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IOGraph: draw your mouse/trackpad usage over time


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IOGraph: draw your mouse/trackpad usage over time
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2011-01-12, 22:04

Anyone else heard of IOGraph? I saw it linked a few blogs a week ago and decided to put it on my MBP and my desktop Mac mini at the office. This is an app that simply tracks your cursor as it moves around the screen and paints the path on an image over time. I find it interesting how it visually reveals my different usage patterns of trackpad versus mouse.

Here are a few days worth of data on my MacBook Pro with trackpad only:



I added a white border to highlight my use of Fitts' Law. It's readily apparent that I use hot corners. It's also somewhat apparent that I played Minecraft on this machine over the weekend/evenings because of the starlike spot in the center; MC resets your cursor to center whenever you pause or switch apps. Other than that, it's mostly a jumble, aside from the apparent favoritism towards the left side of the screen (but I'm right-handed).

Here are a few days worth of data on my Mac mini with two displays and mouse only:



The app only seems to track the primary display, but I tend to only use the secondary display for monitoring servers and holding notes. The most immediate usage difference I see here is that dark horizontal scratch in the middle. That's where the command-tab app switcher shows up. I have a habit of running many apps, punching cmt-tab, and running the mouse cursor over the display to choose the app I want to see. This screen also seems to have a more even distribution usage, and that makes sense since I find a mouse to be far more useful and precise than the trackpad. You can also see some dark horizontal lines in the top where I tend to be clicking around browser tabs, whereas on the MacBook I opt for the keyboard shortcuts to switch tabs.

Anyone else want to take it for a spin and share your habits? Before I started recording, I turned on the "Ignore mouse stops" option because I spend so many long stretches typing. By default, the app draws an ever-growing black dot/circle when the cursor sits in the same place, and the first images I made were dominated by the black holes.

I'd be especially interested to see what our resident artists' are like. Paul, I'm looking squarely in your direction.

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scratt
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: M-F: Thailand Weekends : F1 2010 - Various Tracks!
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2011-01-12, 22:25

I like graphs.. I'll play.

Unfortunately I also work almost exclusively on my secondary display, only using my main display for the same kind of things as you.

EDIT : I take a lot of err... "cigarette" breaks too. So I'll turn on the "Ignore mouse stops" option too, I guess.

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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kieran
@kk@pennytucker.social
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2011-01-12, 22:41

Interesting. I haven't set up my desk yet, so I'm just using my MBA with the trackpad. I definitely use less of the trackpad than I do with the mouse. I use more keyboard shortcuts without a mouse present.

Downloading now and will share my graph once I get one.

No more Twitter. It's Mastodon now.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2011-01-13, 04:58

I'm in. I'll set it up on Beast and my MBP.
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scratt
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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2011-01-13, 12:54

Here's my log of the main screen on my 17" MBP from today... I swear to god I wasn't drinking!



My dock is on the right of my screen, and it is clear from the positions of the heavy scribbles that I go to Xcode and Twitter more than any other app! Kind of reminds me of global flight path videos.

The scribbling on the left is actually overflow from the scroll bar of Safari on my left side monitor.

The actual output from the app is the size of all of my screens (I've chopped it down). Unfortunately it simply doesn't show any data on the extra areas. Hope they update it and fix that as I'd love to get all my monitors on one scan.

Not sure how I got the little flower at the top.. But that is close to my heat / fan widgets in the menu bar. Perhaps I was subconsciously drawing a fan!

I saw someone else's on Twitter with the dots from stationary mouse periods and they look pretty, so I might try that tomorrow.

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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Dorian Gray
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2011-01-13, 18:18

Brad's is fascinating and scratt's terrifying, but I'd also like to see others! The app sucks more CPU than I'd like, but it's clean and easy to install and remove, so go ahead and give it a try.

Here's mine after a couple of hours of web browsing just now (13-inch MacBook Pro using the trackpad, Safari browser):



Couple of comments:
  • I have the following Active Screen Corners: All Windows at top-left, Desktop at top-right, Dashboard at bottom-left, nothing at bottom-right.
  • Like Brad, I favour the left side of the screen, at least while web browsing. I think this is because content is often left-justified, like lists of thread titles here at AppleNova.
  • I scroll using the two-finger gesture.
  • I flick the pointer out of my way fairly often, then back into my way, etc., while reading, to give my fingers something to do. It's better than smoking cigarettes (which I can't resist saying I no longer do!).
  • The thick squiggle leading from the top-left corner to the mass in the centre is me clearing my Recent Items list in the Apple menu. Its density is scary. I know I clear this menu often, but I had no idea quite how often. Yikes. (I don't clear it because I want to hide something, but because I hate clutter — including the clutter of one app or document in the Recent Items list. Of course, the only time I see this clutter is when I go to clear the list. This probably says something unflattering about me.)
Let's see your strange behaviour!
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kieran
@kk@pennytucker.social
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2011-01-14, 00:16



Few things:

-I have Twitter set up on the left side, so that's where my mouse is a lot, while scrolling through tweets.
- Both top corners are used for Expose.
- I don't know why, but I use the mouse to go down to the dock a lot, even though it'd be quick to just use Tab
- Pretty sure all of the activity on the bottom right is from something the GF was doing in iPhoto or on Flickr tonight.

No more Twitter. It's Mastodon now.
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scratt
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: M-F: Thailand Weekends : F1 2010 - Various Tracks!
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2011-01-14, 00:21

I am getting concerned that my mouse lines are very scratchy and erratic when compared to everyone else's.. which seem to have a lot of nice loops and curves to them.

Perhaps I need help.
Edit : Or perhaps it's just the rodent in me!

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2011-01-14, 00:52

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
Brad's is fascinating and scratt's terrifying
Huzzah! The world remains in balance!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
The app sucks more CPU than I'd like
Hmm. On what kind of hardware? I didn't notice it add any appreciable load on either my old MBP or my Mac mini.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
Like Brad, I favour the left side of the screen, at least while web browsing. I think this is because content is often left-justified, like lists of thread titles here at AppleNova.
Interesting! I hadn't quite considered that, but it makes a lot of sense.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
The thick squiggle leading from the top-left corner to the mass in the centre is me clearing my Recent Items list in the Apple menu. Its density is scary.
You know... you could just turn recent items off. System Prefs: Appearance: Number of recent items: None.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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scratt
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: M-F: Thailand Weekends : F1 2010 - Various Tracks!
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2011-01-14, 04:40

Here's one from the main screen of my wife's MacBook... 5 hours of usage!
Girls make prettier IOGraphs I think...



Blobs on the left of the screen are her calculator usage.
Two horizontal lines at the top of the screen are URL copy pasting, and tabs.

She thought she made all the circular lines too, until I explained that to her. Bless.

And mine from Friday...



Big dot = I left it baking while we finished off "Boardwalk Empire" and then watched "The Collector"; which is a sick little puppy of a movie!

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt

Last edited by scratt : 2011-01-14 at 11:59.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2011-01-15, 03:11

So here's mine:
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scratt
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2011-01-16, 00:08

Are you channelling the spaghetti monster?
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2011-01-16, 00:12

Sure does look like it doesn't it! I'm not sure why I have such a large dot in the middle either. Most of what you see is from Minecraft. Without a warp I'm having to do a lot of running.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
Visit our archived Minecraft world! | Maybe someday I'll proof read, until then deal with it.

Last edited by turtle : 2011-01-16 at 00:28.
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2011-01-16, 00:16

Minecraft keeps the cursor dead-center while you're playing. That probably explains it.

Also, I realized before I left work last night (but forgot to grab and post the image) that I had left the same session of IOGraph running all week. I'll try to remember posting it on Monday.

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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Jasoco
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
 
2011-01-17, 03:15

I had done this a few months ago, but I guess I deleted the image. I'll have to do this again. On a day where I don't play MineCraft that is.
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Dorian Gray
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2011-01-17, 19:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
Hmm. On what kind of hardware? I didn't notice it add any appreciable load on either my old MBP or my Mac mini.
MacBook Pro with 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo. I noticed my computer was a little warmer to the touch than it normally is while browsing the web with Flash turned off. Only slightly, but I notice small things because I'm very familiar with this computer's behaviour. Activity Monitor said IOGraph was using about 9% CPU. Seemed like a lot to follow a cursor around the screen: you can decode an MP3 file with fewer CPU cycles.

It's a non-issue, so I'm just griping, really.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
You know... you could just turn recent items off. System Prefs: Appearance: Number of recent items: None.


Quick question, Brad, if it's not too nosey: what mouse do you use with your dual-display Mac mini setup, and do you use OS X's default cursor acceleration or override it somehow?
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Noel
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Chicago
 
2011-01-18, 19:38

Here's mine. It's been running for the last five days or so, since this thread first began.



I use the upper-right corner as a Dashboard hot corner, and the lower-left is a screensaver toggle. Certain dock icons (Safari, Mail, Adium, Twitter and iTunes) get used a lot more than others, and I tend to compulsively empty my trash. There are dense clusters of lines around tabs and the bookmarks menu.

And here's the same lines with my desktop (and a browser window) in the background, to give it some context.

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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2011-01-19, 01:19

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
MacBook Pro with 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo. I noticed my computer was a little warmer to the touch than it normally is while browsing the web with Flash turned off. Only slightly, but I notice small things because I'm very familiar with this computer's behaviour. Activity Monitor said IOGraph was using about 9% CPU. Seemed like a lot to follow a cursor around the screen: you can decode an MP3 file with fewer CPU cycles.
Ah, ok. Yeah, I actually forgot that I have a couple Linux VMs constantly running and keeping the mini a little warm. That's probably why I didn't notice.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
Quick question, Brad, if it's not too nosey: what mouse do you use with your dual-display Mac mini setup, and do you use OS X's default cursor acceleration or override it somehow?
No problemo. It's some generic low-end Logitech mouse, I think. I'll check in the morning. I find it works perfectly well with OS X's cursor acceleration. I'll check the speed setting in the morning too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Noel View Post
Here's mine. It's been running for the last five days or so, since this thread first began.
Interesting pattern. What are your typical activities on that machine? Just browsing/email/chat, or anything else a major contributor?

The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting.
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Brad
Selfish Heathen
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
 
2011-01-19, 01:21

Oh, and I keep forgetting to shut mine down. Here's the Mac mini with a few more days' usage!

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Noel
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Chicago
 
2011-01-19, 11:26

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad View Post
Interesting pattern. What are your typical activities on that machine? Just browsing/email/chat, or anything else a major contributor?
Last week, that was about the extent of my usage. I was on winter break still, so wasn't using any of the productivity software I use when I'm doing homework. I also would normally use iPhoto more, but didn't happen to do any notable photography in that time. I'll have to run it again in a month or two, when I'm in the thick of this semester, to see how much my patterns change.
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scratt
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2011-01-19, 11:35

That's a cool idea! Superimposing your actual desktop behind.
I'll do that with my next one.

Although, until they update it do handle multiple monitors properly my results are not really that representative of my day to day use.

'Remember, measure life by the moments that take your breath away, not by how many breaths you take'
Extreme Sports Cafe | ESC's blog | scratt's blog | @thescratt
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