__                __                ______) __     __)          __     __)              
  (__/  ) /)   ,    (__/  )        /)    (, /    (, )   /            (, /|  /|                
    /    (/     _/_   / _/_     _ (/_      /   ___ /   /  ___    __    / | / |  ___    _    _ 
 ) /     / )__(_(__) /  (__(_(_(__/(__  ) /   (_) (___/_ (_)(_(_/ (_) /  |/  |_(_)(_(_/_)__(/_
(_/               (_/                  (_/       )   /             (_/   '                    
                                                (__ /

Current issue:

• My multithreading solution causes n subprocesses of sparkles to spawn. This happens too fast when it's all compiled to a executable. Therefore I had to add a 1.5 second delay between launches of the sparkles subprocesses.
• This is not an issue when run from code! (.pyw file)

Latest updates (2023+2024):

• MULTITHREADING! YAY!! But it's done in the easiest way possible: Launch N amount of sparkles.pyw and divide number of particles by number of threads. Hehe. Why didn't I come up with that earlier?:
  • Performance now SOMETIMES multiplied by N of threads! SOMETIMES = Low amount of particles: 2 threads best; High amount: 4 best. Maybe the Windows desktop window manager craps on it?
  • Can now spawn particles in the neighborhood of 300 - per frame - other with no FPS reduction. (Yea, I still don't understand time dilation. I'm not a physicist.)
  • Performance is now only limited by how big the rectangle is that is being updated every frame. Need to find some way to lower area, but not with a huge amount of rectangles. Spacial hashes?
• Finally explained what is going on with each setting: There are two vectors. Sometimes they're added. You can manipulate them
• Sparkles now with rotation! Random or controlled, bilateral and for both vector.
• The strength of all slider and other options is now somewhat normalized and within practical bounds.
• Interpolation now no longer leaves out one "slot" of 1/3s of "moved distance" ... It's much more smooth looking!
• Velocity limit not global and not hard. It's soft! Flacid even. No need to harden it, too: The particles rub it juuust right. :P
• Internal: Variables now have much better names

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ShitStuckToYourMouse?!

Yea boy! You like the 00s? Radical! Get some very elegant shit stuck to your mouse - like ppl did in the early 00s! Yay!! Waste some CPU-cycles with nice visuals! ... The 00s!! Who cares about 5% CPU! Sense? 00! Get this shit stuck to your mouse cursor! Now! NOW!

Draws a very nice looking sparkle/glitter/smoke/fire effect following/on your mouse. Can also draw mouse-cursor-following text, CPU and RAM usage, pictures or a clock with milliseconds - for when you really need to keep an eye on the time.
It can also show you the color of the pixel under the cursor in real RGB, complementary RGB or complementary RYB. (RYB is kinda inaccurate between the r, y, and b colors.)
Uses PyGame for 'low' resource usage. Works by creating a TOPMOST transparent full-screen window that is click-through and has no taskbar button. (But not on top of the context menus, start menu and all these things.)

The intention for this is to build upon it to create something interesting - like cellular automata to draw fancy graphics over/around mouse cursor. Something like that. We'll see. (Hahaha, a year ago I wrote "cellular automata". Pffff. Boids maybe next though)

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Usage:

• Run ShitStuckToYourMouse.exe for a heavily configurable, very nice sparkle effect with velocity and gravity and more. (now optimized!)
• ^--- "Do it!" - Palpatine
• Other possibilities:
  • Display color under mouse cursor
    • RGB, RGB complementary and RYB complementary (RYB with caveats)
  • Display a clock
  • CPU usage
  • RAM usage
  • Both/All
  • An image
• You can also run 'other.exe' or 'sparkles.exe' alone. (Or the .py versions) They'll use the settings stored in the 'config.ini' - or if that file doesn't exist, create it with the values saved in 'defaults.ini'.

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Special features:

• Name is stupid! (Now less vulgar!)
• Single core capable, but sometimes with threads!
• Fancy colors!
• Basically just an experimentation!
• It's at least something. shrugs
• Rainbow colors!
• I completely disregard all Linux users!
• Good performance!
• ... because now it has multithreading!!

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Prerequisites:

• Windows (I used Windows 10 22H2)
• Python 3.13
• Pillow
• configparser
• pywin32
• psutil
• pygame
• pyinstaller
• pefile
• setuptools
• FreeSimpleGUI
• acrylic - Only for the RYB complemantary color

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Here you can see what the GUI looks like. There are also small samples of the capabilities of this thing visible.

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Thank you, various netizens, for all the StackOverflow questions and answers that helped me grasp an incredibly rudimentary understanding of Python.