The infuriating crosshair cursor
This has nothing to do with economics, but anyways … You know the crosshair cursor that you use for selecting things or drawing diagrams, e.g. in Word and Powerpoint? This cursor is really annoying to use because when you click and drag, it’s hard to make the selection area or drawing object exactly where you want. For example say you had this screenshot of Google’s logo and you want to select it in a drawing program:
Oops … Often you don’t get the crosshairs in quite the right place. Here you can see on the left I’ve chopped off part of the logo. Then you have to try again or fiddle with something to get it right.
This problem would go away if the crosshairs had some faint guide lines extending from the cursor across the screen, then you could position the cursor correctly before you start selecting:
Are there programs that do this?
4 Comments
photochop
You could always add to and subtract from the selection by holding down ’shift’ or ‘alt,’ respectively. However, if they had the guide lines to begin with, those features might not be as necessary for certain grabs. I’ll see what I can find and let you know if I find anything.
So after hours of searching, I failed to find a cost effective solution. I did, however, start to ponder: wouldn’t the crop function deliver the same results that you’re looking for?
Jason: Thanks so much for your efforts. I was using crop in the example that I showed, but the problem is with the cursor itself rather than the particular function. Since the crosshair is often used for selecting areas, it would be very helpful to have the extended lines so you can see exactly what you’re selecting before you start doing it.