Skip to content

No.141 · Cursors

Intent Label

The cursor says what a click will do. Over anything marked data-intent it grows from a dot into a pill — View case study, Play reel · 0:42, Drag, Copy email — whose width springs to each new label. Dragging nudges its arrows; a playing reel draws progress along its edge.

The prompt

The design brief behind this component — reuse it to regenerate, remix, or explain it.

Build a scoped contextual cursor: a wrapper component that reads data attributes on its descendants and turns the pointer into a pill naming the action under it. Markup contract: data-intent="Label", data-intent-icon (view | play | pause | drag | external | copy | check), optional data-intent-progress (0–1) and data-intent-drag (the element is dragged sideways). Scope: under (hover: hover) and (pointer: fine) the host gets data-live → cursor:none on it and every descendant (!important), fields excepted, where the drawn cursor fades out. The layer is aria-hidden, pointer-events:none, absolute over the children; coordinates are host-local and corrected by rect.width / offsetWidth for scaled hosts. The cursor is one element, centred on the pointer, its position written in the pointermove handler. With no intent it is a 10px dot (8px pressed) with a hairline ring. Over an intent it becomes a 40px-tall pill: the label and its 15px icon are written into the idle one of two absolutely-centred slots and cross-faded (opacity, blur 5px → 0, scale 0.9 → 1 with a slight overshoot, 40ms delay in), while a hidden measuring span with the same font gives the new width + 30px. Width and height are springs (k 340, ζ 0.78), so moving from "Drag" to "View case study" visibly stretches the pill. The pill leans up to 7° into horizontal speed and rights itself. One rAF loop runs only while something is moving. States: pressing a data-intent-drag element spreads the drag arrows (scaleX 1.22) and nudges them 3px toward the direction you're pulling, until release. data-intent-progress drives a 2px bar along the pill's bottom edge (scaleX). A MutationObserver on data-intent, -icon and -progress updates the pill live while you hover, so a reel can count down ("Play reel · 0:42" → "Pause · 0:17") and a copy button can confirm ("Copied" with a check). Keyboard: a :focus-visible element with data-intent shows the pill at its lower-right corner, so the action is never pointer-only. Night (cream pill) and Paper (ink pill).

Notes

Interaction
Move across the case studies, the reel, the press strip and the links. Click the reel to play it, drag the strip, copy the email.
Motion
Width/height springs (k 340, ζ 0.78); label cross-fade with blur 200–280ms; lean into horizontal speed; drag arrows 200ms.
Accessibility
Every target is a real link, button or focusable region with its own accessible name; the pill only repeats it visually and is aria-hidden. Keyboard focus shows the same label beside the element. Status changes are announced by the page's own live region. Reduced motion removes the blur, overshoot and lean; widths change at once.
Responsive
The grid stacks under 640px; the pill is host-scoped and works in scaled previews.
On touch
Touch shows no pill and keeps native behaviour: the strip scrolls natively and every target is a normal tap.

Featured

01Glassbreak ButtonA solid plate that fractures from one impact point, cracks racing outward as the shards drift apart.04Liquid GlassA capsule of glass that bends what's behind it, carries a specular highlight around its rim toward your pointer, and squashes like a drop of liquid when pressed.07Phosphor Glass ButtonA liquid-glass pill that senses you coming: its rim light turns to face the cursor and the pill leans in to meet it.08Iris ShutterAn async button with a camera iris for a status light — blades close and turn while it works, then open onto the result.
81Atmosphere CardSmoked-glass link cards: colour pooled in the corners, slow contour currents underneath, a field that leans toward you.93Eclipse Event CardAn editorial event plate with an oversized date and an orbital eclipse bleeding in from the right, alive with slow drift.94Specimen CardAn object mounted under glass: hover lifts the pane with a sweep of reflection and swings out a paper catalogue tag.
95Silk FieldDomain-warped light that pours like liquid silk, with an optional glass lens that refracts the flow under your cursor.106IsobarA living weather map — contour lines traced over a drifting pressure field, with your cursor as a system of its own.
151Prompt ComposerA chat composer where attached files tuck into its top edge like tabs in a folder — they rise from behind it when added and sink back when removed. Send turns into stop while the reply streams.157Aura FieldA writing field where colour only exists while the AI is touching your text: the edge becomes a turning band of light and the words are rewritten in place, one by one, out of a soft blur.
205Halftone CTAA tall CTA banner where slow gold paint drifts beneath a fixed halftone grid, visible only through the dots.
212Nocturne Sign-inA single quiet column on near-black with a breathing seam of frost light behind it — email, password, magic link, nothing more.222Sigil Sign-inA split sign-in whose left half grows a geometric mark from your email — the same address always draws the same sigil.
275Voices CarouselA testimonial exhibition: one large quote at a time on frosted glass, crossfading between voices without ever resizing.
279Feral TitleA brutal condensed wordmark — heartbeat in the dark, letters slam in, a gash tears through and the word bleeds.
301 components