Change cursor color/visibility in graph?

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Sun, 06/30/2013 - 10:44 pm

Hi all,

I just installed Igor Pro 6.32A on my new Macbook Air running OSX 10.8.4 and I cannot see my cursor at all on any graph I produce in Igor. It for some reason is a very pale grey and in order to see it I must get very close to the screen. Is there any way to change the default color to say, black? I've hunted in the manual and can't find anything about it. I've attached an image. The cursor is below the middle "dot" of the selection box. Thanks!
Googling for "Mac OS X cursor disappears" shows this is a common problem. There are only workarounds as far as I can see. For example, from this page: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4142250?start=15&tstart=0

Quote:

Re: Mouse cursor disappears.
Aug 28, 2012 6:49 AM (in response to fotohuta)

Minor workaround brings back the cursor/pointer: Go to System Preferences > Accessibility > Zoom to ensure that "use with scroll gesture with modifier keys" is on. Then when cursor/mouse dissappears, you can bring back the cursor by zooming in/out.



I have the same problem on new macmini purchased last week. Occurs when awaking from sleep after use in Photoshop CS6, Safari, finder, etc. No luck with resetting pram or clean re-install. Only option is to re-boot. No fix, so far. But the workaround mention in my previous paragraph works, so far.



--Jim Prouty
Software Engineer, WaveMetrics, Inc.

July 1, 2013 at 09:33 am - Permalink

I encountered the same problem, and I at least for me the solution posted does not solve it. In the apple forum, the users spoke about the cursor actually disappearing, while in our case it is simply very dim....
Is there a way to increase line thickness of the cursor?
However, after some days I got used to it, although it is quite uncomfortable.
Thanks for any further suggestions!

July 9, 2013 at 08:00 am - Permalink

A user with a MacBook Air 2013 with Retina Display and OS X 10.8.4 contacted WaveMetrics support with this problem and I spent a while investigating. Here is what I found:

Apparently this is a longstanding problem that affects many applications. There is a discussion at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4142250 which has 370 posts and has lasted over a year.

I spent a while reading the posts. It appears that there are many recommendations which people claimed worked for them but no definitive solution that worked for everyone and no feedback from Apple

Here are some of the solutions that looked to me like they might work:

  • Restart your machine

  • Go to Accessibility->Display->Cursor Size and set the cursor size to Normal

  • Stop using Mission Control (formerly known as Spaces)



I did not read the entire thread at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4142250.

If you can make the problem happen at will you might try to get Apple support or the Apple geniuses to investigate.

P.S. - The user responded "I went to accessibility and made the cursor bigger. Now I can see it!"

August 9, 2013 at 03:27 pm - Permalink

Actually none of the possible solutions have worked for me. What seems to be happening is that the cursor, when trying to select a set of data in a graph for example, becomes gray rather than staying black. This happens even in the display of the mac, although it is slightly worse with an external display. It also happens with a single "space" or desktop in mission control. This may be why Apple hasn't bothered to fix anything, the cursor does not disappear, it just changes color and this may be an application specific issue (although I don't know enough of how mac OS X works to be certain of this). I am attaching 2 screen shots of the same graph, one with the cursor "not visible" (the cursor is supposed to be close to the green circle with coordinates ~ (5,0.17), and then with the screen zoomed in the cursor is there.
LightCursor.png ZoomedIn.png

September 17, 2013 at 10:46 am - Permalink

I had the same problem.
It seems that it happens only in macbook air 2013.
When I use Igor in my macbook pro ( OS is same with MBA, 10.8.5), cross cursor on the graph is black.

October 2, 2013 at 09:21 am - Permalink

Although this is clearly an Apple bug, we will attempt to find a solution.

In the mean time, one workaround is to hold the option key to get the hand cursor (will need to nudge the mouse a bit.)

Be sure to release the option key before clicking.

So far it seems only people with new Macbook Air macs are showing the problem. Anyone else?
It would be just our luck to buy a machine and then have the problem not occur.

Also, I'd like to know if any of the other cursors show the problem. You can test this using the experiment:
File->Example Experiments->Techniques->cursorhook demo

October 15, 2013 at 09:12 am - Permalink

We've developed a workaround for this Apple bug and we have reports that the workaround successfully addresses the problem.

Download the latest version of the Igor application from http://www.wavemetrics.net/Downloads/latest/

Then open the Miscellaneous Setting dialog (Misc->Miscellaneous Settings menu item) and choose the Compatibility category. Then check the "Use compatible cursors" checkbox.

This tells Igor to use cursors that don't invert colors, but rather just plain black and white cursors.

Only 4 cursors are changed, but the most important one is the default graph selection cursor.

November 8, 2013 at 06:11 am - Permalink