Add interactions when clicking on/in dummy PIPs

[PuzzledUser]

Whilst experimenting and futilely trying to stop PowerPoint Presenter Mode taking over my primary monitor (Grrr 😖), I did a lot of BD clicking and configuring.

1. I often found myself accidentally trying to manipulate the contents of a PIP with my cursor. So, could a PIP capture my pointer (like some virtualisation software does) and move my cursor pointer into the dummy display?
2. And could a secondary click inside an oddly inert PIP (or a click on a new widget cog in its window title) show the menus for that dummy? This could make it easier to access/adjust the config of a PIP dummy (my main menubar is so far away).
3. Could resizing a PIP window show a zoom percentage (in its title bar) during the drag? It's hard to know when it's back to normal.
4. Should closing a PIP window present a dialog asking if its dummy should be stopped (or paused)? It seems odd to me that there's an option to show and bring to front after closing a PIP window — was it still active? What was it doing? The PIP window was closed, so why not make this the same as just stopping the PIP. I'm maybe missing some cool use of a closed (yet lingering) PIP.

NB: #1 Escaping the cursor from the PIP trap would need considering and all this could break some UI conventions if not done neatly. You do have the coordinates for this bi-directional translation between PIP and its host display. But there would be unexpected situations where traditionally you would expect moving out of the right of PIP 2 would enter into the left of PIP 3, but instead the cursor would pop out of PIP 2 onto the host display to then could push back into PIP 3.

But the traditional display arrangement perhaps doesn't really make sense when dealing with PIPs of Dummy displays. The above, sounds nicer at first thought to me. Perhaps a click would be needed to push the cursor into the dummy? But this seems unnecessary if the transitions happen smoothly for both push (in) and pop (out).

Normal cursor behaviour would continue if there was no PIP for a Dummy, but there could be a trap if there is no route for the cursor past a PIP of dummy 2 into a dummy 3 without a PIP. Argh. In that case the cursor should not pop back to the host display, but instead slide as normal into (the invisible) dummy 3. Programming is fun remember!

Maybe you've discussed this elsewhere previously, but I didn't find it — not even in the forthcoming wiki you hinted at (when days have 36 hours in them 🤣).

Have a great weekend!

[waydabber]

Hi, some related things:

#1355 - this is incompatible with 1.
#612 - this is similar to 1. but for stream displays.

I think warping the mouse over with a PIP window is problematic and could be possibly disorienting so I am leaning towards not doing that (or maybe do it with some modifier key pressed while doing a long press with the mouse so it is absolutely intentional?).

The other ideas are valid. Regarding 4., the use of a closed but lingering PIP window is that it helps consuming resources! :) - but jokes aside, that was useful in a previous iteration of the feature when PIP windows did not remember their last location.

[PuzzledUser]

I respect your reticence to tackle the cursor morphing. Nevertheless, I've seen it work very nicely for virtualisation: https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-move-a-mouse-out-of-virtual-pc If you pull off the cursor teleportation illusion it could be less confusing.

I've watched users lose their pointer on a dummy display and have no idea how to find it again. It's quite a fun game actually! Keeps the mouse pointer mileage up! 😂

[waydabber]

Added these to the long list of PIP/Stream enhancements

https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-desc+label%3APIP%2FStream

:)