Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 430414
xterm pointer hiding not quite successful - make it stop
Last modified: 2008-02-13 00:17:20 EST
Description of problem: This irritates me so much that I have to believe it just started with the latest xterm update or I would have noticed it before :-). Xterm apparently thinks it is a good idea to hide the mouse pointer when I start typing (I think it is a horrible idea). It does a terrible job, and instead of hiding the whole pointer, it leaves a black pixel from the pointer border on the screen. This makes me think I either have a dead pixel on my monitor, or a gnat on my screen. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): xterm-231-1.fc8.x86_64 How reproducible: Every time I type anything in an xterm. Steps to Reproduce: 1. See mouse pointer I beam 2. Start typing 3. See black dot left where I beam was Actual results: See above Expected results: I'd infinitely prefer that it left the dadgum pointer alone, but lacking that, it would be nice if it actually erased the whole thing. If there is some unfathomable reason some people like the pointer hiding behavior, and option to disable it would be nice :-). Additional info: Not sure who is doing the work here. Could be an X issue or nvidia driver issue: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-96xx-96.43.01-3.lvn8.1.x86_64.rpm kmod-nvidia-96xx-2.6.23.14-107.fc8-96.43.01-20.lvn8.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.3.0.0-40.fc8.x86_64 Did this update just switch from the xorg xterm to a branch from a different source? Maybe go back to xorg?
Created attachment 293101 [details] patch to implement new option and resource As proof of how annoying I find cursor hiding, I've attached a patch which implement the new -hp and +hp options as well as the hidePointer resource (man page updates I leave to someone who understands troff :-).
CCing upstream maintainer.
see ftp://invisible-island.net for current patch which does (without adding -hp/+hp options) improve the pointer-hiding.
The patch from comment #3 seems to do everything I want. I don't need an option, the pointerMode resource will work for me. Now just need to get latest xterm into fedora updates :-).
I'll prepare an update when #232 is released.
"soon". The big change in the "g" patch was to help isolate an equally annoying case where bold is lost. With some luck, I'll complete that fix tonight.
xterm-232-1.fc8 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 8
xterm-232-1.fc8 has been pushed to the Fedora 8 testing repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report. If you want to test the update, you can install it with su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update xterm'. You can provide feedback for this update here: http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F8/FEDORA-2008-1246
whew. Glad you guys are on top of this. I can confirm that this is a significant annoyance here too. What was most obvious was the black pixel overwriting portions of the text... caused me at first to think I had bad pixels on my LCD!! Except, every machine in the place was doing it... Will evaluate the update and provide feedback as directed. Thank you.
Chris, I don't think it's annoying (as implemented in #232) and I'd like to keep it enabled at least in F9. Not sure about F7 and F8. Suggestions?
Don't worry, the patch provides a new resource, you can leave pointer hiding on (the default) or use the resource to turn it off (my favorite :-).
xterm-232-1.fc8 has been pushed to the Fedora 8 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.