Cursor behaviour

Tomas Polak

Hi,
I have a problem with cursor showing twice when I start command (for instance LINE). After that, I can sometimes see two cursors, sometimes those two cursors are over each other and it makes parts of them invisible. The problem persists even if I turn off dynamic input, ESNAP, POLAR and STRACK. See attached pictures.

Is this normal behaviour, a bug or a problem of my system? Is there some setting I can tweak? It is very confusing for me when drafting. I found this thread, but it's talking about system cursor, which is not my case. I remember briefly using Bricscad a year ago on Windows install and having some problems with the cursor movement too.

I am using Bricscad Version 14.1.17 on Fedora 20, 32bit. The machine is quite low end, but this shouldn't be the problem: Core 2 Duo - dual core 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM and NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS. From what I know, NVIDIA cards are the most preferable to use with Bricscad under linux, due to the quality of the driver.

Tomas Polak

To make thing clear: I didn't do any fast jerky movement with the cursor while taking those screenshots. This happens when moving the cursor slowly.

Knut Hohenberg

I can partly confirm this problem:

the cross-hair cursor is flickering quite badly in V14 (as in older versions as well). Usually, such screen refresh problems are hardware/driver related, but this one is hitting my netbook with intel graphics as much as my macbook with a nvidia card. On the latter, the flickering almost completely vanishes in the (3d) hardware-accelerated view modes, so it seems to be not hardware related at all.

But what puzzles me is that your screen shots show the system cursor on top of the cross-hairs - is this due to the way you produced the screen shots, or is the system cursor really always displaying?
This was a problem that concerned all BricsCAD linux versions prior to V14, and I thought it had been resolved (at least I did not experience it anymore).

Michael Rickard

If you are getting phantom crosshairs, try different values of GLSWAPMODE. For me, certain values consistently produce phantom crosshairs. Other values do not.
I believe this problem is related to the GUI toolkit used by BricsCAD, and the main solution is to try different values of GLSWAPMODE.

Tomas Polak

@Knut Hohenberg:

I can partly confirm this problem:

the cross-hair cursor is flickering quite badly in V14 (as in older versions as well). Usually, such screen refresh problems are hardware/driver related, but this one is hitting my netbook with intel graphics as much as my macbook with a nvidia card. On the latter, the flickering almost completely vanishes in the (3d) hardware-accelerated view modes, so it seems to be not hardware related at all.

Thanks for the suggestion, I tried other shading modes and the double cursor problem disappears in some of them.
Shade modes with double cursor: 2DWireframe, Wireframe, Hidden
Shade modes without double cursor: Modeling, Realistic, Shades of Gray, Conceptual, Sketchy, X-Ray

Most of them are without double cursor. I know from other CAD programs, that you can run into some problems, when using 3D shading modes when doing 2D drafting. So switching the shade mode is just a workaround, not a solution.
Do you have any information if this is reported bug? Later on I'll be testing Bricscad on a Ubuntu machine with Intel HD Graphics, so if I see the problem there, I would report the bug.

It looks like a minor bug, but this cursor behavior is driving me crazy.

But what puzzles me is that your screen shots show the system cursor on top of the cross-hairs - is this due to the way you produced the screen shots, or is the system cursor really always displaying?
This was a problem that concerned all BricsCAD linux versions prior to V14, and I thought it had been resolved (at least I did not experience it anymore).

Oh, sorry for the confusion. I didn't spot the system cursor when I was checking those screenshots. The system cursor is not visible on my monitor. So the double cursor looks like on the photoshoped screenshot I am attaching to this post - it's just doubled Bricscad's crosshair.

bricscad_double_cursor_bug.png

Tomas Polak

@Knut Hohenberg:

I can partly confirm this problem:

the cross-hair cursor is flickering quite badly in V14 (as in older versions as well). Usually, such screen refresh problems are hardware/driver related, but this one is hitting my netbook with intel graphics as much as my macbook with a nvidia card. On the latter, the flickering almost completely vanishes in the (3d) hardware-accelerated view modes, so it seems to be not hardware related at all.

But what puzzles me is that your screen shots show the system cursor on top of the cross-hairs - is this due to the way you produced the screen shots, or is the system cursor really always displaying?
This was a problem that concerned all BricsCAD linux versions prior to V14, and I thought it had been resolved (at least I did not experience it anymore).

Thanks for the suggestion, I tried other shading modes and the double cursor problem disappears in some of them.
Shade modes with double cursor: 2DWireframe, Wireframe, Hidden
Shade modes without double cursor: Modeling, Realistic, Shades of Gray, Conceptual, Sketchy, X-Ray

Most of them are without double cursor. I know from other CAD programs, that you can run into some problems, when using 3D shading modes when doing 2D drafting. So switching the shade mode is just a workaround, not a solution.
Do you have any information if this is reported bug? Later on I'll be testing Bricscad on a Ubuntu machine with Intel HD Graphics, so if I see the problem there, I would report the bug.

It looks like a minor bug, but this cursor behavior is driving me crazy.

Tomas Polak

@Michael Rickard:

If you are getting phantom crosshairs, try different values of GLSWAPMODE. For me, certain values consistently produce phantom crosshairs. Other values do not.
I believe this problem is related to the GUI toolkit used by BricsCAD, and the main solution is to try different values of GLSWAPMODE.

I tried changing GLSWAPMODE value. Values 0-3 didn't make any difference. Value 4 made Bricscad unusable (wasn't able to draw a line). I even tried to restart Bricscad after changing those values.
Thanks for the suggestion anyway. I guess this is very hard to troubleshoot, because it effected by software, hardware and drivers and all of the combinations of these three pieces.

Alexandru Branescu

Unfortunately, the cursor/crosshair drawing has always been a problem on Linux, as the code was initially designed and improved for Windows. Over time there were slight improvements here and there (like not showing the system cursor and crosshair at once, etc.), but a major overhaul proved more complex than expected and there were always more urgent things to do instead. We now plan to change the rendering method and draw it at OpengGL level (as opposed to using wxWidgets, which seems to add to the complications) in the short to mid term.

Best regards,
Alexandru Branescu.

Tomas Polak

@Alexandru Branescu:

Unfortunately, the cursor/crosshair drawing has always been a problem on Linux, as the code was initially designed and improved for Windows. Over time there were slight improvements here and there (like not showing the system cursor and crosshair at once, etc.), but a major overhaul proved more complex than expected and there were always more urgent things to do instead. We now plan to change the rendering method and draw it at OpengGL level (as opposed to using wxWidgets, which seems to add to the complications) in the short to mid term.

Best regards,
Alexandru Branescu.

Thanks for your reply. It's good to hear that this problem is being worked on.

Carlos Fuentes

@Alexandru Branescu:

Will the OpenGL version of the Linux stack come with v15?  What's the timeline for v15 making it to Linux?

The multiple-cursor and other graphical problems make it very difficult to use what seems to be a very good product underneath.

Thanks,

-Carlos

Brian Marr

@Carlos Fuentes:

@Alexandru Branescu:

Will the OpenGL version of the Linux stack come with v15?  What's the timeline for v15 making it to Linux?

The multiple-cursor and other graphical problems make it very difficult to use what seems to be a very good product underneath.

Thanks,

-Carlos

Opensuse 13.2 Bricscad 14.2.20

v15beta is out there but it too has its own problems. Beside being in development for what seems like eternity, it has been hit with the libssl and libcrypto problems stopping us from installing it on our pc's. Meanwhile 14.2.20 is being offered as an alternative, but it has serious problems with the cursor and graphical interface. So it is all doom and gloom in the Bricscad Linux camp at the moment. Come on Bricscad we need this sorted out!

Tomas Polak

@Carlos Fuentes:

@Alexandru Branescu:

Will the OpenGL version of the Linux stack come with v15?  What's the timeline for v15 making it to Linux?

The multiple-cursor and other graphical problems make it very difficult to use what seems to be a very good product underneath.

Thanks,

-Carlos

I agree that fixing cursor behaviour should be a priority, because it's the first thing a new user sees - and it gives the impression that BricsCAD is unfinished product.
Another such fundamental thing is that BricsCAD is sometimes loosing keyboard focus when typing commands.

Tom

mahesh khatri

 I am also facing same problem with the cursor behaviour.

Currently running trial version in ubuntu

mahesh khatri

@mahesh khatri:

 I am also facing same problem with the cursor behaviour.

Currently running trial version in ubuntu

Planing to buy some licences if this problem get resolved