The Trail Page

Documentation / Contents - Mouse Settings

• Overview of Mouse Settings
  • The Window
  • The Buttons
  • When Changes Take Effect
  • The Trail and Cursor Daemon
• The Pointer Page
  • Mouse Acceleration
  • Mouse Mapping
  • Click Speed
  • How the Double-Click Time Reaches Applications
• The Trail Page
  • Show mouse trail
  • Trail style
  • Trail length
  • Options for Smoke/Dust FX
    • Smolder
    • Effect spheres
    • Stray pixels
    • Effect type
• The Cursor Page
  • Style
  • Cursor size
  • What This Does and Does Not Cover
• Keys, Files, and the Command Line
  • Keys
  • Command Line
  • The Configuration File
  • Environment Variables
• What Is Not Here
  • Belongs to Another Panel
  • Not Built
  • Known Rough Edges
  • Related Books

Other cards

• Copyright Information

The Trail Page

A pointer trail draws something in the pointer's wake so it is easier to follow across a large or busy screen. This page is a Blueprint addition; the SGI panel had nothing like it.

The page is on the extended face only.

Show mouse trail

Off by default. Everything else on the page is greyed until you turn it on.

Trail style:

Three choices.

Smoke/Dust FX       drifting particles
Fading trail        a line that fades out behind the pointer
Fading butterflies  the same idea, with butterflies

Only Smoke/Dust FX uses the four options further down the page; with either of the other two styles selected, those controls are greyed.

Trail length:

Short    Medium    Long

This applies to all three styles. Short is a tight cluster near the pointer; Long is a whip that stretches well behind it.

Options for Smoke/Dust FX

These four are greyed unless the style is Smoke/Dust FX.

Smolder

Off by default. The particles linger and smoulder instead of vanishing cleanly.

Effect spheres:

Sparse    Normal    Dense

How many particles are in flight at once.

Stray pixels:

Few    Some    Lots

How much of the effect scatters away from the pointer's path.

Effect type:

Five choices, each drawn in its own colour so the list reads as a palette:

Scheme   follows the desktop colour scheme
Ice      pale blue
Fire     orange
Dust     tan
Smoke    grey

Scheme is the default. It is the one that keeps looking right when you change colour scheme; see What Is Not Here.

The label says "Effect type" while the setting is a colour. That is the label as it appears on screen.

When It Takes Effect

Immediately. Every control on this page saves and applies as you change it. You do not need Apply.

If the trail daemon is not running, Mouse Settings starts it.

Next

• The Cursor Page
• Keys, Files, and the Command Line