Mouseposé Review

Exposé for your mouse

Ryan J. Bonnell Skip to comments 3 Comments (Comments Closed Closed)

Mouseposé allows people to quickly, easily, and effortlessly locate their mouse pointer on any sized computer screen — from the tiniest display to a drive-in theatre sized movie screen. And did we mention it's free?

With all the beautiful eye candy that has become standard on Mac OS X, one piece of software that deserves just as much respect as Exposé is Mouseposé from Boinx Software. Coincidence in the nomenclature you say? We shall see. ### What's Mouseposé? [Mouseposé](http://www.boinx.com/mousepose/ "Mouseposé") is a brilliant little program that does to mouse movement what [Exposé](http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/expose/ "Apple Exposé") did to window management. More than just eye candy, Mouseposé runs quietly in the background and at the touch of a configurable hot key, dims the screen and puts a spotlight on the area around your mouse pointer. Mouseposé allows people to quickly, easily, and _effortlessly_ locate their mouse pointer on any sized computer screen — from the tiniest display to a drive-in theatre sized movie screen. While you may not have heard of Mouseposé, you may have heard of [Boinx Software](http://www.boinx.com/ "Boinx Software"), a German-based software company and past winner of the O'Reilly Mac OS X Innovators awards for its popular [FotoMagico](http://www.fotomagico.com/ "Fotomagico: Professional live slideshows made easy") and [iStopMotion](http://www.istopmotion.com/ "iStopMotion: Fun with stop motion and time lapse recording") applications. ### How does it work?

Hitting a user-definable hot key turns on the Mouseposé effect, instantly dimming the screen and putting the mouse pointer into a "spotlight" area that makes it easy to locate with your eyes.

Moving the mouse around the screen while Mouseposé is activated allows the circular spotlight to follow the mouse focus, drawing attention to where the pointer is at all times. Meanwhile, the desktop and windows behind it remains functional so that applications can be used while Mouseposé is turned on (in the same fashion how Exposé works). If you'd rather have Mouseposé stay on _all the time_, just uncheck the option to "Deactive after __ seconds" and Mouseposé will stay on forever, until you press the F1 key again — perfect for that killer presentation or training session! ### Customizing and configuring Mouseposé Mouseposé works "out of the box," being triggered by the F1 key, but nearly any hot key can be assigned to trigger the spotlight affect. PowerBook and iBook users will have to press an additional function key (fn + the default F1) in order to activate Mouseposé's spotlight, so it may be advisable for them to choose a different hot key combination. Being a PowerBook user myself, I prefer to have my function keys act as function keys, so I've done this and enabled the F1-F12 keys to control software features instead of controlling my PowerBook's hardware. If you're a laptop user and would like to enable this setting, go to the Apple Menu > System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard: >

Note: When this option is enabled, none of the keys on the top row of your PowerBook/iBook's keyboard will work unless you hold down the Fn key while pressing the while pressing F1-F12.

> **Use the F1-F12 keys to control software features** When this option is selected, you'll have to press the Fn to enable such functions as the display contrast, volume control, video mirroring, and backlight settings. But we've barely scratched the surface on the possible configurations — Mouseposé's offers a wealth of other advanced settings: * Change opacity, size and color of desktop/spotlight area * Automatically disable Mouseposé after __ of seconds * Ability to start Mouseposé on login * Show application icon: in Dock, in Menu Bar or in Dock & Menu Bar Once you have chosen your favorite Mouseposé settings you can close the preferences window. As long as Mouseposé is running (the black triangle under the Dock icon or Mouseposé icon in the Menu Bar) it will react to your chosen hot key. You can re-open the preferences window using either the Mouseposé menu or the control-clicking the Dock menu. If you ever want to end Mouseposé, simply choose Quit from the Menu Bar icon or Dock menu. ### Where would I use Mouseposé? Mouseposé's functionality is so ingenius, its applications are nearly limitless. Tradeshows, classrooms, training sessions or just demonstrations to show off the jaw-dropping power of Mac OS X are matches made in heaven for Mouseposé — but the possibilities don't stop there. Have a 30-inch Cinema Display or high-resolution, multiple-monitor setup? No problem, Mouseposé is for you. Mouseposé also works on dual-display (and larger) configurations, so finding your mouse pointer on any sized screen is no longer a problem. Couple Mouseposé with Tiger's new mouse cursor size control (in the Universal Access preference pane of the System Preferences), and you've got an accessibility technical knock-out, **further adding proof that Longhorn Mac OS X is the world's most advanced operating system**. ### Accessibility features with Mouseposé A major benefit of Mouseposé is it's usefulness as an accessibility tool, allowing people with disabilities to use the spotlight feature to find and follow the mouse pointer _anywhere_ on the screen.

You can also use Mouseposé with OS X's Speech controls (now called _Voiceover_ commands in Tiger). You have to activate Speech using the Speech preference pane: Apple > System Preferences > Speech, then select the Speech Recognition tab, making sure the Apple Speakable Items is "On". Click on "Open Speakable Items Folder" and copy the Scripts in "Speakable Items" in the Mouseposé Disk Image into the Speakable Items Folder.

The default command for activating Mouseposé is to speak "Show Mouse" and for deactivating it is to speak "Stop Showing Mouse". If you want to change the speech commands you can simply rename the scripts to what you'd like to say out loud. ### Fully scriptable Mouseposé's abilities don't end there either. As of version 1.1, Mouseposé supports supports AppleScript events. This allows you to control Mouseposé through means other than a keyboard hot key combination. Mouseposé includes a demo script that shows how you can set parameters and start the Mouseposé effects. This way, you can use Mouseposé with third party applications and tools such as Salling Clicker, which lets you control your Mac from your Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone. In addition to the standard AppleScript Suite, Mouseposé supports its own additional commands and properties found in the application's help documentation. ### Pros and Cons Not every piece of software is perfect. In doing this review we found several areas where Mouseposé could be improved, and other areas where Mouseposé excelled. We thought it best to summarize our thoughts in a Pro (good) versus Con (bad) list: **Pros:** * Highly configurable, supports AppleScript & Voiceover * Drop dead simple to use — nearly 100% foolproof! * Preference for starting automatically upon login * Ability to Hide the Dock icon, or use a menu bar icon to control Mouseposé. * Choose _nearly any_ hot key combination to activate Mouseposé * Easily change opacity, size and color of desktop/spotlight area * Works great as an accessibility tool * Free — doesn't cost anything * Concise help documention, effortless installation. **Cons:** * Mouseposé should be a system preference pane, just like Exposé settings. * For laptop users, you have to hold down the Fn function key to the default F1 hotkey to work. * Even though Mouseposé is 100% freeware, it requires registration to use it longer than 10 minutes. This is unnecessary. ### Conclusions and Delusions Mouseposé is the poster child for Macintosh shareware. Mouseposé not only fills a niche, but it does exactly what it intends to without any unnecessary clutter. While it may be next to impossible, it would be both useful and desirable if Mouseposé was a System Preference pane so that a single, central location could be used to manage Mouseposé along with all of the other OS X system preferences. We fell in love so much with Mouseposé that using a Mac without it just isn't the same. Our only wonder is if the developers at Apple haven't already fallen in love with Mouseposé so much that some of its features will show up in Mac OS X 10.5? While this would be a terrible thing for Boinx, it would on the other hand be a complete win-win situation for the other 25+ million Mac users out there who many not even be aware a piece of software like this exists. In conclusion, Mouseposé is a great piece of software, at a great price, and has earned its way into one of the most indispensable pieces of software we use on a daily basis. **Download Mouseposé today and give your Microsoft Windows friends something to drool over. Again.**

Ryan J. BonnellRyan J. Bonnell is a Web Developer, Student, and leading contributor to MacZealots.com. When he is not playing around with his endless amount of toys, he can be reached at .

Reader Comments (3)

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed below are those of their authors and not necessarily endorsed or supported by MacZealots.com. In all cases, the comments provided here are offered as a courtesy and will be moderated. Any content deemed off-topic or offensive will be removed without notice. Posting a comment here boils down to two things: 1.) Think before you type 2.) Respect the thoughts of others. See our commenting guidelines and/or privacy policy for more information.

1 Digi remarks:
#1) On June 28, 2005 1:57 PM

This small program is so cool! And it’s free!

2 Hans remarks:
#2) On September 10, 2005 12:56 PM

I’ve tried and tried over and over to get a free license, but I never got an email from them. Am I doing something wrong?

3 Ryan J. Bonnell remarks:
#3) On September 10, 2005 1:56 PM

You might try giving Boinx a call or sending them an e-mail explaining your difficulties in receiving a free license. You can report problems with the Mousépose licensing by giving them feedback. It may be a problem on their end, or a too aggressive SPAM filter on your e-mail account.

Information on how to get in touch with Boinx can be found on their contact page. Since they are a German based company you might expect an answer within one business day, depending on where you live.