I think a virtual mouse can be useful for hovering over UI elements without clicking, although different kind of clicks may also be added to such a new tool.
Hovering the mouse cursor/pointer over UI elements may give the user relevant information like where a link directs to or tooltips (textual information e.g. like what action is triggered by the underlying UI element on click).
Tooltips are especially useful for touch UIs where often textual information is missing e.g. buttons without text but pictogram leaving the user not well informed what actually happens on click.
On my Pinephone with Postmarket OS I noticed that phosh’s buttom slider looks different than that on my Librem 5. While the L5’s slider displays an arrow the PP’s displays a white line. And the L5’s got a keyboard symbol on the right opening squeekboard on press. This button is missing on the PP’s slider but squeekboard comes up on a longer press of the white line.
Should this be expected to come to the L5 later, too (with PureOS crimson or a new Phosh version)? While I somehow like it is on the PP I see two disadvantages.
- This is hidden behavior. I missed the keyboard button and only coincidentally discovered the long press behavior by seeing Mobile Settings App → On Screen Keyboard → Unfold long press.
- If the idea of a virtual mouse tool is welcome and someone makes it real then there should be a quick and convenient way to access it. The left side of the bottom slider can be a proper place for an virtual mouse button as a companion to the virtual keyboard button on the right.
What are your thoughts?
Are there any existing virtual mouse tools? So far I did only a quick search for apt packages on my Debian based desktop distro.
