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Substituting a cursor across many applications.

A previous edit covered the locations and editing of Black and White cursors, and briefly touched on colored cursors.

This new edit will detail color cursors and how to insert them into various applications. Before we start, you need to pick up the freeware color cursor extension written by Mattais Ulrich. This link provides several versions of the extension modified by Janet Paris.

If you're using Netscape or Explorer, the cursor changes to a cute pointing finger when you move it over a mouse. Wouldn't it be great if that hand had a little color to it!




First, we need to get our Black and White cursor, and then add color to it. Open Netscape in ResEdit and scroll to the CURS resources.

Open them with a double-click.



Cursor ID 128 is the pointing hand.

Find it and open it with a double-click.



Select All of the cursor and copy it to the clipboard.

You're done with Netscape. Close it in ResEdit.




Pick any one of Janet Paris' fine cursors, and for the sake of clarity, rename it Cursor - Hand. Open it in ResEdit.


In the file Cursor - Hand, find the CURS resources and open them with a double-click.

There is onle one ID, number 0. Open it with a double-click.






Select All of the original pointer (the Arrow), and paste in the Hand from the clipboard.

After pasting, you will have to reposition the Hot Spot with the X tool (notice the location of the X on the end of the index finger. That's the Hot Spot).

Drag the new Hand into the the Mask, and make sure your window looks like the one pictured on the left.

When finished, close the CURS resources.



Now open the colored cursors (crsr) and double-click on the only ID, number 1.




Select All of the old cursor, and paste in the hand from the clipboard.

It will still be in Black and White. It's your job to color it as shown on the left.

Don't forget to set the Hot Spot and fill in the Mask.





Your modified extension now has two new cursors as shown in the graphic on the left.

You can now save the new extension and put it in the Extensions folder.

After you restart the computer, evertime a hand cursor is called for that perfectly matches CURS ID 0, the new colored cursor (crsr ID 1) will be substituted.

You can test it right away on Netscape.




But what about Explorer?

If you are running Explorer instead of Neavigator, repeat the edit above, but use CURS ID# 30022 as your Black and White hand icon.

The important item to remember is that whatever becomes the CURS ID# 0 in the extension, is the cursor that will be replaced with the colored version in crsr ID#1

Once you have designated the cursors in the extension, you can change any application to use the new color cursor.



Modify Eudora to use the Colored Hand Cursor.

Eudora uses the Crosshair cursor shown on the left for selecting email messages.

Normally, to replace it, I would open Eudora in ResEdit and change the appropriate CURS resource to the Black and White hand, but if you open Eudora in ResEdit - you won't find the Crosshair cursor.
Where is it? In the System suitcase! Eudora borrows it from there.

So how do you add the colored hand to Eudora?



Open a copy of the System suitcase in ResEdit and scroll down to the CURS resources. Open them with a double-click.

Find the Crosshair cursor, select it with a single-click, and copy it to the clipboard.


Close the System suitcase. You're finished with it.



Now open a copy of Eudora in ResEdit and open the CURS resources.

Paste in the Crosshair cursor from the clipboard and edit it to exactly match the ahnd in the Cursor - Hand extension. when finished, your resources should look similar to the ones pictured an the left.
By placing a CURS ID# 3 in Eudora, it will use that one instead of the System's. By changing it to a Hand, you tell our Cursor - Hand extension to replace it with the colored one.



The next time you launch the modified version of Eudora, you will have the Colored hand as one of your new cursors!
To summarize: any application that has a Black and White hand cursor that exactly matches the CURS ID#0 in the Cursor - Hand extension, will instead display the Colored cursor stored in crsr ID# 1.

I have run a couple of versions of the replacement extension at the same time. As long as they are replacing different pointers, there doesn't seem to be a problem.

Have a comment or suggestion fo an edit? Fill out the Submission form!

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GUI Goodies
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