge gestures for, but without a trial to test it I can't be certain.
If you use the pro version, can you let me know if there is a way to pick from multiple applications to launch?
Here's an example of the application shortcuts in Edge Gestures:
So, there are 2 main places for shortcuts/actions: tracker actions and edge actions.
These are my tracker actions
I set it so it activates when I tap and hold the tracker, it shows up those shortcuts. If I slide my finger towards one of the shortcuts, it activates it.
These are my edge actions
These are actions/shortcuts that you trigger by pushing the cursor to the edge of the screen.
You can pick any app from your phone or any of the actions available in the app, there are a lot... Like system controls (volume, brightness control, media playback buttons, screen lock, screen rotation, etc.) and you can also make a shortcut for Tasker/MacroDroid/Automate action. So basically, you can make a shortcut for almost anything you can think of.
That may be the single most intuitive, and intuitively useful, app I have used in years.
Wow, instant default install.
Legend!
Downloaded and enjoyed. Thanks for the recommendation.
That's stupid, so good. How haven't I heard of this before?
You can just connect a Bluetooth mouse if you have one and a cursor will appear natively.
I think you are missing the point of the app. The cursor part of it is more of a gesture, or you can think of it as a "thumb extension". The point is to help you avoid the inconvenience and save time by allowing you to reach farther parts of your screen without repositioning your hand. I called it a "phone touchpad" just because, when you activate it, a part of the screen is acting like a touchpad. You are not using it for a specific purpose of having a cursor on your phone, the cursor is basically just the tip of your "virtual extended thumb". So it's a utility/accessibility software.
Using a physical mouse would be the opposite of what this app is trying to achieve.
Okay, I tried it, it's not for me. Would be WAY better if the track pad was logarithmic so the cursor was closer to your thumb as it got lower on the screen, eventually meeting your thumb when dragged low enough.
If it had that feature (and played well with the bluelight filter I use, twilight) I'd be sold on it.
I'm not sure what system you're on, but mine does do that. Not all the way down so they're touching but it goes from a little above my thumb when at the bottom, to my thumb being around the middle of the screen with the cursor at the top of my phone display.
Edit: I think if you dig around in the settings you can change the distance. But it's probably behind the paywall.
I think it might be possible only in the paid version, but that's exactly how it works, you just have to increase the Cursor area in Swipe zones settings.
And it does stay under the Twilight if you give Twilight the accessibility permission.
no F-droid?