alt Hacker NewsSoftware moving the mouse cursor is only acceptable when the window is full-screen. If the user makes an application go full-screen, they are opting out of the normal desktop UI conventions. It's expected that full-screen software completely takes over the UI, and there are legitimate uses for moving the mouse cursor in full-screen software, e.g. centering an invisible cursor every frame in a first-person shooter game so endless view rotation is possible. But if it's windowed then it should be impossible.
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> But if it's windowed then it should be impossible.
I worked on several apps for the visually impaired that automatically move the mouse cursor to different UI elements in the front-most application, regardless of the window state. It’s a good reminder that “impossible” often just means “I haven’t accounted for that use case yet.”
Blender (3D modeling & animation software) implements this cool thing when rotating/resizing objects: if the mouse cursor moves out of the window it reappears on the other side (enabling resizing/rotating ad infinitum).