Visit http://osdoc.cogsci.nl/manual/python/mouse for the latest documentation

Mouse functions

class Mouse

The Mouse class is used to collect mouse input. You generally create a Mouse object with the Mouse() factory function, as described in the section Creating a Mouse.

Example:

# Draw a 'fixation-dot mouse cursor' until a button is clicked
my_mouse = Mouse()
my_canvas = Canvas()
while True:
        button, position, timestamp = my_mouse.get_click(timeout=20)
        if button is not None:
                break
        (x,y), time = my_mouse.get_pos()
        my_canvas.clear()
        my_canvas.fixdot(x, y)
        my_canvas.show()

class Mouse

Things to know

Creating a Mouse

You generally create a Mouse with the Mouse() factory function:

my_mouse = Mouse()

Optionally, you can pass Response keywords to Mouse() to set the default behavior:

my_mouse = Mouse(timeout=2000)

Coordinates

When Uniform coordinates is set to 'yes', coordinates are relative to the center of the display. That is, (0,0) is the center. This is the default as of OpenSesame 3.0.0.
When Uniform coordinates is set to 'no', coordinates are relative to the top-left of the display. That is, (0,0) is the top-left. This was the default in OpenSesame 2.9.X and earlier.

Button numbers

Mouse buttons are numbered as follows:

Left button
Middle button
Right button
Scroll up
Scroll down

Touch screens

When working with a touch screen, a touch is registered as button 1 (left button).

Response keywords

Functions that accept **resp_args take the following keyword arguments:

timeout specifies a timeout value in milliseconds, or is set to None to disable the timeout.
buttonlist specifies a list of buttons that are accepted, or is set to None accept all buttons.
visible indicates whether the mouse cursor becomes visible when a click is collected (True or False). To immediately change cursor visibility, use [mouse.show_cursor].

# Get a left or right button press with a timeout of 3000 ms
my_mouse = Mouse()
button, time = my_mouse.get_click(buttonlist=[1,3], timeout=3000)

Response keywords only affect the current operation (except when passed to [mouse.__init__][init]). To change the behavior for all subsequent operations, set the response properties directly:

# Get two left or right presses with a 5000 ms timeout
my_mouse = Mouse()
my_mouse.buttonlist = [1,3]
my_mouse.timeout = 5000
button1, time1 = my_mouse.get_click()
button2, time2 = my_mouse.get_click()

Or pass the response keywords to [mouse.__init__][init]:

# Get two left or right presses with a 5000 ms timeout
my_mouse = Mouse(buttonlist=[1,3], timeout=5000)
button1, time1 = my_mouse.get_click()
button2, time2 = my_mouse.get_click()

function Mouse.flush()

Clears all pending input, not limited to the mouse.

Example:

my_mouse = Mouse()
my_mouse.flush()
button, position, timestamp = my_mouse.get_click()

Returns:

True if a button had been clicked (i.e., if there was something to flush) and False otherwise.

Type: bool

function Mouse.get_click(**resp_args)

Collects a mouse click.

Example:

my_mouse = Mouse()
button, (x, y), timestamp = my_mouse.get_click(timeout=5000)
if button is None:
        print('A timeout occurred!')

Keyword dict:

**resp_args: Optional [response keywords] that will be used for this call to [mouse.get_click]. This does not affect subsequent operations.

Returns:

A (button, position, timestamp) tuple. The button and position are None if a timeout occurs. Position is an (x, y) tuple in screen coordinates.

Type: tuple

function Mouse.get_click_release(**resp_args)

New in v3.2.0

Collects a mouse-click release.

Important: This function is currently not implemented for the psycho backend.

Example:

my_mouse = Mouse()
button, (x, y), timestamp = my_mouse.get_click_release(timeout=5000)
if button is None:
        print('A timeout occurred!')

Keyword dict:

**resp_args: Optional [response keywords] that will be used for this call to [mouse.get_click_release]. This does not affect subsequent operations.

Returns:

A (button, position, timestamp) tuple. The button and position are None if a timeout occurs. Position is an (x, y) tuple in screen coordinates.

Type: tuple

function Mouse.get_pos()

Returns the current position of the cursor.

Example:

my_mouse = Mouse()
(x, y), timestamp = my_mouse.get_pos()
print('The cursor was at (%d, %d)' % (x, y))

Returns:

A (position, timestamp) tuple.

Type: tuple

function Mouse.get_pressed()

Returns the current state of the mouse buttons. A True value means the button is currently being pressed.

Example:

my_mouse = Mouse()
buttons = my_mouse.get_pressed()
b1, b2, b3 = buttons
print('Currently pressed mouse buttons: (%d,%d,%d)' % (b1,b2,b3))

Returns:

A (button1, button2, button3) tuple of boolean values.

Type: tuple.

function Mouse.set_pos(pos=(0, 0))

Sets the position of the mouse cursor.

Warning: set_pos() is unreliable and will silently fail on some systems.

Example:

my_mouse = Mouse()
my_mouse.set_pos(pos=(0,0))

Keywords:

pos -- An (x,y) tuple for the new mouse coordinates.
- Type: tuple
- Default: (0, 0)

function Mouse.show_cursor(show=True)

Immediately changes the visibility of the mouse cursor.

Note: In most cases, you will want to use the visible [keyword][Response keywords], which changes the visibility during response collection, that is, while mouse.get_click() is called.

Keywords:

show -- Indicates whether the cursor is shown (True) or hidden (False).
- Type: bool
- Default: True