Mouseposé - Exposé the mouse cursor
Jan 26, '05 09:33:00AM
Contributed by: robg
The macosxhints Rating:

[Score: 8 out of 10]
Mouseposé is a simple, fun, and occasionally useful application. It will be of particular interest to presenters and those who demonstrate OS X software in large rooms. It's also useful, though, in a text editing document when you've lost sight of the I-beam cursor. As you can see in the screenshot at left, Mouseposé is somewhat like Exposé for your mouse pointer. You activate it via a hotkey, and it then dims the screen and leaves an undimmed circle around the mouse, making it very easy to see the cursor's location. Once activated, you can continue to use your Mac as you normally would, and Mouseposé won't deactivate until you press its hotkey again.
Mouseposé runs as an application, so there's no "low level" compatibility issue to worry about (it's been very stable during my time using it). You can modify the size of the circle, the amount of dimming applied, and even the color of the dimming -- turn your screen a dark shade of red, for instance, while Mouseposé is active. You can also specify (somewhat) the hot key to be used to activate Mouseposé, and have it automatically deactivate after a specified interval of time instead of remaining active.
On the downside, the hot keys available are only the standard function keys; you can't add a modifier, nor can you assign any other key combo. I would much rather use something easier to reach on the keyboard and not give up a function key to the activation keystroke. Also, although Mouseposé is free, it does require you to register on Boinx's site to get a serial number -- name and email address are required, and you can opt out of their update mailings.
I intend to put this to use during my next OS X presentations, as I think it will help folks follow along with the cursor movements. Either that, or I'll put it on a friend's machine, set the dimming level to all black, give it a relatively large "light circle," and then assign it to his brightness key :).
Comments (25)
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050126063331224