make mouse pointer go away?

[skeptic]

I'm surprised this hasn't come up, or my search-fu is off 'cause I can't find even the question on the wiki or here in the forums.  How can I make the mouse pointer (the 4 arrows thing) not show up?  It's always in the lower left corner covering "play" or whatever other button happens to be there.  It doesn't keep anything from working, nor does it show when playing media, but it's distracting and gives LMCE an unpolished look.

[colinjones]

hmmm.... not sure I get where you are going, but do you mean even when you have "cancelled" the menu system? The cursor you're talking about should be on screen all the time any menus are there. But if you hit cancel and get rid of the rest of them it should become invisible.

The only cursor issue I have at the moment (waiting til my next install before I log it as an issue) is when I choose a few music tracks to play, and cancel the menus, the play list is on screen as I want, but after a long period (many tracks usually) that goes away usually to a blank screen or screensaver. When I bring it back from then on the standard desktop little pointer appears when there are no menus (the big cursor as normal when in menu mode) and doesn't go away, even when playing movies. Need to reboot to get rid of this effect.

Same, very annoying.

Col

[skeptic]

No, I'm talking about the normal pointer while a menu is up.  I want to hide that.  I did find a wiki page that talks about using different pointer shapes, and looking in the directory mentioned there is one called hide.  Problem is, I have no idea how to select a different pointer.

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/X11_pointer_shapes

[nosilla99]

@skeptik,

I assume you are not using a mouse and therefore do not want a pointer to be displayed.

If this is the case then just replace the mouse pointer graphics with an invisible one.  I don't have access to my LMCE box at the moment but, if this is all you require then I can post specific details later.

NOS

[skeptic]

@skeptik,

I assume you are not using a mouse and therefore do not want a pointer to be displayed.

Correct.  Or possibly a tiny little one just in case I find a need for one.

If this is the case then just replace the mouse pointer graphics with an invisible one.  I don't have access to my LMCE box at the moment but, if this is all you require then I can post specific details later.

NOS

This is exactly what I want.  I've done some searching on this and found that you can replace the pointer with other shapes (X11 pointer shapes on the wiki), and in looking through the example pointers there is one called hide which I'm confident is what I want.  However, the pointer is different between the desktop and lmce so I'm sure this isn't set in xorg.conf, but I don't have a clue how/where to set this for lmce.

[nosilla99]

@skeptic

The cursor files are stored in /usr/pluto/orbiter/skins/Basic/cursors/pointers_bw

To hide the cursor take a backup copy of horiz_vert.xbm and horiz_vert.xbm.msk and replace with hide.xbm and hide.xbm.msk respectively

You will probably have to do this without X Windows running so issue the following command and follow the above instructions from a command prompt

telinit 1

NOS

[skeptic]

Is there not some place to configure which pointer to use instead of replacing the pointer files?  I can do it that way, but I would have thought there is some configuration file or menu option to select various pointers...

[nosilla99]

@skeptic

A starting point would be to look at the database to see if there are any references to the pointer xbm files

NOS

[skeptic]

@skeptic

A starting point would be to look at the database to see if there are any references to the pointer xbm files

NOS

3rd person:  Skeptic doesn't do databases.

If there isn't a config file or menu option, I'll just replace the pointer files.  I just want to do it the "right" way.

[nosilla99]

@skeptic

I have just checked the orbiter source code and if no mouse is plugged in then Cursor should not be visible

So unplugging the mouse before starting LMCE is another alternative 

You could raise a feature request to have an option for "mouse visible" on the orbiter configuration page, although this is only specific to orbiters running on a Media Director 

NOS

[skeptic]

@skeptic

I have just checked the orbiter source code and if no mouse is plugged in then Cursor should not be visible

So unplugging the mouse before starting LMCE is another alternative 
<snip>

Doh!  The mouse on my ancient wireless keyboard/joy-mouse doesn't seem to work anyway..  I'll try unplugging it and rebooting the box.

Then again, in the future as LMCE is expanded to include stuff like mame, I may want a mouse and end up copying the hide pointer over the existing one anyway... 

[mce_in_catford4]

Hi,
Pluto defintly needs an option to turn off the display of the mouse pointer as part of the UI, or in the webadmin on the server. I have no mouse at all plugger into my machine and the pointer still shows. I don't want to see it while I use the remote control.
I followed the file renaming instructions and now instead of the big mouse pointer I get the normal moust pointer. This is a little better but not perfect. I am pretty sure I did the rename correctly (See screen shot)
This needs to be logged as a feature request. Does anyone know where the feature request tracker is?

[Marie.O]

This needs to be logged as a feature request. Does anyone know where the feature request tracker is?

http://svn.linuxmce.org/