It's a pretty confusing title, but it could probably be done pretty easily. The idea is to sense the presence of the cursor in certain [defined] areas of the screen for some [defined] duration, then perform some [defined] action. I think that this program exist[s/ed?] as Green Screen for power settings, but I have not been able to find much.
I'd like this program for that same purpose (e.g. turning off the monitor when going to bed, starting the screensaver when walking away, shutting down at the end of the work day, etc.), but I can see usefulness for launching programs.
It could be customized at first by calling some text file, but it would ideally exhibit:
-rule customization in GUI, selecting parts of a current screenshot
-context sensitive (i.e. only work while looking at the desktop so as not to shut down while watching a movie)
I'm thinking it could use rectangular areas, based on pixel/percentage coordinates of the UL and LR corners, then check for the cursor's presence in that area for some amount of time.
No doubt there is someone who has a better way of doing this, but I was thinking something along the lines of: Check Cursor Good -> Wait for x seconds (while checking) -> Perform action. Along the lines of this sub-par pseudocode:
const N;
int action[N] UL LR;
int main ()
{
while(1)
for ( n = 0; n <= N; ++n %= N) //counts modulo N
action[n] += ( check(n) ? 50ms : -action[N] ); //check position against 'rule n'
if action[n] >= 5000 ms //if it holds out long enough
perform(n); //go for it!
end
end
wait 50ms //don't eat the processor
end
}
bool check (n)
{
switch (n)
case 0: UL = (900 700); LR = (950 700); break; //define span
case 1: ...
...
case N: ...
end
return ( (mPos[0]>=UL[0]) && (mPos[1]<=LR[1]) && ... ) ) //is it in there?
}
void perform (n)
{
switch (n)
case 0: ScreensaverStart ()
case 1: Hibernate ()
...
case N: ShutDown ()
end
}
I shudder to think what would happen with overlapping zones.
Thanks for your time and thoughts, Ben
