Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > linux.debian.user > #158540 > unrolled thread

Mouse blanker?

Back to article view | Back to linux.debian.user

Contents

  Mouse blanker? Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2015-10-03 15:20 +0200
    Re: Mouse blanker? Charlie <ariestao@ipstarmail.com.au> - 2015-10-03 15:40 +0200
      Re: Mouse blanker? Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2015-10-03 16:50 +0200
        Re: Mouse blanker? Mike Castle <dalgoda+debian@gmail.com> - 2015-10-03 19:10 +0200
          Re: Mouse blanker? Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2015-10-03 23:10 +0200
            Re: Mouse blanker? Mike Castle <dalgoda+debian@gmail.com> - 2015-10-03 23:50 +0200
              Re: Mouse blanker? Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2015-10-04 00:30 +0200
                Re: Mouse blanker? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-10-06 20:30 +0200
                  Re: Mouse blanker? Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2015-10-07 18:00 +0200
            Re: Mouse blanker? Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2015-10-04 00:20 +0200
              Re: Mouse blanker? Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-10-04 00:40 +0200

#158540 — Mouse blanker?

Greetings all;

One of the things that are a little bit like being nibbled to death by 
ducks, is the lack of a mouse blanker in linux, something that was part 
of and automatic in Amigados 20 years ago.

I'm refering of course to shutting the mouses pointer image off when you 
start typing in an editor, and only bring it back when the typing has 
stopped because you reached for and moved the mouse a few pixels.

I haven't a clue how many times I have clicked on the spot where I wanted 
to insert some text, only to have to stop and move the mouse off it so I 
can see what I typed. It can be a distracting, even maddening 
interruption in ones train of thought.

Is there such a critter, and I just don't know how to activate it?

Thanks for any suggestions to activate this.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#158541

On Sat, 3 Oct 2015 09:16:11 -0400 Gene Heskett sent:

> One of the things that are a little bit like being nibbled to death
> by ducks, is the lack of a mouse blanker in linux, something that was
> part of and automatic in Amigados 20 years ago.
> 
> I'm refering of course to shutting the mouses pointer image off when
> you start typing in an editor, and only bring it back when the typing
> has stopped because you reached for and moved the mouse a few pixels.
> 
> I haven't a clue how many times I have clicked on the spot where I
> wanted to insert some text, only to have to stop and move the mouse
> off it so I can see what I typed. It can be a distracting, even
> maddening interruption in ones train of thought.
> 
> Is there such a critter, and I just don't know how to activate it?

I think unclutter is what you seek?

Charlie

-- 
	Registered Linux User:- 329524
	***********************************************

	Things of the past are already gone And things to be, Distant
	beyond imagining. The Tao is just this moment, These words:
	Plum blossoms fallen, Gardenia just opening. - Ch'ing Kung ( d.
	1352)

	***********************************************

	Debian GNU/Linux - Magic indeed.

	-----------------------------------------------------

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158543

On Saturday 03 October 2015 09:37:37 Charlie wrote:

> On Sat, 3 Oct 2015 09:16:11 -0400 Gene Heskett sent:
> > One of the things that are a little bit like being nibbled to death
> > by ducks, is the lack of a mouse blanker in linux, something that
> > was part of and automatic in Amigados 20 years ago.
> >
> > I'm refering of course to shutting the mouses pointer image off when
> > you start typing in an editor, and only bring it back when the
> > typing has stopped because you reached for and moved the mouse a few
> > pixels.
> >
> > I haven't a clue how many times I have clicked on the spot where I
> > wanted to insert some text, only to have to stop and move the mouse
> > off it so I can see what I typed. It can be a distracting, even
> > maddening interruption in ones train of thought.
> >
> > Is there such a critter, and I just don't know how to activate it?
>
> I think unclutter is what you seek?
>
> Charlie

Maybe Charley, but the command "unclutter -keystroke" which should do 
what I want according to the manpage, does not, it just hangs that shell 
till I hit a ctrl+c.  Launched with an & after it does return, but the 
mouse pointer is also unaffected.  What am I missing?  "Aha, sudo 
unclutter -keystroke" does work, apparently globally. But only once, now 
it has stopped working. But it was still running, so I killed it. But a 
relaunch, as root, backgrounded with a -reset -idle 1 & set of arguments 
does appear to be working.

Thanks Charley, I think it will do a similar job with a -idle at a 
setting of .25 seconds.  Not exactly instant like Amigados did it, but 
close enough for the girls I go with. :)

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158545

Well, -idle 0 will hide it right away.  But it'll get lots of false
positives about thinking you've stopped moving the mouse.

And unclutter has been around for just over 23 years now.

mrc

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158554

On Saturday 03 October 2015 13:07:46 Mike Castle wrote:

> Well, -idle 0 will hide it right away.  But it'll get lots of false
> positives about thinking you've stopped moving the mouse.
>
> And unclutter has been around for just over 23 years now.
>
> mrc

It should be installed by the installer and enabled by default. ;-)

And all of us old Amigados people who have never had a windows machine 
for more than a week, would all be bowing and scraping in deference to 
the author.  That was one of the 2 things I lost when I made the 
transition to linux in 1998, the other was the instability of Amigados, 
sometimes crashing several times a day.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158559

Installed by default, meh.

But I'm pretty sure it is enabled by default.

cat /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90unclutter
# /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90unclutter
# This file is sourced by Xsession(5), not executed.

if [ -e /etc/default/unclutter ]
then
        . /etc/default/unclutter
fi

if [ -x /usr/bin/unclutter ] && [ "${START_UNCLUTTER}" = "true" ]
then
        /usr/bin/unclutter ${EXTRA_OPTS} &
fi

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158564

On Saturday 03 October 2015 17:43:49 Mike Castle wrote:

> Installed by default, meh.
>
> But I'm pretty sure it is enabled by default.
>
> cat /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90unclutter
> # /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90unclutter
> # This file is sourced by Xsession(5), not executed.
>
> if [ -e /etc/default/unclutter ]
> then
>         . /etc/default/unclutter
> fi
>
> if [ -x /usr/bin/unclutter ] && [ "${START_UNCLUTTER}" = "true" ]
> then
>         /usr/bin/unclutter ${EXTRA_OPTS} &
> fi

Unfortunately, in my testing it did not work, and didn't work until I had 
specified the -reset option.  Without that, it only works once.

So I have edited my /etc/default/unclutter so the options line now reads 
what made it work here:

EXTRA_OPTS="-idle .1 -reset"

And I'll see if it works by default after the next reboot.  Uptime is now 
9 days and I usually have to reboot at some point after 20+ days.

Thanks Mike.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158656

Quoting Gene Heskett (gheskett@shentel.net):
> On Saturday 03 October 2015 17:43:49 Mike Castle wrote:
> 
> > Installed by default, meh.
> >
> > But I'm pretty sure it is enabled by default.
> >
> > cat /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90unclutter
> > # /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90unclutter
> > # This file is sourced by Xsession(5), not executed.
> >
> > if [ -e /etc/default/unclutter ]
> > then
> >         . /etc/default/unclutter
> > fi
> >
> > if [ -x /usr/bin/unclutter ] && [ "${START_UNCLUTTER}" = "true" ]
> > then
> >         /usr/bin/unclutter ${EXTRA_OPTS} &
> > fi
> 
> Unfortunately, in my testing it did not work, and didn't work until I had 
> specified the -reset option.  Without that, it only works once.
> 
> So I have edited my /etc/default/unclutter so the options line now reads 
> what made it work here:
> 
> EXTRA_OPTS="-idle .1 -reset"
> 
> And I'll see if it works by default after the next reboot.  Uptime is now 
> 9 days and I usually have to reboot at some point after 20+ days.

I think you only need to restart X, not reboot, as it runs
automatically from Xsession (I presume).

However, I haven't discovered a useful configuration myself
(jessie, X, fvwm).

I've got used to the feature where, when you close a non-rightmost tab
in iceweasel, the tabs don't immediately recalculate their size: the
tabs to the right of the one that closed just slide along to the left,
putting the next tab's close button under the cursor. If the cursor
gets uncluttered away, everything recalculates immediately, just like
it does when you move the mouse out of the tab bar: not what I want.

But it's worse than just that. With a real mouse, it's difficult to
click a button without making a tiny mouse movement which, of course,
immediately redisplays the cursor. OTOH with a laptop, it's far too
easy to click a button without seeing exactly where the cursor was
left, or what has since appeared under it (as above).

Adding -keystroke (± removing -idle) appears to make unclutter
impotent...so I uninstalled it. After all, xterm and mplayer do
uncluttering themselves anyway.

I'd rather have a tool that makes the cursor flash when it reappears
or whenever a user-defined key is pressed.

Cheers,
David.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158667

On 2015-10-06 13:19:47 -0500, David Wright wrote:
> I think you only need to restart X, not reboot, as it runs
> automatically from Xsession (I presume).

I confirm. BTW, this is probably a bad idea to start it automatically
because a normal user cannot override such a setting. Alternatively,
if /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90unclutter could check the user's default
options, this would allow the user to disable unclutter.

> However, I haven't discovered a useful configuration myself
> (jessie, X, fvwm).

Ditto.

> I've got used to the feature where, when you close a non-rightmost tab
> in iceweasel, the tabs don't immediately recalculate their size: the
> tabs to the right of the one that closed just slide along to the left,
> putting the next tab's close button under the cursor. If the cursor
> gets uncluttered away, everything recalculates immediately, just like
> it does when you move the mouse out of the tab bar: not what I want.

As I've chosen fixed-width tabs, I don't have this problem. But there's
another one, still with Iceweasel: tooltips disappear as soon as the
mouse pointer disappears.

> But it's worse than just that. With a real mouse, it's difficult to
> click a button without making a tiny mouse movement which, of course,
> immediately redisplays the cursor. OTOH with a laptop, it's far too
> easy to click a button without seeing exactly where the cursor was
> left, or what has since appeared under it (as above).

Normally, when I want to click a button, I need to move the mouse
first, so that the mouse pointer is visible during this time anyway.

> Adding -keystroke (± removing -idle) appears to make unclutter
> impotent...so I uninstalled it.

The bug was reported 5 years ago:

  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=597402

(and 9 years ago in Ubuntu).

> After all, xterm and mplayer do uncluttering themselves anyway.

Emacs can do that too, but only for self-inserting characters.
That's OK in most common cases.

But I would really need this for Iceweasel.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158563

> the author.  That was one of the 2 things I lost when I made the 
> transition to linux in 1998, the other was the instability of Amigados, 
> sometimes crashing several times a day.

W.r.t crashing several times a day, you can easily recover this feature
with a little cron job,


        Stefan

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#158568

On Saturday 03 October 2015 23:16:30 Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > the author.  That was one of the 2 things I lost when I made the
> > transition to linux in 1998, the other was the instability of Amigados,
> > sometimes crashing several times a day.
>
> W.r.t crashing several times a day, you can easily recover this feature
> with a little cron job,

:-))

Or install Another OS. ;-)

Lisi

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | linux.debian.user

csiph-web