Comment by oneeyedpigeon

Comment by oneeyedpigeon a day ago

Something that baffles me about macOS: the pointer bug. I’ve been aware of this for ages—as far as I can recall, since Snow Leopard; maybe others have insight—and it still hasn't been fixed.

Simply put: the pointer doesn't always switch context properly. So, you'll have it hovered over a resize control and it will refuse to change from the default pointer. Or you'll be working, and suddenly notice the pointer is a 'drag' one, even though nothing's being dragged and nothing draggable is active.

I would love anyone with any knowledge, especially an (ex-)insider, to shed light on this issue.

fluoridation 19 hours ago

This is Windows, but it might shed some light on the situation. I have a Qt application that I made, and occasionally when I switch from one window to another, the cursor doesn't switch from resize to normal, or vice versa, until I move the mouse. The precise effect is consistent, but difficult to describe, hence why the "sometimes". I think it happens because I'm not handling the window switch event as one that may require re-evaluating the cursor shape.

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oneeyedpigeon 7 hours ago

Absolutely, I've always suspected that it's something to do with that. There's also something about the underlying tech that makes the macOS pointer behave 'more independently' of the rest of the UI, like it's running in a separate thread? I've definitely noticed scenarios in the past that would 'block' the pointer from updating (even its position) on Windows, that wouldn't on Mac.
So maybe the pointer is not as tightly-coupled to the underlying UI components, so some scenarios can cause them to briefly lose track of each other?

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