Bug 375420 - Auto-hide inactive cursor
Summary: Auto-hide inactive cursor
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 465119
Alias: None
Product: kwin
Classification: Plasma
Component: input (show other bugs)
Version: 5.8.5
Platform: Arch Linux Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KWin default assignee
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2017-01-22 19:28 UTC by Kishore Gopalakrishnan
Modified: 2025-02-27 05:18 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
mgraesslin: Wayland+


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Description Kishore Gopalakrishnan 2017-01-22 19:28:08 UTC
It would be nice to have a feature to auto-hide the cursor if it is inactive for a few seconds. This is achievable in x11 by using programs such as unclutter. However, there is no equivalent functionality available for the wayland session.
Comment 1 Martin Flöser 2017-01-22 20:06:10 UTC
Could you please explain the usecase? Why would one want to hide the cursor? Why should this be in the display manager?

I'm asking because if it doesn't hide e.g. when playing a video, the video application needs to be fixed. We don't want to start adding workarounds for broken applications.
Comment 2 Kishore Gopalakrishnan 2017-01-22 20:22:19 UTC
(In reply to Martin Gräßlin from comment #1)
> Could you please explain the usecase? Why would one want to hide the cursor?
> Why should this be in the display manager?
> 
> I'm asking because if it doesn't hide e.g. when playing a video, the video
> application needs to be fixed. We don't want to start adding workarounds for
> broken applications.

I just find it a bit irritating that the cursor hangs around while I'm not using it. For example, while reading PDFs, or browsing webpages (I use firefox with a vi-mode addon, so there are reasonably long intervals where I don't use the mouse and thus don't want to see it) the cursor sometimes gets in the way if I'm using only the keyboard (if it comes to rest on top of a link or a button, it counts as the cursor hovering over the object).

Re. why it should be in the display manager, my understanding was that the window manager has complete control of the display in the wayland session, so I assumed that such a feature could only be implemented in the compositor.
Comment 3 Pedro Arthur Duarte (aka JEdi) 2017-03-28 18:04:07 UTC
I think you should give unclutter a try:

 $ unclutter -idle 1 -root

I use it with my set-up.
Comment 4 David Edmundson 2022-07-21 09:48:37 UTC
As stated solutions  for people wanting this behaviour on X11 are available.
Comment 5 Anya Smith 2023-06-27 05:50:05 UTC
Unfortunate that this won't be implemented for Wayland. Other Wayland compositors, such as Sway, have implemented it long ago.
Comment 6 andy 2023-12-01 00:26:27 UTC
+1 for looking for this feature & with wayland. Just the opposite of the Track Mouse effect. Opportunity I guess could be a desktop effect plugin.

Even on the lockscreen, the mouse cursor stays on when the login prompts are hidden. I want to turn this off to reduce burn in of static elements on my OLED. Turning the screen off with dpms works except in current gpu/screen setup it glitches my screen out.
Comment 7 Lukas Kucharczyk 2025-02-26 20:14:32 UTC
Please reconsider.

From the ones I know, Sway and Hyprland both have this function so it's not unprecedented.

My personal use cases:
- games and other apps that make no use of mouse but leave it displayed; moving it to the edge of the screen still leaves a few pixels visible :(
- when typing, the cursor often obstructs the text field because that's where I left the cursor after clicking inside the field; Sway makes it possible to hide the cursor when typing as a sub-option of this feature
Comment 8 Kishore Gopalakrishnan 2025-02-27 05:18:24 UTC
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 465119 ***