Hiding the X cursor?

Olaf Ruppert oruppert at googlemail.com
Wed Jul 15 03:11:39 PDT 2009


Use unclutter or XFixes

#include <X11/extensions/Xfixes.h>

XFixesHideCursor(dpy,root);

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 3:38 AM, Peter Hutterer<peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 01:37:21PM -0700, Tyler McClung wrote:
>> It seems I came in a little too late to reply on the old thread, but
>> that's fine.
>>
>> I'm attempting to (temporarily) hide the cursor in an embedded system
>> running matchbox-window-manager.  I am able to hide the mouse for all
>> newly opened windows, but old windows do not change.  I do not want to
>> restart the wm for the changes to be global.  Here are the things I've
>> tried:
>>
>> 1.  Apply an invisible mouse theme via matchbox-remote -theme
>> Fail: Did not change anything
>>
>> 2.  Configure/change default icon file to point to xcursor-transparent
>> Fail:  Works for new windows + root, but not for old windows (works if
>> wm is restarted)
>>
>> 3.  Send events to matchbox-window-manager by rewriting the source
>> code for the wm as well as matchbox-remote.
>> Fail:  Does the same thing as attempt 2.
>>
>> I believe the reason why 2 and 3 do not work is matchbox or X
>> maintains a cache of the applied cursors for each window that is open
>> and does not mess with the cache for windows that are already open.  I
>> am unsure if this is how it really works, but I am having trouble
>> changing the old windows.
>>
>> Is there a way to hide the cursor on the fly without restarting the
>> server or window manager?
>>
>> If you're wondering why, I'm attempting to write a little program to
>> toggle the view of the cursor on the system because the user may want
>> to use the touchscreen, the touchpad, or a mouse; plus some programs
>> would be cooler without the cursor.
>>
>
> shouldn't XFixesHideCursor and XFixesShowCursor do the job?
> (disclaimer: haven't actually used it)
>
> Cheers,
>  Peter
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