Here is an abstract I am currently working on for another project, that I've improved upon as a stand alone object.
xydrag is 100x100 pixel grid that outputs 2 floats for the x & y values and acts similar to a track pad where the mouse movement updates the values not the mouse position, in fact it even works on my touch screen
At the moment the output range can be set via a 4 value message [range xmin xmax ymin ymax( or just the values as creation args.
I will add scaling and colour next.

xydrag.pd
xydrag-help.pd

Cheers
Balwyn

And here is the final product, now with colour, sizing and solid colour overlay
xydrag inlet list;
message of 2 values to set the x and y;
message [range xmin xmax ymin ymax(;
message [size n( 10-150 (130 is really max);
message [colour n( 1 to 999;
message [solid n ( 0 or 1;
or the same values as creation args (all seven req)
xydrag.zip

@Balwyn Thank you very much, amazing work!

Do you have any idea why it doesn't work with the camomile plugin? That would be super handy if the grid did show up in the plugin.

@weightless I'm fairly sure camomile only works with subset of pd-vanilla and only some of the built in GUI widgets, see https://github.com/pierreguillot/Camomile/wiki/Feature

@Balwyn That's kind of a shame because a patch like yours would allow to do some really interesting stuff.
Regardless, thanks again for sharing it.