[raffraffraff]

Without reading everything there is on the subject, I'd guess it's tilted for the same reason it's tilted to the left.

Humans are tool makers and tool users. After enough time the tool becomes an extension of the body, even if the tip of the tool is mechanically or virtually detached from the hand that is controlling it. The tool maker designed this as a right-handed tool, coming into the frame in the right hand.

If the reason for the tilt direction was not this, then there would be no reason why it shouldn't tilt the other way. If you're right handed, try a right-leading cursor . It doesn't just look wrong, it feels wrong because it looks like a tool held in the left hand.

Does this have an effect on left-handed people? Perhaps. I'm left handed and it always felt wrong to use the mouse in my left hand. Is it because of the direction of the tilt? Who knows!

[webignition]

I'm left handed and have always used the mouse with my left hand.

The tilt on the cursor has never seemed odd or wrong or strange to me in any way.

I've been using computer mice in one way or another for more than 30 years and perhaps a lack of oddness comes from having so very much gotten used to it. Maybe newer left-handed mouse users would find the cursor tilt strange?

[xattt]

> The tilt on the cursor has never seemed odd or wrong or strange to me in any way.

Not sure if people realize, but this setting is changeable, probably since the times of single-digit Windows.

[bondarchuk]

Ohh now I remember! Back when we didn't have internet and I could amuse myself for hours just messing with the windows 98 settings.

[justinsaccount]

> since the times of single-digit Windows.

Do you mean 15 years ago with windows 7, or 30 years ago with windows 3?

[ant6n]

Arguably, the last date of the "times of single-digit Windows" would be one day before the release of Win 10, which was on 2015-07-29.

Didn't Win 8 have fewer options for adapting the UI compared to previous versions of Windows?

[xattt]

I was indeed referring to Windows 3/3.1/3.11/NT 3.5. Wasn’t sure of another term that would capture that era in one word.

Decimalized? Rational number Windows?

[kevindamm]

early 90s Windows?

[xboxnolifes]

I don't know how far back they mean, but Im pretty sure I recall it being in XP.

[rightbyte]

Oh dear. I am left handed and I have not even considered the arrow is tilting the wrong way. Now suddenly it annoys me to no end. I need to replace my cursor ...

[Moru]

35-40 years ago I had to switch to left because of too much strain on the right hand. I was very happy when I found a way to mirror my cursor. Am back to right hand now though.

[_moof]

Just wait until you find out why scroll bars are on the right.

[dihrbtk]

I feel like the scroll bar location has more to do with english being written left-to-right.

[raffraffraff]

Peev: UIs and desktop ebbing that shrink or obscure the scrollbar. Gah, stopit.

[crazygringo]

For a month or two I decided to start using the mouse with my left hand just for fun, to see how ambidextrous I could be.

The "wrong"-pointed cursor annoyed me so much I had to find a utility to flip it. (On a Mac, which doesn't support custom cursors like Windows has since forever.) It seriously drove me nuts otherwise.

So it's really interesting to hear that if it was always that way for you, it doesn't bother you!

[taeric]

I used to swap hands with my mouse every month or so. I don't remember ever noticing the tilt.

[Ekaros]

I think left handed users do not find it weird as it works in left to right up to down information systems. So unlike with pen they get the same benefit of operating tool sensibly.

[rightbyte]

The arrow gets replaced with a ... pin with a stylized bird in each end? ... so the arrow does not hide text anyways, when going left to right over text, as a physical pen would do.

[silon42]

I have a mouse on each side of the keyboard, so changing the mouse pointer shape was never even considered.

[alamortsubite]

It might be fun to set up your system to switch between left and right-tilted cursors automatically, depending on which mouse you're using.

[klibertp]

Also make it maintain 2 cursor positions and switch between them depending on the mouse. It would be pretty neat with multiple monitors, with focus following the (active) cursor. (Assuming you're ambidextrous, of course :))

[taeric]

The steam deck has a keyboard that supports input from both trackpads at the same time. Always surprised me this is not really supported by most desktop environments.

[alamortsubite]

Woah! I may be ambidextrous, but no way am I ambicursorous!

[bombcar]

Bi-cursorious might matter more when using a stylus on a iPad or similar. I wonder.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> I have a mouse on each side of the keyboard

In 30yrs of IT support, this is a thing I have never seen. If I had, I'd be forever inserting into conversations about end-users. Strictly for the novelty.

[bombcar]

The real deal is keyboard mouse keyboard mouse keyboard.

Then both hands can mouse and access a “near half” of both sides of the keyboard.

[lupire]

How do you feel about writing in general, left to right, with your left hand?

[raffraffraff]

I used to smudge the hell out of the text so I adopted a really weird way of positioning my hand. Could never use fountain pens.

[kbelder]

Huh. I wonder if there was some (superficially) valid reasoning there for forcing lefthanders to learn write with their right hand. Due to the left-to-right nature of English, and the technology of fountain pens, it really was more objectively difficult to write with your left hand.

[vasco]

What matters is the hand you use your mouse with, I'm left handed for writing and most things but use the right hand for the mouse and it doesn't feel strange.

[arrrg]

Why do you use your mouse with the right hand? I’m also left handed and use the mouse with my right hand, I think mostly because my parents bought a computer table with our first computer that had the spot for the mouse fixed on the right side (keyboard drawer with just enough space for the keyboard alone and below that a little extra drawer to the right to create space for the mousepad and mouse when the keyboard drawer is open). So I had to learn using the computer that way …

Seems inconsiderate from my parents, but I think they just didn’t think about that aspect.

[synecdoche]

Holding the mouse in the right hand allows for holding a pen in the left at the same time. I find that, and having the notepad next to the keyboard, to be quite useful. There's also no risk of the notepad being in the way of the mouse movements.

[hed]

Yep this was like a cheat code when I had to take notes from the computer and could write and scroll simultaneously.

[Someone]

I also write left handed and mouse right handed. My theory is that it’s more efficient when using a QWERTY keyboard layout. The QWERTY layout is heavily left dominant in English and, I guess, many other Western European languages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties: “In the QWERTY layout many more words can be spelled using only the left hand than the right hand. In fact, thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand, while only a couple of hundred words can be typed using only the right hand (the three most frequent letters in the English language, ETA, are all typed with the left hand)”)

So chances are that the last key hit before using the mouse is on the left side of the keyboard, as is the first key you’ll hit after using the mouse.

That makes mousing with the right hand while keeping the left hand on the home row faster than the reverse.

[coldsmoke]

Not only that, but a lot of the most commonly used keyboard shortcuts are also on the left side.

[iforgotpassword]

This might seem odd for the youngsters having grown up with their own smartphone and laptop, but I very quickly found it annoying having to rearrange everybody's setup when using their computer. Friends, family, school, you name it...

[toast0]

I left mouse on work computers, althoigh I'm right handed, and right mouse on personal computers. (ergo at my first real job encouraged left mousing, and I found mixed mousing is best for my wrists)...

Anyway, most computers you find in the wild are setup for right mousing. Most mice are sculpted to be used by a right hand, a minority of mice are ambidextrous and can be used by either hand well (although it's not unusual for an ambidextrous mouse to have buttons for a right thumb and not for a left thumb), and I can't say I've ever seen one sculpted for a left hand. Same deal for trackballs; if you want a thumb trackball, it's got to be operated by your right thumb.

[K7PJP]

I'm left handed, use the mouse on the right, and even use my right hand for a laptop trackpad. I keep my left hand on the keyboard while mousing, and use modifiers in concert.

Perhaps this both explains why I've never quite understood the aversion to mice, and also why I prefer smaller (TKL or smaller) keyboards.

[rtpg]

I use the mouse on the right mostly because stuff like games assume you’re doing that, so keyboard controls and the like are optimized for it

Also, most computers lay the mouse that way

I could mess with this but ultimately I don’t mind too much. Maybe it explains why I’m bad at FPSes! Probably not.

[raffraffraff]

WASD

[gsich]

Moving a mouse is also relatively easy compared to writing with the other hand.

[m12k]

>Without reading everything there is on the subject

Everything, or in this case the second answer on the linked page ;) I do believe you are (both) on to something though.

[zeroimpl]

Also nobody is asking why it's pointed up, but it's the same reason. Your hand is usually below your eye-level. From a theoretical point of view, the most intuitive cursor would be a crosshair, but I've tried that and don't like it.

[naasking]

> It doesn't just look wrong, it feels wrong because it looks like a tool held in the left hand.

It feels foreign only for a little bit. I'm right-handed but started developing RSI in my right wrist from using the mouse with that hand, so I've been using my left hand for over a decade now and no issues. The brain is very adaptable. For instance, we very quickly adapt to seeing the world upside down:

https://theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/12/improbable-res...

[papichulo2023]

The only tool I find hard to use, as a left handed, is scissors, the rest is just fine. As for the mouse, always used it with the right hand.

[mhandley]

Even us righties need to use scissors in the left hand occasionally, such as when trimming the finger nails on the right hand. At least with nail scissors, the trick is to flip the scissors around so they point towards you rather than away. Then you're still forcing the blades together rather that apart.

[martopix]

I'm also left handed and don't usually have a problem with scissors, unless they're bad quality scissors.

I also use the mouse with my right hand and I'm always surprised by how many left-handers actually ended up using the mouse with the right. It's quite strange. Even stranger, was a right-handed colleague who decided to use the mouse with her left.

[NamTaf]

Bad quality scissors will invariably suck for lefties because the grip of a left hand pushes the blades apart, vs. with a right it pulls them together. Scissors are my #1 gripe as a leftie too.

I use the mouse with my right because the rest of my family is right-handed so it was on the right and I just learnt by copying. I don't mind it, as I can type fairly reasonably one-handed with my left hand - much better than I could with my right - so it means I can still do short typing bursts one-handed without lifting my right hand off the mouse. When I type with two hands, I find my left covers about 60-70% of the keyboard vs. my right doing about 30-40% of the keyboard.

[eropple]

Funny - I’m right-handed, but my left hand also works most of the keyboard. I think it’s more because the modifier keys on the right are more natural for me to hit.

On thumb keyboards, it’s pretty similar too. My left thumb types as far to the right as U/G/B.

[a13o]

I mouse left-handed and wrote software for Windows to flip the mouse cursors, because it felt more natural

[TazeTSchnitzel]

A horizontally flipped (straight edge on the right) cursor does exist, I think some versions of Microsoft Word use it when editing the left margin of a document or something like this. I don't think it's a standard Windows cursor though.

[anthk]

Linux/BSD just have to use "xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr".

OFC you can set that graphically, but this way it's universal.

[mixmastamyk]

Also selecting numbered lines in a text editor, say on X.

[szundi]

Try reversing it, I’m curious

[TOGoS]

Dear OS makers: Please make it easier to swap the mouse buttons and also flip the cursor at the same time.

I say this because I use multiple computers and depending on when and where I am using them, sometimes want the mouse on the left. In addition to it "feeling wrong" to use a right handed cursor with my left hand (I swear it physically gives me cramps), having the cursor not match the buttons is super frustrating.

Once I got used to the direction of the cursor indicating the button configuration, it comes pretty naturally to click appropriately, even on occasions where I am using the mouse with the 'wrong' hand (because I'm using the other hand to pet a cat or drink my coffee or something).

On Windows 10/11, it's relatively easy to swap the buttons, but then I have to go into another, much more deeply buried menu (the old control panel that they seem to want to bury but can't get rid of because the Windows settings team is apparently too incompetent to put all the stuff you really need in the new configuration screens) to change the cursor to match. So then there's 5 seconds or so where the cursor doesn't match the button configuration during which my bones want to jump out of my wrist and then I need to go take a break. And for some reason, Windows 10 on my work computer seems to remember the button configuration but forget the cursor setting between reboots, so there's always a minute of confustion, there.

Also, if you're going to write some program with a cursor, DON'T OVERRIDE THE OS CURSOR WITH SOME {RIGHT|LEFT}-HANDED THING! I'm looking at dumb Acrobat Reader. The arrow in that program always points to the left even if I've flipped things in Windows, and then I get all confused when I try to click on the menus as if the mouse is in its right-handed configuration when it actually isn't.

I seem to recall some Linux distro that I used once upon a time getting this right, where there was an option to flip the cursor and the buttons at the same time. But I haven't seen that for a while.

Relatedly, why can't I have multiple cursors? There have been times when it would have been convenient to have a mouse plugged in on the left and the right and just have them both show up on the screen (pointing to the right and left, respectively, of course, with button configuration to match) so I could easily switch to whichever was more convenient at the time. Or for when $handedness-handed coworker wants to drive (just use the cursor that you normally would!). Best I found was some AutoHotKey script that didn't do quite what I wanted. Why does the OS layer need to assume exactly one cursor? Dumb if you ask me.

[kps]

X11 on Linux at least is perfectly happy to let you have multiple pointer. Last time I tried, most programs handled it reasonably, a few (*cough* Chrome *cough*) went nuts.

[graemep]

Not multiple cursors, but XFCE lets you have two mice plugged in and one left handed and the other right handed.