Understanding the Cursor Forms

A cursor can serve as a visual cue and assume various forms, depending on what you are doing. At any one time, a Argos viewport can be in one of several modes to carry out certain data manipulation tasks. Panmo employs various cursors to help you orient yourself during sessions of data analysis.

Cursors employed by Argos are:

• 

  ---> images/cursor-bee.png <---

  This means Argos is busy doing something.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-cross.png <---

  This is used to aim at an object, just like the cross in a rifle scope. The candidates for aiming will be clear from the context that gives rise to this cross cursor; for example, they can be color cells in a palette or icons in a viewport.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-hand1.png <---

  This serves the same purpose as .

• 

  ---> images/cursor-left-button.png <---

  This cursor indicates that certain operation will be carried out if the left button is clicked.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-fleur.png <---

  This cursor will appear when the mouse button is pressed under some circumstances, e.g., reshaping the size of the area covered by one stroke of a paint brush. It indicates the mouse can be dragged in any direction.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-top-left-corner.png <---

  On Linux machines, this cursor will show up when you are about to specify a rectangle whose top-left corner, width, and height are under your control. It merely suggests you to press the mouse button at the desired top-left corner before the rectangle is dragged into shape. All other 3 corners will be O.K.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-top-left-corner-win.png <---

  This is only used on MS Windows machines and serves the same purpose as on Linux machines.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-left-side.png <---

  Argos sometimes uses rectangles whose left and right boundaries are the only things under your control. This cursor will show up when you are about to specify such kind of rectangles; it suggests you to press the mouse button at the desired left boundary before the rectangle is dragged into the desired width. You are allowed to specify the right boundary first when this cursor shows up.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-sb-h-double-arrow.png <---

  This cursor suggests you to move the cursor horizontally. When displayed, this cursor is attached to some other object whose movement only follows the horizontal component of the mouse displacement.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-sb-v-double-arrow.png <---

  This cursor suggests you to move the cursor vertically. When displayed, this cursor is attached to some other object whose movement only follows the vertical component of the mouse displacement.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-watercolor-brush.png <---

  You may use this cursor to click either a color cell in a palette to change the color of the cursor or the rim of an objective lens to change the rim color.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-paint-brush.png <---

  This is the mode cursor for Paint mode and is based on a brush icon available at http://icons8.com.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-magnifying-glass.png <---

  This is the mode cursor for Zoom mode.

• 

  ---> images/cursor-hand.png <---

  This is the mode cursor for Identify mode.