The options on the Mouseposé page control how the Mouseposé effect is activated and what it looks like. For some of these options keyboard shortcut can be set.
By default, you should see the F1 key assigned as hot key, which means that pressing F1 once activates the Mouseposé effect. Pressing the same key again deactivates it. This is what's referred to by Toggle: The same key switches something on and off, much like a light switch at home.
Upon clicking the small gray close button, the label changes to Click to record shortcut. You can now press any key combination to assign a new hot key that activates and deactivates the Mouseposé effect. Similar to that, if you click on the entry field prior to clicking the close button, the label reads Type shortcut. When rolling over the rightmost back arrow the entry field reads Use old shortcut, thus giving you the option to cancel the process of recording a new hot key.
Any key assignments made in the System Preferences application override Mouseposé hotkeys. Choose a hotkey that is not already being used.
Mouseposé will warn you when trying to assign shortcuts that are being used in menus already.
On portable computers (MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, PowerBook, ...) and also on the later Apple external keyboards most of the function keys are used to control system settings such as screen brightness, volume, dashboard etc. The actual function key is activated using the fn key (lower left corner, or top right of the main block of your keyboard) together with the function key. You can toggle this behaviour in the Keyboard & Mouse section of System Preferences.
If this option is selected the Mouseposé effect will stop automatically after a certain timeout. You can control the number of seconds to pass prior to deactivation via slider control or the number entered in the adjacent text field. To stop the effect earlier, simply press the Hot Key again.
This slider controls the radius of the Mouseposé effect. Higher values make it appear larger, smaller values shrink its size.
This slider controls the amount of blur at the circle's edge. Higher values will soften the edges more, lower values make it appear with less blur.
This controls saturation of the dimming color. In other words: If set to 100%, the whole screen outside the Mouseposé effect will be opaque/black, while only a small 'stamped out' circle around the mouse pointer will be visible. May not be required too often, but makes for a nice effect.
Clicking the color tab brings up the system's color chooser palette from which you get to decide, which color you want to set for the dimmed background. By default, this is a shade of black, resulting in a translucent grayish color.
With this checkbox set, the Mouseposé effect will appear and disappear in an animated fashion, similar to a camera's aperture.
This new feature can highlight the topmost fully visible window below the mouse pointer. Window highlight will only occur on windows that are fully visible. The rationale behind it is that when you don't move the mouse for some time but the mouse pointer is located above a window, it is probably because you do not want to outline a specific element on the screen but rather focus on the window your mouse pointer is located.
Enabling the checkbox means that the Mouseposé circle effect will be transformed into a rectangular highlight of window under the mouse pointer after a certain of mouse inactivity. The delay before the transform occurs can be adjusted in the Advanced section, see below.
A few PowerUser options can be found in a separate sheet that appears when pressing the Advanced... button in the lower right of the page.
In order to change the size of the circle radius, you can also assign hotkeys in much the same fashion as described above. You can also control the change amount when pressing one of the hotkeys.
Here you can adjust the length of the on/off animation in case you don't like the default.
After that duration of mouse inactivity the circular Mouseposé effect will be animated into a rectangular window highlight, in case window focus is switched on. Depending on your environment and personal taste the default delay might not be useful for you.
Use this hotkey to toggle the window focus on and off while the Mouseposé effect is active. Please note that this does not immediately yield in a window highlight, unless the mouse has not been moved for the delay above.
Clicking the Revert to Defaults button will discard all custom settings you may have applied and reset to the default values.