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Comment by webignition | Hacker News Reader

I'm left handed and have always used the mouse with my left hand.

The tilt on the cursor has never seemed odd or wrong or strange to me in any way.

I've been using computer mice in one way or another for more than 30 years and perhaps a lack of oddness comes from having so very much gotten used to it. Maybe newer left-handed mouse users would find the cursor tilt strange?

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> The tilt on the cursor has never seemed odd or wrong or strange to me in any way.

Not sure if people realize, but this setting is changeable, probably since the times of single-digit Windows.

> since the times of single-digit Windows.

Do you mean 15 years ago with windows 7, or 30 years ago with windows 3?

Arguably, the last date of the "times of single-digit Windows" would be one day before the release of Win 10, which was on 2015-07-29.

Didn't Win 8 have fewer options for adapting the UI compared to previous versions of Windows?

I was indeed referring to Windows 3/3.1/3.11/NT 3.5. Wasn’t sure of another term that would capture that era in one word.

Decimalized? Rational number Windows?

early 90s Windows?

Pre 95? 16-bit?

I don't know how far back they mean, but Im pretty sure I recall it being in XP.

Ohh now I remember! Back when we didn't have internet and I could amuse myself for hours just messing with the windows 98 settings.

Oh dear. I am left handed and I have not even considered the arrow is tilting the wrong way. Now suddenly it annoys me to no end. I need to replace my cursor ...

35-40 years ago I had to switch to left because of too much strain on the right hand. I was very happy when I found a way to mirror my cursor. Am back to right hand now though.

Just wait until you find out why scroll bars are on the right.

I feel like the scroll bar location has more to do with english being written left-to-right.

Peev: UIs and desktop ebbing that shrink or obscure the scrollbar. Gah, stopit.

For a month or two I decided to start using the mouse with my left hand just for fun, to see how ambidextrous I could be.

The "wrong"-pointed cursor annoyed me so much I had to find a utility to flip it. (On a Mac, which doesn't support custom cursors like Windows has since forever.) It seriously drove me nuts otherwise.

So it's really interesting to hear that if it was always that way for you, it doesn't bother you!

I used to swap hands with my mouse every month or so. I don't remember ever noticing the tilt.

I think left handed users do not find it weird as it works in left to right up to down information systems. So unlike with pen they get the same benefit of operating tool sensibly.

The arrow gets replaced with a ... pin with a stylized bird in each end? ... so the arrow does not hide text anyways, when going left to right over text, as a physical pen would do.

I have a mouse on each side of the keyboard, so changing the mouse pointer shape was never even considered.

It might be fun to set up your system to switch between left and right-tilted cursors automatically, depending on which mouse you're using.

Also make it maintain 2 cursor positions and switch between them depending on the mouse. It would be pretty neat with multiple monitors, with focus following the (active) cursor. (Assuming you're ambidextrous, of course :))

Woah! I may be ambidextrous, but no way am I ambicursorous!

Bi-cursorious might matter more when using a stylus on a iPad or similar. I wonder.

The steam deck has a keyboard that supports input from both trackpads at the same time. Always surprised me this is not really supported by most desktop environments.

> I have a mouse on each side of the keyboard

In 30yrs of IT support, this is a thing I have never seen. If I had, I'd be forever inserting into conversations about end-users. Strictly for the novelty.

The real deal is keyboard mouse keyboard mouse keyboard.

Then both hands can mouse and access a “near half” of both sides of the keyboard.

How do you feel about writing in general, left to right, with your left hand?

I used to smudge the hell out of the text so I adopted a really weird way of positioning my hand. Could never use fountain pens.

Huh. I wonder if there was some (superficially) valid reasoning there for forcing lefthanders to learn write with their right hand. Due to the left-to-right nature of English, and the technology of fountain pens, it really was more objectively difficult to write with your left hand.

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