Offering Client "Area" mouse tracking with no capture.

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GuruSR
Posts: 2
Joined: 28. Aug 2021, 16:42

Offering Client "Area" mouse tracking with no capture.

Post by GuruSR »

A few VMs I have tried (android, *nix, Windows *), all seem to have the issue of the mouse when captured, to either work intermittently, work and hit the boundaries or work until something outside the client area reacts to the real mouse location (start menu sliding up, hover over items causing a tool tip to show). Some VMs don't have guest additions, making the mouse capture erratic at best and mostly unusable, the best way to avoid that is to offer a remote desktop connection of some sort and use that instead (which defeats the purpose entirely).

Since most OS's offer a client area (within the VM window's border), a "Captureless" mode for the mouse, where it supports whichever mouse setting you want, but, instead of constantly re-assigning the mouse off an internal x,y coordinate record, it only moves the mouse to the specified location when the mouse hovers over the VM (while active). I was able to manage this with an Android VM and it made it extremely usable, other modes it didn't, same issue.

For most VMs this won't be an issue with the mouse jumping in coordinates, as this happens when you do remote connections and you leave the remote connection window client area and bring the mouse in at a different location. Obviously, for games and such that require the mouse to be locked into the window, this wouldn't be beneficial, but a toggle for the "Captureless" mode would get around this. The "Captureless" mode would be a checkbox below the Mouse selection.

The "Captureless" mode would also remove the issues where external programs could bring a dialogue up while in the VM, this would force that dialogue to fly off-screen or wherever the mouse pointer really is (have had to find lost dialogues manually as a result of this).

The mouse capture really needs to be controllable.

GuruSR.
mpack
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Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Offering Client "Area" mouse tracking with no capture.

Post by mpack »

I'm not aware of any intermittent mouse problem with supported guests such as Windows (NT branch) or Linux (note: don't say *nix since Linux is not Unix, they just have similar appearance - Linux is a supported guest, Unix is not).

You should create separate topics to discuss mouse issues in particular guests. In the case of a supported guest make sure you install the Guest Additions first.
GuruSR
Posts: 2
Joined: 28. Aug 2021, 16:42

Re: Offering Client "Area" mouse tracking with no capture.

Post by GuruSR »

mpack wrote:I'm not aware of any intermittent mouse problem with supported guests such as Windows (NT branch) or Linux (note: don't say *nix since Linux is not Unix, they just have similar appearance - Linux is a supported guest, Unix is not).

You should create separate topics to discuss mouse issues in particular guests. In the case of a supported guest make sure you install the Guest Additions first.
I'm well aware of *nix not listing Linux, as those *are* supported, I'm talking about those that are not supported guests, there is no option to disable the mouse capture which does cause grief with unsupported guests (take your pick). Until I used multi-touch on an Android VM, if I moved the mouse half way down the screen, the taskbar would slide up (Windows host) and the system cursor (not the VM's) would show up, I was still "captured", but uncaptured in that state, but if I did anything, windows would literally cling to the mouse pointer (like I held down the left mouse button on it's title bar). Other instances, like a system modal dialogue would open to warn of something, instantly tossed all about by the mouse holding onto it. Generally speaking, this is for any unsupported guest environment, we need the option to turn off the capture of the mouse and just have the VM pass the mouse coordinates and clicks, wheel, as normal. Android worked fine when I had it with multi-touch as it detected the mouse and turned on it's own mouse support (which worked far better than the other modes), but that just doesn't exist with any other non-supported guests.

On a Windows 98SE guest, if I move the mouse downward or too fast to the right, it pops out of the window and shows up where the system cursor coordinates are, still "captured" by the VM, but no longer inside the window. On the 98's screen, about 50% down the screen within the VM, the mouse disconnects due to the system cursor coordinates causing the task bar to slide up. I have to then re-click into the VM window and right CTRL to un-capture the mouse properly, or it causes grief with other windows until it is released properly.

GuruSR.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Offering Client "Area" mouse tracking with no capture.

Post by scottgus1 »

GuruSR wrote:Generally speaking, this is for any unsupported guest environment, we need the option to turn off the capture of the mouse and just have the VM pass the mouse coordinates and clicks, wheel, as normal.
If I interpret this properly, this may be similar to the action in a new XP (sp3?) VM (in more modern Virtualbox): it uses a USB Tablet as a pointing device instead of a PS/2 mouse, and therefore can have the Guest-Additions-Mouse-Integration-style "slide the mouse into and out of the VM window" but without requiring Guest Additions to be installed.

If you have or can make an XP VM with all default settings but without Guest Additions in it, does the mouse action behave the way you want your enhancement to act?

If so, this setup appears to work sans GAs because XP knows how to use a USB Tablet natively, so it responds to Virtualbox's USB Tablet simulation.

One other thing, a video is worth a million words: it is hard for me to visualize that you're asking for. Maybe a youtube video might clarify?
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