Hi everyone, I am Shx Guo, the developer of Cursor Crane.
Last year I made an app called Cursor Claw and posted here. At the time I was a Magic Mouse enthusiast, so I had not spent much time working primarily from a keyboard. As a result, the first version was just terrible.
This year I have spent much more time using keyboard-first workflows, and kept running into the same moments where keyboard shortcuts stop helping: selecting or capturing text across windows, finding the right scrollable area, or moving and extending a selection inside a normal text field. I rebuilt the app around those cases and rebranded it Cursor Crane.
Many tools in this category mainly focus on moving the mouse to a target and clicking it. Cursor Crane still does that, but tries to go a little further so more of the surrounding workflow can stay on the keyboard.
Here’s a short video showing how I’ve tried to tackle these problems with Cursor Crane:
Features
If you also prefer to work primarily from the keyboard, you are welcome to give it a try.
If you have never tried using a keyboard to click things, you might want to visit our official website. We have implemented a simplified Element Mode there, which you can use to browse the content on the website.
The app requires macOS 14.0 or later. The app uses the macOS Accessibility API for interface elements and pointer control. Find Mode additionally needs Screen Recording permission for local OCR. Official releases are signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Screen contents, text, and keystrokes are not uploaded as analytics data.
The core features are free. The full feature set can be tried for 14 days. The current early-supporter price is US$8.99 as a one-time purchase, with no subscription.
Website: https://cursorcrane.expressionloss.com
Download: https://cursorcrane.expressionloss.com/download/latest
Changelog: https://cursorcrane.expressionloss.com/changelog
Previous Cursor Claw thread:
forums.macrumors.com
Thank you for taking a look.
Last year I made an app called Cursor Claw and posted here. At the time I was a Magic Mouse enthusiast, so I had not spent much time working primarily from a keyboard. As a result, the first version was just terrible.
This year I have spent much more time using keyboard-first workflows, and kept running into the same moments where keyboard shortcuts stop helping: selecting or capturing text across windows, finding the right scrollable area, or moving and extending a selection inside a normal text field. I rebuilt the app around those cases and rebranded it Cursor Crane.
Many tools in this category mainly focus on moving the mouse to a target and clicking it. Cursor Crane still does that, but tries to go a little further so more of the surrounding workflow can stay on the keyboard.
Here’s a short video showing how I’ve tried to tackle these problems with Cursor Crane:
Features
- Navigating and clicking: Element Mode labels buttons, links, checkboxes, and other interactive controls with hints. Type a hint and the pointer moves to the target and activates it. The hints are made more predictable by taking the elements’ content into account.
- Precise pointer control: if Element Mode is not enough, Grid Mode and Mouse Control Mode can handle precise placement or continuous movement. Find Mode can use OCR to locate visible text. Together, they let you reach precise locations across the screen.
- Window Mode: the same predictable hints can be used to switch windows. Type a window hint to focus it and move the pointer to the corresponding window.
- Multiple windows: Element Mode and Scroll Mode can identify elements or scrollable regions in several windows at once, without repeatedly switching windows just to continue an operation.
- Selection, copying, and screenshots: drawing a rectangle selection with the keyboard can be tedious, so Element Menu lets you select one or multiple targets by hint, then copy their text, copyable raw data, or a screenshot of an element or its window. Once familiar, this can be faster than Command-Shift-4 for some screenshot tasks.
- Text editing: ordinary text fields often have limited keyboard editing support. Input Mode adds find, movement, selection, and editing commands, so you can move the insertion point accurately and extend a selection to a target piece of text.
- Text Area Portal: lets you edit the contents of some text fields in the text editor you already prefer.
- Adjust Mode: lets you freely moving and resizing windows with the keyboard. Also allows you to move windows to another display or space.
- Scripting: lets you customize your own workflows.
- and more.
If you also prefer to work primarily from the keyboard, you are welcome to give it a try.
If you have never tried using a keyboard to click things, you might want to visit our official website. We have implemented a simplified Element Mode there, which you can use to browse the content on the website.
The app requires macOS 14.0 or later. The app uses the macOS Accessibility API for interface elements and pointer control. Find Mode additionally needs Screen Recording permission for local OCR. Official releases are signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple. Screen contents, text, and keystrokes are not uploaded as analytics data.
The core features are free. The full feature set can be tried for 14 days. The current early-supporter price is US$8.99 as a one-time purchase, with no subscription.
Website: https://cursorcrane.expressionloss.com
Download: https://cursorcrane.expressionloss.com/download/latest
Changelog: https://cursorcrane.expressionloss.com/changelog
Previous Cursor Claw thread:
Cursor Claw, yet another to control the mouse cursor, perform trackpad gestures and more with keyboard.
Hello, Cursor Claw is a tool to let you control the mouse cursor with just your keyboard. Besides moving the mouse cursor, clicking and dragging, It also enables you to perform trackpad gestures and to switch between windows with a keyboard. It currently supports the following modes: ##...
forums.macrumors.com
Thank you for taking a look.