 A blinking text cursor. In computing, a cursor is an indicator used to show the position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input. Image File history File links Text_cursor_blinking. ...
Nineteen inch (48 cm) CRT computer monitor A computer display, monitor or screen is a computer peripheral device capable of showing still or moving images generated by a computer and processed by a graphics card. ...
Nixie tubes, LED-display and VF-display A display device, also known as an information display is a device for visual or tactile presentation of images (including text) acquired, stored, or transmitted in various forms. ...
In most command line interfaces, the cursor is an underscore, a solid rectangle, or a vertical line, which may be flashing or steady, indicating where text will be placed when entered. For example, a typical MS-DOS prompt appears as: This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
The underscore _ is the character with ASCII value 95. ...
Microsofts disk operating system, MS-DOS, was Microsofts implementation of DOS, which was the first popular operating system for the IBM PC, and until recently, was widely used on the PC compatible platform. ...
C:> _
Some interfaces use an underscore or thin vertical bar to indicate that the user is in insert mode, where text will be inserted in the middle of the existing text, and a larger block to indicate that the user is in overtype mode, where inserted text will overwrite existing text. In computer software, a mode is distinct method of operation within a computer program, in which the same user input can produce different results depending of the state of the computer. ...
The Insert key (often abbreviated to INS) commonly found on keyboards is mostly used to switch between the two main modes of entering text on a computer. ...
 A typical arrow-like mouse cursor. Interfaces driven by a computer mouse or other pointing device add a second cursor to show the current position of the mouse pointer. In text user interfaces, including many DOS programs, this cursor is frequently a solid rectangle; depending on the interface, the rectangle may always be a single color, or may be the opposite color of whatever lies "below" it. Graphical user interfaces usually use an arrow-like pointer to show the mouse position, and a solid line as a text insertion point. (Some users refer to the insertion-point cursor as a caret to distinguish it from the mouse cursor; others use the terms mouse pointer and text cursor to likewise disambiguate.) The blinking of the text cursor is usually temporarily suspended when it is being moved; otherwise, the cursor may change position when it is not visible, making its location difficult to follow. Many TUIs and GUIs give the user the option to turn off the mouse cursor when text is being typed. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...
Operating a mechanical 1: Pulling the mouse turns the ball. ...
An Apple pro mouse A pointing device is any computer hardware component (specifically human interface device) that allows a user to input spatial (ie, continuous and multi-dimensional) data to a computer. ...
TUI (Text User Interface) is a retronym that was coined sometime after the invention of graphical user interfaces, to distinguish them from text based user interfaces. ...
A graphical user interface (GUI, often pronounced gooey) is a type of user interface which allows people to interact with a computer and computer-controlled devices which employ graphical icons, visual indicators or special graphical elements called widgets, along with text labels or text navigation to represent the information and...
A caret in the Arial font Caret is the name for the symbol ^ in ASCII and some other character sets. ...
TUI (Text User Interface) is a retronym that was coined sometime after the invention of graphical user interfaces, to distinguish them from text based user interfaces. ...
A graphical user interface (GUI, often pronounced gooey) is a type of user interface which allows people to interact with a computer and computer-controlled devices which employ graphical icons, visual indicators or special graphical elements called widgets, along with text labels or text navigation to represent the information and...
In many GUIs, the mouse cursor changes shape depending on the circumstances. For example:
- In text that the user can select or edit, the cursor changes to a vertical bar with little cross-bars (or curved serif-like extensions) at the top and bottom — sometimes called an "I-beam" since it resembles the cross-section of the construction detail of the same name.
- When displaying a document, the cursor can appear as a hand with all fingers extended allowing scrolling by "pushing" the displayed page around.
- Graphics-editing cursors such as brushes, pencils or paint buckets may display when the user edits an image.
- On an edge or corner of a window the cursor usually changes into a double arrow (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) indicating that the user can drag the edge/corner in an indicated direction in order to adjust the size and shape of the window.
- While a computer process is performing tasks and cannot accept user input, a wait cursor (an hourglass in Windows and many other systems, watch in classic Mac OS, or spinning ball in Mac OS X) is displayed when the mouse cursor is in the corresponding window.
A cursor that has changed into a hand. - When the cursor hovers over a hyperlink, it changes into a hand with an outstretched index finger. Often some informative text about the link may pop up in a tooltip, which disappears when the user moves the cursor away. The tooltips revealed in the box depend on the implementation of the web browser; many web browsers will display the "title" of the element, the "alt" attribute, or the non-standard "tooltips" attribute. This cursor shape was first used for hyperlinks in Apple Computer's HyperCard.
It is also possible to change the cursor from the default to a cursor graphic. Many free cursors of this type can be found all over the web, one of which is Smartech Cursors. In typography, serifs are non-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. ...
An example of a graphical user interface in Windows XP, with the My Music window displayed In computing, a window is a visual area, usually rectangular in shape, containing some kind of user interface, displaying the output of and allowing input for one of a number of simultaneously running computer...
Hourglass in wooden stand An hourglass, also known as a sandglass or sand timer, is a device for the measurement of time. ...
Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ...
A watch is a timepiece or clock that displays the time and sometimes the day, date, month and year. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
Mac OS X (official IPA pronunciation: ) is a line of proprietary, graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ...
Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...
A hyperlink (often referred to as simply a link), is a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document, another document, or a specified section of another document, that automatically brings the referred information to the user when the navigation element is selected by...
The tooltip is a common graphical user interface element. ...
An example of a web browser (Internet Explorer), displaying the English Wikipedia main page. ...
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a consortium that produces standards—recommendations, as they call them—for the World Wide Web. ...
HyperCard was an application program from Apple Computer that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. ...
See also
- Susan Kare, designer of several of the common cursor shapes
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