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Can I hide the mouse pointer?

asked Jun 13 '13

As I work on a simple, old, and defective netbook most of the time, of which the touchpad recently broke down (and some other parts, too, I'm afraid), and have been using key commands for almost anything, I stopped using the touchpad completely, and to save my limited number of USB-ports no mouse either. Now, since I lost control of the now completely useless pointer, it is in my sight all the time and I cannot move it away. Is there a code to hide the pointer?

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answered Jun 14 '13

Do I understand it right, that your touchpad is deactivated, so the mouse cursor in fact CANNOT be moved manually? In that case, xdotool mousemove x y with x,y being the lower left / lower right coordinates of your screen is a "pseudo solution". It doesn't really hide the pointer but moves it completely out of your sight. If you are not able to move it by hand, this should also solve your problem.

Comments

Yes! That is exactly what I was looking for. The unclutter option blocked focusing another window (using i3wm, that may have been the bug you mentioned before); xdotool works perfectly. Thank you

Maestraccio gravatar imageMaestraccio (Jun 14 '13)edit
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answered Jun 13 '13

jbelpo gravatar image

Quick and Dirty: Unclutter https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/...

Comments

Note that unclutter has a few side-effects (read: bugs) in certain conditions. Can’t really remember the precise symptoms right now, but be aware of it.

Michael gravatar imageMichael (Jun 13 '13)edit

You rock. Thank you!

Maestraccio gravatar imageMaestraccio (Jun 13 '13)edit

Unclutter and I3's focus follows mouse = yes, will break focus key bindings, since it focuses when unclutter kicks in. EDIT: 'unclutter -grab' seems to fix this like described in the wiki, but this will break i3lock. This can be fixed by killing unclutter, run i3lock, and start unclutter.

jpoppe gravatar imagejpoppe (Jul 14 '14)edit

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Asked: Jun 13 '13

Seen: 1,722 times

Last updated: Jun 14 '13