Re: [gtk-list] Re: how to set the mouse position?

[Julian Armstrong <ajax treko net au>]

On 6 Mar 1999, Anders Melchiorsen wrote:

> Fredrik Jagenheim <fredrik.jagenheim@axis.com> wrote:
> 
> > A better way to do this would be to just turn off the pointer with a
> > NULL bitmap. Moving the mouse has two severe disadvantages;
> > confusing the user (where did the mouse go) and your application may
> > loose it's focus, sending keypresses into another application.
> 
> Isn't there a tool which will turn off the pointer whenever the
> keyboard is used and restore it when the mouse is used? I really miss
> this feature in X since I am very used to it from the Amiga.
> 

I use unclutter (http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/unclutter.html):

~ % rpm -qi unclutter
Name: unclutter                   Distribution: Red Hat Linux 4.0
Version: 0.8                               Vendor: (none)
Release: 4                             Build Date: Wed Jul  8 13:02:39 1998
Install date: Sat Feb 13 11:22:58 1999      Build Host: khazad-dum.Stanford.EDU
Group: X11/Utilities                 Source RPM: unclutter-0.8-4.src.rpm
Size: 18986                            License: distributable
Packager: Paul H. Hargrove <hargrove@sccm.Stanford.EDU>
Summary: hides the mouse cursor when idle
Description:
unclutter is a program which runs permanently in the background of an
X11 session.  It checks on the X11 pointer (cursor) position every
few seconds, and when it finds it has not moved (and no buttons are
pressed on the mouse, and the cursor is not in the root window) it
creates a small sub-window as a child of the window the cursor is in.
The new window installs a cursor of size 1x1 but a mask of all 0, ie
an invisible cursor.  This allows you to see all the text in an xterm
or xedit, for example.  The human factors crowd would agree it should
make things less distracting.