xbanish - banish the X11 mouse cursor when typing, show it again when the mouse moves

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xbanish - banish the X11 mouse cursor when typing, show it again when the mouse moves show release unix github.com
via jcs 5 years ago | cached | 14 comments

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jturner 5 years ago | link

I quickly threw together an OpenBSD port for xbanish. Once there is an official release and the tree is unlocked I can submit/import it.
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kyle 5 years ago | link

This is one of those things that you see and think, I should have thought of that. Pretty useful.
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samuelt edited 5 years ago | link

There is also unclutter, which has been around for a while (since 1992 or so…) and does the same thing. This project have shorter and generally nicer code in my opinion, but unclutter has a man-page, probably has had most of it’s possible bugs removed and is already available in many package repositories.
Debian and Ubuntu makes it just an apt-get install unclutter away.
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  jcs 5 years ago | link
  
  but unclutter has a man-page, probably has had most of it’s possible bugs removed
  
  If you read the readme, you’ll note that I wrote xbanish because unclutter doesn’t even work properly anymore.
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    samuelt 5 years ago | link
    
    Ah, sorry, I completely missed that. Oops…
    
    Anyway I use unclutter like this: unclutter -idle 1 -root
    
    This only shows my cursor when I move it, which is what I thought xbanish did and is what I want to happen.
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sramov 5 years ago | link
Thanks for this!

Only works when I invoke it manually, when put in .xinitrc it does get started normally, but no mouse hiding. Here’s the full .xinitrc:
```
setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps
xbanish &
xrdb -quiet -load $HOME/.Xresources
xset fp+ $HOME/.fonts && xset fp rehash
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr -solid black && bgs -c /home/sramov/pic/5583922156_87619bb8a1.jpg

ssh-agent xmonad
```
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  jcs 5 years ago | link
  
  Ok, file a bug on the Github repo with some debugging info and I’ll look into it.
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    lynge 5 years ago | link
    
    Works beautifully when started manually, but when invoked from .xinitrc (on OpenBSD -current with dwm -current) I can reproduce sramovs findings – the cursor does not hide, but the process is running.
    
    When started with debug from .xinitrc no debug seems to be produced (?). Debug output is produced when started manually though. Still want a github bug issue opened?
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      jcs 5 years ago | link
      
      Can you and @sramov try the latest git code? It’s working for me in an xsession with ratpoison.
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        lynge 5 years ago | link
        
        Still the same when started form xinitrc, but it might be related to some window focus thing in dwm:
        
        When invoked manually with dwm running I see the cursor hiding on creating a new window only if the cursor is not in the new window area; debuging reports ‘creating new window, snooping on it’ and nothing further when I type in this window. If the cursor is not within the area of a newly created xterm I see ‘creating new window, snooping on it’ and then ‘keystroke 50 hiding cursor’ and any new keystroke is reported.
        
        So it seem the keystrokes are not captured from those windows created with a cursor “above”. But if I move the window focus between a few windows and return to new window – then the cursor is correctly hidden when typing and debug reports any keystroke. Want a github issue opened on this peculiar thing?
        
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        lynge 5 years ago | link
        
        Just for the record: The above problem is solved with this commit https://github.com/jcs/xbanish/commit/5056afe970aa3c1dfb6af5f879ea649a8af90b15. Thanks!
        
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        sramov 4 years ago | link
        
        Nope, still nothing, after trying the latest git head. I’ve tried with all window mangers I use, cwm, xmonad, mcwm etc… The result is always the same. If I put xbanish & in ~/.xinitrc it just doesn’t work. OpenBSD -stable, various OpenBSD -current snapshots, no cigar…
        
        I don’t use GitHub, so instead of filing an issue, I am posting here.
        
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        lynge 4 years ago | link
        
        Works here: xbanish-1.1 from packages started from xinitrc, dwm via git, latest OpenBSD -current snapshot.
        
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        sramov 4 years ago | link
        
        uname -a OpenBSD ouroboros.ramov.inet 5.4 GENERIC.MP#61 amd64 pkg_info -qm | grep xbanish xbanish-1.1 cat ~/.xinitrc bgs -c $HOME/bgs/fbdtlbl1305772307_crop.jpg setxkbmap -option ctrl:nocaps xbanish & xrdb -load $HOME/.Xresources xset fp+ $HOME/.fonts && xset fp rehash xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr ssh-agent xmonad
        
        I also tried replacing ssh-agent with exec thinking it might have something to do with that, but the result is the same, I just can’t get it to work.
        
        Doesn’t matter which window manager I try, xmonad, cwm, dwm… Also tried xinit and startx…
        
        When I manually start it with -d flag, it seems it only hides the cursor when in xterm. When I switch focus to xombrero for instance, I get no output, even the mouse moves are not reported. Same thing when the cursor is on the root window.
        
        Also tried to comment everything in ~/.xinitrc, except for the xbanish & and exec xmonad lines…
        
        Would love to get to the bottom of this!