unclutter - remove idle cursor image from screen
unclutter [-display|-d display]
[-idle seconds] [-keystroke] [-jitter
pixels] [-grab] [-noevents] [-reset]
[-root] [-onescreen] [-visible] [-regex]
[-not|-notname name ...] [-notclass
class ...]
unclutter removes the cursor image from the screen so that
it does not obstruct the area you are looking at after it has not moved for
a given time. It does not do this if the cursor is in the root window or a
button is down. It tries to ignore jitter (small movements due to noise) if
you have a mouse that twitches.
- -display
- is followed by the display to open.
- -idle
- is followed by the number of seconds between polls for idleness. The
default is 5. Supports subsecond idle times.
- -keystroke
- tells unclutter not to use a timeout to determine when to remove
the cursor, but to instead wait until a key has been pressed (released,
really).
- -jitter
- is followed by the amount of movement of the pointer that is to be ignored
and considered as random noise. The default is 0.
- -grab
- means use the original method of grabbing the pointer in order to remove
the cursor. This often doesn't interoperate too well with some window
managers.
- -noevents
- stops unclutter sending a pseudo EnterNotify event to the X client whose
cursor has been stolen. Sending the event helps programs like emacs think
that they have not lost the pointer focus. This option is provided for
backwards compatibility in case some clients get upset.
- -reset
- resets the timeout for idleness after the cursor is restored for some
reason (such as a window being pushed or popped) even though the x y
coordinates of the cursor have not changed. Normally, the cursor would
immediately be removed again.
- -root
- means remove the cursor even if it is on the root background, where in
principle it should not be obscuring anything useful.
- -onescreen
- restricts unclutter to the single screen specified as display, or the
default screen for the display. Normally, unclutter will unclutter all the
screens on a display.
- -visible
- ignore visibility events (does not apply to -grab). If the cursor never
gets hidden, despite a generous -jitter value, try this option
- -not
- is followed by a list of window names where the cursor should not be
removed. The first few characters of the WM_NAME property on the window
need to match one the listed names. This argument must be the last on the
command line.
- -notname
- is exactly the same as -not
- -notclass
- is similar to -notname, except that the WM_CLASS property of the window is
used. This argument must be the last on the command line, and so cannot be
used with -not or -notname.
- -regex
- treats the first name or class (see above) as a regular expression. This
means that `` -regex -not foo bar '' will not work as expected; instead
use `` -regex -not 'foo|bar' ''.
The -keystroke option may not work (that is, the cursor will not
disappear) with clients that request KeyRelease events. Games and Xt
applications using KeyUp in their translation tables are most likely to
suffer from this problem. The most feasible solution is to extend unclutter
to use the XTest extension to get all keyboard and mouse events, though this
of course requires XTest to be in the server too.
The -keystroke option does not distinguish modifier keys from keys
which actually generate characters. If desired this could be implemented in
a simple way by using XLookupString to see if any characters are
returned.
The message
someone created a sub-window to my sub-window!
means that unclutter thinks a second unclutter is running, and
tried to steal the cursor by creating a sub-window to the sub-window already
used to steal the cursor. This situation quickly deteriorates into a fight
no one can win, so it is detected when possible and the program gives
up.
Mark M Martin. cetia 7feb1994. mmm@cetia.fr