screen ruler misbehaviors with mouse crosshair

[Jiejue233]

Microsoft PowerToys version

0.62.0

Running as admin

• [X] Yes

Area(s) with issue?

Mouse Utilities, Screen ruler

Steps to reproduce

1. open mouse crosshair
2. open screen ruler
3. use any of the three measurement functions (from right)

✔️ Expected Behavior

screen ruler still calculates the distance as always

❌ Actual Behavior

the ruler only measures the gap within the mouse crosshair

Other Software

No response

[yuyoyuppe]

@Jiejue233 thanks for the report! You can disable this option in the settings, so screen ruler will capture a single screenshot w/o crosshair instead of trying to trace through it:

Let me know if it fixes the issue.

/needinfo

[Jiejue233]

the problem is partially fixed with this option off because when measuring with the frozen screen, the crosshair is also frozen on the screen, and this may cause another misbehaviour that there is a copy of the frozen crosshair skewing my measurement

[yuyoyuppe]

Can you please describe your use case which requires both cross hair and measuring at the same time?

[Jiejue233]

as computer art producers, we may need a screen ruler to measure the size and the ratio performance in different sizes of the screen, (if some particular screen size like in mall is desired, I need to collaborate my work to optimize it) but if I want to work with my colleague or brand side supervisor remotely I need to indicate my mouse so that they know my move and what did I do

[yuyoyuppe]

Thanks.

As a workaround, I guess you could use Find my mouse to indicate it (double CTRL click by default)

[Jay-o-Way]

Find my mouse is not designed for this use case. I think Mouse Highlighter might be more appropriate. I think the interference is worth a bug label.

[yuyoyuppe]

It's kinda external thing 🤔

[Jay-o-Way]

Apparently Screen Measure does not show up in any print screens at all. I tried Printscreen and OBS recording. Therefore it is impossible to show. I can reproduce this.

[yuyoyuppe]

@Jay-o-Way

• this issue is about using mouse crosshair and screen ruler (2 separate products) at the same time, not about print screens or recoding
• regarding recordings, see https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/20399#issuecomment-1240914127

[Jay-o-Way]

@yuyoyuppe I understand what it is about; I just tried to make it visual. How is this external, if two PowerToys modules are interfering? @Jiejue233 I see that turning continuous mode off does work.

[yuyoyuppe]

Yeah, maybe using that tag isn't clear here. Here is my reasoning: what we can do to actually fix this is disable mouse crosshair on recordings (like we do in screen ruler's continuous mode), but then someone might want to record it. So, we could make it a toggle option of that module, which sounds like a feature blow.

[Jay-o-Way]

when measuring with the frozen screen, the crosshair is also frozen on the screen, and this may cause another misbehaviour that there is a copy of the frozen crosshair skewing my measurement

There's also that... Strictly speaking it's not a real bug because it uses a screenshot of that moment. But it is unexpected/unwanted. Haven't found an issue for this specific thing yet, shall I create one?

disable mouse crosshair on recordings (like we do in screen ruler's continuous mode), but then someone might want to record it

You already say it: crosshairs are often used in screenshots or live screen sharing.

[yuyoyuppe]

I don't think there's a need for one, since that's ultimately has the same solution: exclude crosshairs window from recording.

[crutkas]

@yuyoyuppe should this be closed out or stay open?

[yuyoyuppe]

Let's close it for now. @Jay-o-Way, feel free to create a feature request regarding new functionality for mouse crosshair. I'm not sure it's worth it, but we could discuss it there.