Change beginning of mouse path

[ScottPakis]

Ok this should be simple and if not the people who made Captivate are REALLY stupid.

Why can't I change the beginning of the mouse path unless I move the slide to the first slide? It's that simple.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Scott

You just have to understand the way the mouse works in Captivate. You can only change the start position on the first slide where the mouse appears. Every slide after that the mouse start point is the point where it stopped on the slide before. If you desire to start the mouse in a different spot on a slide you need to duplicate the slide and make the original super short. Perhaps .1 seconds. Change the end position on that brief slide. Then on the next slide the mouse will begin at the new location.

Cheers... Rick

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[ScottPakis]

Yes that's my understanding. It's annoying that I cannot turn this off.

[tosujoy]

Yes Rick,

I duplicated the first slide, changed the end position in the first slide that reflect the mouse’s start position in the next slides. Then I hide the original slide. But I am not able to move the tail of the mouse, i.e. the start of the mouse action except in the first slide.

Thanks Sujoy

[pcapademic]

I don't use the mouse on every slide, so I created an invisible mouse (just a 20 pixel by 20 pixel square with an alpha channel, and otherwise blank). I named it "Invisible_Pointer.cur", and then added it to my list of pointers available in Captivate.

This "Invisible_Pointer.cur" I position on some convenient slide before I need the pointer start point to shift.

[IsabellaR]

How do you make a new mouse pointer in Captivate?

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

You cannot make a new mouse pointer in Captivate. All you may do in Captivate is CHOOSE from an existing mouse pointer.

If you want a new mouse pointer you would use an application that allows you to create mouse pointers. These are typically stored as a file with a .CUR extension. Once you do this, you may then choose the pointer by editing the Mouse properties and browsing to where you saved the file.

Use Google to discover applications that allow you to create mouse pointers.

Cheers... Rick

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[pcapademic]

I used some other icon/curser creation program to create the .cur file. I can't remember what I used.

In Captivate, in the "pointer" section, I browsed to where I saved my .cur file.

Easy-peasy.

[Lizzie_W]

Hi

I had the same issue because I had slides that were all video (such as when text was being entered) inbetween slides that had mouse action and whenever there was a gap in mouse action it initiated the mouse to start from the top left hand corner which really ruined the flow of the demonstration.  I got round this by putting a mouse action into the video only slide but having it only run for 0.1 seconds or so and then this allowed for a continuing mouse prescence and then the system didn't reset the mouse location.  It is a shame you can't have full control over the mouse actions.

[JShannon]

Hello Lizzie_W. I know this is an old post, but I'm running into the same thing you describe above. You say you put a mouse action into the video only slide. Can I ask how you did that? Even if you make that mouse sweep from the upper left-hand corner short, it's still distracting. Thanks.

[Jacob Paso]

The solution that worked best for me was to use an invisible or “blank” mouse pointer during full motion capture slides. It gives me complete control. You don’t need to create a blank mouse cursor yourself, just google ‘blank mouse cursor .cur” and you will get a link to some kind soul who made a blank cursor just for you! A link that works as of right now is http://autons.net/stuff/blanks.

You will probably want to save the .cur file to the standard Windows location for the mouse cursors, which is C:\Wlndows\Cursors. In Captivate, in the mouse properties pane, click Browse. Browse to the .cur file, and now it will always show up in the mouse list!

[Eddiebo924]

Great stuff Lizzie & Jacob!