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What is a Resource?
The article in MacAddict Magazine

By:David K. Every
©Copyright 1999


Cursor Resources

CURS&emdash;The first Mac cursor, just plain old black-and-white.

crsr&emdash;A newer, color cursor that's only rarely used in programs. However, hackers with an eye for color can replace the CURS with a crsr with the same ID, and the Mac will automatically use the color one.

acur&emdash;An animated cursor that's really just a list of many CURS's (or crsr's) to define a sequence of animation.

The cursor works hard. When you move it over text, it becomes an I-beam. When you're forced to wait, it transmogrifies into a wristwatch to let you know you'll have to wait. It can even shape-shift itself into a pencil or magnifying glass to show you what action to expect when you click the mouse in other programs. All of this work and only three types of cursor references to get the jobs done.

This should give you a pretty good understanding of how to edit the cursor types. There is also a color cursor (crsr) -- editing it is just like editing the CURS resource -- only in color of course. Give it a try -- have fun!

Replacing the CURS with a crsr (Color Cursor) is generally not a great idea. It will usually work, but due to some complexities with the MacOS it may cause a minor increase in instability.

The reason (for the few geeks that care) is because the black and white SetCursor() routine is safe to call it any time (memory management wise) -- the color version of this routine, SetCCursor(), is not. Most Apps should pay attention to this, and work right -- but you are gambling. Some Apps have problems with this (I hear that Phososhop doesn't like it, which would make sense since it uses its own Memory Management scheme). I wouldn't risk the stability problems myself, but problems with it are probably very rare.

~ Thanks to Doc for pointing this out.


Created: JULY/98
Updated: 11/09/02


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