Official forums for BZFlag.org

I use the keyboard to play and the cursor is sort of in the way when I play. Is there any way to turn it off or at least make it so that it doesn't auto-center itself in the HUD?

Just put your cursor to the middle, then dont touch it

Or, if you can make one, make an invisible cursor, change to that when you're playing BZFlag, and presto, your cursor's gone. Of course, then you have to find the cursor again. Your problem

When I first started playing I was on keyboard and I had the same problem. Try putting the curser in the very top corner of your screen, then use the keyboard from there. I suggested putting it in the top corner as it's probably the furthest away from you.

Simply unplug the mouse from your computer

Problem solved, or if you are having trouble seeing because the cursor is in the way, move it to the top right corner, then unplug it.

Some interesting solutions here
Does unplugging the mouse make it stop from centering after every spawn?

No, the mouse still gets put to the center. I don't know why it does that, it probably should be changed , but either way. Learn to live with it or learn to play with it

.Zero wrote:Some interesting solutions here
Does unplugging the mouse make it stop from centering after every spawn?

Does it?

Hmm... never noticed...

Funny, I was just reading about a tiny little program that hides the mouse when you aren't using it. Haven't tried it out yet, but maybe it could be useful if you're a keyboard player. It's only for X11 (Linux/BSD) but maybe the Windows/Mac crowd has something similar?

Hmmm, tried using unclutter, but it doesn't hide the mouse when BZ is running fullscreen.

I personally like the cursor centered. I play with joystick and keyboard. The center cursor helps me aim.

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I will have to live with it... and find out how to not get shot head on , which is why I'd have liked to turn it off (can't focus on the center w/o focusing on the HUD+cursor)

Grace F
The mouse always returns to the center of the mouse box because it makes the tank stopped when you spawn, instead veering off to the direction your mouse is. Imagine that being changed. "Ummm.... I'm having this problem where the tank is going to the side even when I didn't ask it to, and steering me into bullets..." That'll be funny.

GMMan wrote:Grace F
The mouse always returns to the center of the mouse box because it makes the tank stopped when you spawn, instead veering off to the direction your mouse is. Imagine that being changed. "Ummm.... I'm having this problem where the tank is going to the side even when I didn't ask it to, and steering me into bullets..." That'll be funny.

Wouldn't it be better if the cursor doesn't center if you set controls to keyboard only?

You can't set it to only the Keyboard, or only the mouse. For mousers, it's better the way it is. Just for the keyboarders its a nuisance. There should be a way "hide" it in BZflag. Since you use the keyboard for the most part anyway.

perhaps we could add the "mouse center on spawn" option in the GUI?

.Zero wrote:Thanks for all the replies. I guess I will have to live with it... and find out how to not get shot head on , which is why I'd have liked to turn it off (can't focus on the center w/o focusing on the HUD+cursor)

I relied on the mouse being at the center of the screen on lasermania, it helped me aim. Cause the *exact* point your cursor is at is the *exact* point you shoot at.

As for hiding it, there is probably some SDL function for it, meaning you would call something like SDL_CursorHide(true) when you exit the menu and SDL_CursorHide(false) when a menu opens. Meaning add a simple "Hide mouse" feature into the GUI

Grace F wrote:You can't set it to only the Keyboard, or only the mouse. For mousers, it's better the way it is. Just for the keyboarders its a nuisance. There should be a way "hide" it in BZflag. Since you use the keyboard for the most part anyway.

What do you mean you can't set it only to keyboard? It's right there in input settings,active input device.

BinarySpike wrote:I relied on the mouse being at the center of the screen on lasermania, it helped me aim. Cause the *exact* point your cursor is at is the *exact* point you shoot at.

That's a good point. Fortunately, I'm not good enough to worry about such small details yet

.Zero wrote:

Grace F wrote:You can't set it to only the Keyboard, or only the mouse. For mousers, it's better the way it is. Just for the keyboarders its a nuisance. There should be a way "hide" it in BZflag. Since you use the keyboard for the most part anyway.

What do you mean you can't set it only to keyboard? It's right there in input settings,active input device.

Ahh oops sry
But yea anway, back when I used the keyboard, I used the curser as an aimer aswell, it does help.

I use keyboard, mouse does not centre.
Sounds to me like you all need to get a real OS, if you are having problems with your current one.
I use Mac OS X.

why to disable it

CannonBallGuy wrote:I use keyboard, mouse does not centre.
Sounds to me like you all need to get a real OS, if you are having problems with your current one.
I use Mac OS X.

What would qualify as a 'real' OS? I'm currently running Ubuntu Edgy and the last Mac I owned had System 7 installed. I don't use my computer for video and audio editing and like having plenty of choice when it comes to the look of an OS. Macs never really did it for me.

I do find it interesting that the mouse does not center on OSX though.

I wonder if I could run a program in the background to check and put the mouse in the bottom corner of the screen. It'd probably be considered cheating though...

In the context of this topic, a real OS would be one that doesn't centre your mouse cursor when you don't want it to...
Enjoy noobuntu.

.zero: that wouldn't be cheating if you are just moving the mouse...

CannonBallGuy wrote:I use keyboard, mouse does not centre.
Sounds to me like you all need to get a real OS, if you are having problems with your current one.
I use Mac OS X.

Do you use keyboard only? (aka mouse turned off)

Cause on Mac os X the mouse does _center_. On 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4. Bzflag centers it not your OS.

.Zero wrote:What would qualify as a 'real' OS? I'm currently running Ubuntu Edgy and the last Mac I owned had System 7 installed.

First, get Suse. Second burn your System 7 alive. System 7 is so old I would give you my Mac os 9 CD just to get rid of it... (/me is kidding)


2.2 will have an option to hide the mouse when you spawn. If you bump the mouse it will re-appear till you spawn again, for users who use keyboard

.Zero wrote:I wonder if I could run a program in the background to check and put the mouse in the bottom corner of the screen. It'd probably be considered cheating though...

No it wouldn't. There is no way to use it for gain. I have AutoHotKey and I can make you a script to do it easy (I run a script in the background to correct common mispellings in bzflag... like "teh")

if you want the script just PM me.