refer to struth’s video on why this could be helpful:
youtu.be/73Jnj0uAJEU?si=i94kbybmcXYDkVNc
Rotating the mouse cursor so that it more accurately mirrors your hand’s movement would allow for more intuitive and precise cursor movement. like shooter games.
inspecting the device on libinput reveals that it does, in fact, have a rotation value that could be set if only i could find where the variables are being stored.
i.imgurcom/DiohEpa.png
the libinput faq did not help me figure out this question. it just says the compositor should know, but i don’t know how to query the compositor (i’m pretty sure it’s kwin in my installation)
if we inspect plasma’s mouse settings gui, we are met with several helpful options, but not one to alter the mouse’s rotation. not even under a hidden-by-default ‘advanced options’ section. i have taken the liberty of creating a quick mockup of the mouse settings menu with this key feature added.
In your own words, explain what’s wrong with this? (8 horizontal passes)… though I guess it’s possibly useful if your mouse has some weird alignment issue.
However, I do agree that the settings should expose available settings; hiding less used ones in an advanced dropdown or tab.
Ben is right, the weird alignment issue he’s intuitively referring to is pictured in the opening seconds of the ad - the mouse doesn’t fit the user’s hand and grip style.
As the saying among mouse nerds goes: Shape is everything.
Yes, it would help in reducing strain. I’ve often thought it would be nice to have a setting for it. We all have different shaped hands wrists arms and working environments.
Definitely. Try rotating your mouse clockwise 90° then grab a window and move it around and resize it - that can be a lot of fun… as can rotating your monitor.
So looking at this marketing claim from a software seller, it’s easy to see the theoretical validity.
But the practical side just doesn’t work like that, you’re talking about HUMAN BIOMECHANICS.
This is like saying that - after learning to walk in a straight line on a flat plane - it’s a very complicated task to adjust this straight line walking across a tilted plane… and then if you adjust your angle of walking by 5%, then you’re going to have a lot of trouble further compensating.
However, I unconsciously manage this task all the time, walking over all kinds of complicated terrain that even robots with massive AI computing power have great problems dealing with.
Your body has the ability to sense (you have eyes on the cursor too) it’s own position and movements; so we have the ability to co-ordinate and balance without relying solely on visual input. You have sensory receptors located in muscles, joints, tendons… a constant feedback loop with the visual cortex.
Get this - you can touch your ear without being able to see it, and without having any idea of the actual angles involved.
Let me know how many times you try to touch your ear and MISS. Go on, give it TEN attempts, alternating hands, alternating starting positions, with your eyes closed.
Tell me, is my score of 10/10 somehow so far above the average as to astound you?
the video is not trying to sell anyone anything? it’s just a guy talking about a potential problem, that he personally experienced, the steps he took to correct it, and a piece of free software (that as far as i know he is not associated with) that offers an easy solution for his problem out of the box.
i’ve seen multiple comments refer to the video as an ‘ad’ and totally ignoring the content of the video, or the general message contained within this thread.
Dude it’s a literal ad for kovaaks hosted by kovaaks on an advertising website and suggests testing the “problem” with kovaaks…
It’s an ad. Wake up. you got pwned by an ad. Now you’re parroting the ad’s contents as if it were science. I ask you for actual science and all you’ve got is “but it’s totally not an ad”
I feel like I am speaking with a crowd who’s a bit unfamiliar with the backhround of this subject. For those outside the loop, the whole rawaccel thing is a phase that the “mouse community” goes through every few months/years while chasing the aim dragon.
There’s a very exploitative cottage industry set up where people get hooked on buying new mice/mousepads/games/trainers(eg kovaaks)/utilities/arm wraps/cables/switches/mouse feet/testing hardware/etc/etc in the name of “optimising” their aim and getting updoots from the adbots on r/mousereview so they feel like one of the cool kids.
There are a tiny number of actual collectors and a ton of “I bought 8 mice this month, upvote my photo of them” whales, a small number of legitimate enthusiasts, some real advancements in the tech and the science behind it, and a LOT of junkies totally addicted and buying into the hype or manipulated by “you don’t aim well enough because you’re doing it wrong, buy our thing it will fix you and make you cool” vibes.
Perhaps those of you not aware of this ‘thing’ with mice might be familiar with it in other contexts like audiophile gear, PC keyboards, sporting gear, ‘everyday carry (EDC)’, military stuff, etc, etc
I ain’t saying that rotating the movement doesn’t help or that it does. I am saying actual research is required, to determine which (and there’s no shortage of research on input devices) and I’m definitely saying the link in OP is an ad, which I mean, it’s kinda obvious… so obviously it makes sense to treat it with an appropriate degree of scepticism and do what you’d do whenever you can’t tell if it’s ‘fake news’ or not… Check their sources.
I didn’t follow the links, and I don’t play games, so I’m not familiar with the product. It’s an advert? Are they profitable? Maybe they could sponsor KDE.
The idea is to have a setting for mouse rotation offset, right?
That’s something I’d like to have.
I’d like to adjust -3 to -5 degrees. It would help to reduce wrist strain.
Seems it was possible in x11, but not yet in Wayland.
edit:
I can see it’s possible from this
The device rotation applies a corrective angle to relative input events, allowing the device to be used e.g. sideways or upside-down. For example, a trackball may be used in a 90° rotated position for accessibility reasons - such a rotated position allows triggering the buttons with the thumb or the non-dominant hand.
I’m a lefty who uses “right handed” setting on mice, and so the mouse is naturally rotated in my hand. I correct for it by rotating my writst. A control to offset this and allow the wrist to remain unbent and thus less strained would be a nice thing to have.
this is the first sane response i’ve seen to this topic.
how did a dead-simple feature request get turned into a discussion on consumer fetishism?
through a bit of online help i found a way to rotate my cursor in the command line, but it requires me to do it every boot, and i might have to rewrite the command if i ever change usb slots or update the mouse software. which is not ideal.
Friend, I say this with care for you: ergonomics are important and that is doing it wrong. Don’t wait until you get old and sore to fix that habit. Mice that rest comfortably in your hand do exist. If they don’t, you can make one.
When there was no evidence given that it actually is a good idea, other than an ad which said that doing it might make you better at using their product?
As I explained for you above, this has been about consumerism for a while. That’s how it became bait for an ad targeting those very consumers, and how it leaked into here with an ad attached to it, and how people didn’t notice it was an ad, and why they’re vehemently defending the ad while not actually defending it by delivering some science.
Yep asking for peer-reviewed research to an assertion about medical science based on an ad, is clearly not sane because everything on youtube is automatically true and scientifically proven. Just ask your Doctor.
And putting shady links in your post so that we have ads on our FOSS forum is totally appropriate.
mouse aim is an extremely new skill. what little scientific papers do exist on the subject were sponsored by companies like nvidia. the entire ecosystem of “people who want to get better at mouse aim” and “people who want to educate others on how to mouse aim” is very niche, and overreliant on anecdotal, personal evidence.
the existance of kovaaks, as a paid or free software has not been a significant factor in any part of this conversation, so it’s strange that it keeps getting harped upon.
the feature to rotate your mouse’s sensor rotation does already exist in the software, it’s just not readily accessible in the gui, and instead relies upon digging up command line prompts from… i’m not sure where, exactly.
but that’s the topic.
me want feature.
me no care about kovaaks.
you no like kovaaks.
me no care you like or not like kovaaks, because me not care about kovaaks.
well it’s too late for that. luckily, I learnt it’s good to look after your limbs from a guy I worked for many years ago, who worked so hard and long he wrecked his wrist, so he switched hands, became ambidextrous, and wrecked the other one too. Very successful chap, enough so to pay for the surgery to fix it…
So I actually have been bodging a customised mouse up.
pretty ugly, foam, hotglue and plasticine, and now I look at it, lots of dirt. pretty gross, but very low strain, especially on the pinky. That second image shows the mouse pointing up, but it actually points 5 - 10 degrees NE in use. So a little adjustment in software might help there.
I’m actually more worried about laptop strain, not just the keyboard but the orientation of the touchpad, I’d be happy to lose a little total area to have a rotated virtual pad. Best thing really is less time on the computer, and tai chi style exercise.
Clearly. You did not engage with the substance of the biomechanical debate, because you already made up your mind and simply think we must listen and agree with your point - but even after watching the video I feel that it’s not something that can affect me unless the mouse is rotated to a much more extreme degree.
I do feel you’re suffering from a perception vs reality issue (you think holding the mouse at a ‘natural’ angle makes it go the wrong way… but nobody actually has a ‘pure horizontal movement’; rather a ‘rotational’ one… but you’re not going to ‘twist the software’… simply change the overall angle of an arc.
Like learning to walk - muscle memory corrects cursor movement regardles sof your hand’s orientation. People can also learn to walk wearing upside down glasses (and forget how to walk when they take of said glasses).
However, all we’ve done is to show that this conversation has completely failed. You didn’t make your case, but at least you have managed to make your statement of need.
Not since a few decades back, and papers on it are absolutely abundant. Mouse aim predates gaming mate. Control surfaces and input devices are a whole field of their own. Those groovy new input peripherals we get aren’t being made by random nobodies, they’re being designed by nerds who study this and publish their findings. Not to mention industrial and military and medical applications… It’s a whole thing.
The existence of kovaaks is the only reason this conversation is happening. It’s the link at the top of your first post and so far your only supportive information that rotating mouse movement might help. What are you even doing, why try to gaslight when we can scroll up lol
Exactly, this is the topic: I mean yeh, you want it, and you have reasons why… but are they wrong? Is this a thing that you, the devs, and the rest of us, should want? Is it actually a good feature, or is is dumb, and a waste of a dev’s time to implement and maintain? We don’t know! I don’t think you know. I know you’d rather spend a long time watching ads and then posting them in my face on some forum and then arguing about how your ad is right, but not 10 seconds in your search engine looking into the vast piles of research on this subject.
I mean if you wanna roll in here, minus the ad, and minus the “it would do this and this and this” and just say “idk I just want it” then you wouldn’t get a reply from me, why would I interfere with another person’s whim? If you wanna cheese me off by making this forum yet another place I can’t go on the web without being spammed, and then argue science with no data to support it whatsoever bar the ad you just put in my face, the outcome won’t be so amicable.
YOU started that argument:
Rotating the mouse cursor so that it more accurately mirrors your hand’s movement would allow for more intuitive and precise cursor movement. like shooter games.
Actually, you all are going to stop this stupid argument because I’m locking the thread! I think this has already run its course, we don’t need some superiority arguments over ads or whatever. The feature request is pretty clear to everyone at this point.
