invisible mouse pointer?

invisible mouse pointer?

[Drew Adams]

Is it possible to make the mouse pointer invisible (disappear)?

I don't mean by, say, setting its color to the frame's background color on all
characters of a buffer's text. I mean by, say, setting `x-pointer-shape' to a
value (e.g. nil?) that (somehow) causes the pointer to disappear.

I couldn't find anything about this, but it could be useful. Is there a good
workaround, if the feature doesn't exist?

One use could be to have an on-demand mouse: hide the pointer until you move the
mouse (then hide it again after a timeout period). In some ways (for some
people), that might be better than mouse-avoidance mode, which just gets the
pointer out of the way without making it disappear. I know some that some
applications have such a feature - PowerPoint comes to mind, but I think I've
seen it elsewhere also.

If this were implemented, it could be made available by setting
`x-pointer-shape' to some value, but then code would need to manage the
disappearance and re-appearance. Or `mouse-avoidance-mode' could perhaps have a
new value, `vanish', which would automatically manage the timeout etc.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Thierry Volpiatto]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> Is it possible to make the mouse pointer invisible (disappear)?
>
> I don't mean by, say, setting its color to the frame's background color on all
> characters of a buffer's text. I mean by, say, setting `x-pointer-shape' to a
> value (e.g. nil?) that (somehow) causes the pointer to disappear.
>
> I couldn't find anything about this, but it could be useful. Is there a good
> workaround, if the feature doesn't exist?
>
> One use could be to have an on-demand mouse: hide the pointer until you move the
> mouse (then hide it again after a timeout period). In some ways (for some
> people), that might be better than mouse-avoidance mode, which just gets the
> pointer out of the way without making it disappear. I know some that some
> applications have such a feature - PowerPoint comes to mind, but I think I've
> seen it elsewhere also.
>
> If this were implemented, it could be made available by setting
> `x-pointer-shape' to some value, but then code would need to manage the
> disappearance and re-appearance. Or `mouse-avoidance-mode' could perhaps have a
> new value, `vanish', which would automatically manage the timeout etc.

Hi! Drew,
may be that can help: (i use it here on stumpwm and it work fine)
but may be you want to do that only at the emacs level...

,----
| Homepage: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/X11/contrib/utilities/unclutter-8.README
| Description: Hides mouse pointer while not in use.
`----

-- 
A + Thierry Volpiatto
Location: Saint-Cyr-Sur-Mer - France

RE: invisible mouse pointer?

[Drew Adams]

> may be that can help: (i use it here on stumpwm and it work fine)
> but may be you want to do that only at the emacs level...

Thanks, Thierry. Actually, I'm not interested in this behavior for myself. The
idea was inspired by a request at help-gnu-emacs. I know that some people are
bothered by the pointer, and I thought such a feature might help them. But yes,
the idea would be to be able to do it at the Emacs level.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Drew Adams skrev:
>> may be that can help: (i use it here on stumpwm and it work fine)
>> but may be you want to do that only at the emacs level...
> 
> Thanks, Thierry. Actually, I'm not interested in this behavior for myself. The
> idea was inspired by a request at help-gnu-emacs. I know that some people are
> bothered by the pointer, and I thought such a feature might help them. But yes,
> the idea would be to be able to do it at the Emacs level.
> 

I have a patch for this somewhere, but only for X11 Emacs.  But we are in a 
feature freeze so...

	Jan D.

RE: invisible mouse pointer?

[Drew Adams]

> I have a patch for this somewhere, but only for X11 Emacs.  
> But we are in a feature freeze so...

Great. Maybe you and Thomas Fitzsimmons can compare patches and come up with
something common after the release.

RE: invisible mouse pointer?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Drew Adams writes:

 > Thanks, Thierry. Actually, I'm not interested in this behavior for
 > myself. The idea was inspired by a request at help-gnu-emacs. I
 > know that some people are bothered by the pointer, and I thought
 > such a feature might help them. But yes, the idea would be to be
 > able to do it at the Emacs level.

XEmacs allows you to set the shape of the pointer by changing the
image property of a pointer-glyph.  Normally these are taken from the
standard X cursor font, but arbitrary images can be used (up to the
limitation of the X server, of course).  I don't know if it's possible
to use an empty image, but you could certainly set it to a one-pixel
image, possibly even the color of the pixel the mouse is currently
"on".

Maybe Emacs has a similar facility.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Thomas Fitzsimmons]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 715 bytes --]

Hi Drew,

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> Is it possible to make the mouse pointer invisible (disappear)?
>
> I don't mean by, say, setting its color to the frame's background color on all
> characters of a buffer's text. I mean by, say, setting `x-pointer-shape' to a
> value (e.g. nil?) that (somehow) causes the pointer to disappear.
>
> I couldn't find anything about this, but it could be useful. Is there a good
> workaround, if the feature doesn't exist?

I also looked into this a while ago and couldn't find a way to
completely hide the pointer, so I wrote the attached patch.  Ideally
this low-level functionality would be exposed through a new mouse
avoidance mode, as you suggest.

Tom


[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #2: emacs-hide-cursor.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-patch, Size: 1572 bytes --]

Index: src/xfns.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /sources/emacs/emacs/src/xfns.c,v
retrieving revision 1.726
diff -u -r1.726 xfns.c
--- src/xfns.c	31 Jul 2008 05:33:55 -0000	1.726
+++ src/xfns.c	3 Dec 2008 18:51:28 -0000
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@
 #endif
 
 #ifdef USE_X_TOOLKIT
+#include <X11/extensions/Xfixes.h>
 #include <X11/Shell.h>
 
 #ifndef USE_MOTIF
@@ -5258,6 +5259,35 @@
 
 \f
 /***********************************************************************
+			Cursor visibility
+ ***********************************************************************/
+
+DEFUN ("x-show-pointer", Fx_show_pointer,
+       Sx_show_pointer,
+       0, 0, 0,
+       doc: /* Show the mouse pointer.  */)
+     ()
+{
+  FRAME_PTR f = SELECTED_FRAME ();
+  XFixesShowCursor (FRAME_X_DISPLAY (f), FRAME_X_WINDOW (f));
+  return Qt;
+}
+
+
+DEFUN ("x-hide-pointer", Fx_hide_pointer,
+       Sx_hide_pointer,
+       0, 0, 0,
+       doc: /* Hide the mouse pointer.  */)
+     ()
+{
+  FRAME_PTR f = SELECTED_FRAME ();
+  XFixesHideCursor (FRAME_X_DISPLAY (f), FRAME_X_WINDOW (f));
+  return Qt;
+}
+
+
+\f
+/***********************************************************************
 			File selection dialog
  ***********************************************************************/
 
@@ -5963,6 +5993,9 @@
   last_show_tip_args = Qnil;
   staticpro (&last_show_tip_args);
 
+  defsubr (&Sx_show_pointer);
+  defsubr (&Sx_hide_pointer);
+
   defsubr (&Sx_uses_old_gtk_dialog);
 #if defined (USE_MOTIF) || defined (USE_GTK)
   defsubr (&Sx_file_dialog);

RE: invisible mouse pointer?

[Drew Adams]

> I also looked into this a while ago and couldn't find a way to
> completely hide the pointer, so I wrote the attached patch.  Ideally
> this low-level functionality would be exposed through a new mouse
> avoidance mode, as you suggest.

Great - thx. I hope Emacs dev might consider adding the patch (or similar) after
the release.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Thomas Fitzsimmons skrev:
> 
> I also looked into this a while ago and couldn't find a way to
> completely hide the pointer, so I wrote the attached patch.  Ideally
> this low-level functionality would be exposed through a new mouse
> avoidance mode, as you suggest.

I just checked in a fix for this so the pointer becomes invisible when you 
type something.  Perhaps someone can do the w32 and ns-specific parts?

	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Jan Djärv skrev:
> Thomas Fitzsimmons skrev:
>>
>> I also looked into this a while ago and couldn't find a way to
>> completely hide the pointer, so I wrote the attached patch.  Ideally
>> this low-level functionality would be exposed through a new mouse
>> avoidance mode, as you suggest.
> 
> I just checked in a fix for this so the pointer becomes invisible when 
> you type something.  Perhaps someone can do the w32 and ns-specific parts?
> 

It seems ns has this already, nice.

	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:50:07 +0200
> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan_Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
> Cc: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Thomas Fitzsimmons skrev:
> > 
> > I also looked into this a while ago and couldn't find a way to
> > completely hide the pointer, so I wrote the attached patch.  Ideally
> > this low-level functionality would be exposed through a new mouse
> > avoidance mode, as you suggest.
> 
> I just checked in a fix for this so the pointer becomes invisible when you 
> type something.

Why are we doing this in C, rather than adding the invisible-pointer
option to avoid.el?

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:34:52 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > I just checked in a fix for this so the pointer becomes invisible when you 
> > type something.
> 
> Why are we doing this in C, rather than adding the invisible-pointer
> option to avoid.el?

And after looking at the code, I must say I don't like this option at
all, certainly not turned on by default.

      DEFVAR_LISP ("make-pointer-invisible", &Vmake_pointer_invisible,
		   doc: /* If non-nil, make pointer invisible while typing.
    The pointer becomes visible again when the mouse is moved.  */);
      Vmake_pointer_invisible = Qt;

Why is this behavior such a good idea?  Looking for and not finding my
mouse pointer doesn't sound like a fun at all.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Eli Zaretskii skrev:
>> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:34:52 +0300
>> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
>> Cc: fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>>> I just checked in a fix for this so the pointer becomes invisible when you 
>>> type something.
>> Why are we doing this in C, rather than adding the invisible-pointer
>> option to avoid.el?
> 
> And after looking at the code, I must say I don't like this option at
> all, certainly not turned on by default.
> 
>       DEFVAR_LISP ("make-pointer-invisible", &Vmake_pointer_invisible,
> 		   doc: /* If non-nil, make pointer invisible while typing.
>     The pointer becomes visible again when the mouse is moved.  */);
>       Vmake_pointer_invisible = Qt;
> 
> Why is this behavior such a good idea?  Looking for and not finding my
> mouse pointer doesn't sound like a fun at all.
> 

The ns-port for Emacs has it on by default.  Not that is was a reason, I only 
found that out after I made this default.

The reason is that most other applications have this by default, so I don't 
think new user will be as confused as you think.

gedit, gnome-terminal, gtranslator in Gnome.  Actually it is a property of the 
Gtk+ text and label widget.  So if you do Save as... in Emacs, you already 
have it in the Name part of the dialog.

On KDE there is konsole, kate, kwrite (it is probably part of Qt widgets).

On OS X all applications seem to have it, for example TextEdit, Pages, Xcode,
the very editor I type this in now (Thunderbird, but no invisible pointer in 
GNU/Linux).

On MS Windows XP there is MS Word, Visual Studio, Notepad and Wordpad that I 
have seen.

So it is not a new crazy idea, there is plenty of current usage.

	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Lennart Borgman]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Jan Djärv<jan.h.d@swipnet.se> wrote:
>
> On MS Windows XP there is MS Word, Visual Studio, Notepad and Wordpad that I
> have seen.

Excuse me, I might misunderstand you, but are you saying that the
mouse pointer is invisible by default (before moving the mouse) in
Notepad on XP? It does not seem so to me. Maybe this is something new
in Vista?

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan D.]

Lennart Borgman wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Jan Djärv<jan.h.d@swipnet.se> wrote:
>> On MS Windows XP there is MS Word, Visual Studio, Notepad and Wordpad that I
>> have seen.
> 
> Excuse me, I might misunderstand you, but are you saying that the
> mouse pointer is invisible by default (before moving the mouse) in
> Notepad on XP? It does not seem so to me. Maybe this is something new
> in Vista?
> 

I haven't seen Vista so I don't know. Put the mouse inside the notepad 
edit area.  It is a bar. Type something => bar is gone, pointer is 
invisible.

	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Lennart Borgman]

Hm, yes, it disappears during typing and then reappears again as soon
as I stop. Is that what you see too? Is it this behaviour you have
tried to implement in Emacs? (Then to me it looks good.)

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:30 PM, Jan D.<jan.h.d@swipnet.se> wrote:
> Lennart Borgman wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Jan Djärv<jan.h.d@swipnet.se> wrote:
>>>
>>> On MS Windows XP there is MS Word, Visual Studio, Notepad and Wordpad
>>> that I
>>> have seen.
>>
>> Excuse me, I might misunderstand you, but are you saying that the
>> mouse pointer is invisible by default (before moving the mouse) in
>> Notepad on XP? It does not seem so to me. Maybe this is something new
>> in Vista?
>>
>
> I haven't seen Vista so I don't know. Put the mouse inside the notepad edit
> area.  It is a bar. Type something => bar is gone, pointer is invisible.
>
>        Jan D.
>
>

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Lennart Borgman skrev:
> Hm, yes, it disappears during typing and then reappears again as soon
> as I stop. Is that what you see too? Is it this behaviour you have
> tried to implement in Emacs? (Then to me it looks good.)
> 

Yes, except the pointer appears when you move the mouse, not when you stop 
typing (in Emacs, notepad and all other applications I have seen which 
implements this).

	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:08:26 +0200
> From: =?UTF-8?B?SmFuIERqw6Rydg==?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com,
> 	emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Lennart Borgman skrev:
> > Hm, yes, it disappears during typing and then reappears again as soon
> > as I stop. Is that what you see too? Is it this behaviour you have
> > tried to implement in Emacs? (Then to me it looks good.)
> > 
> 
> Yes, except the pointer appears when you move the mouse, not when you stop 
> typing

Not here, it isn't.  In notepad, it reappears as soon as I release the
key.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Leo]

On 2009-07-03 20:15 +0100, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Yes, except the pointer appears when you move the mouse, not when you stop 
>> typing
>
> Not here, it isn't.  In notepad, it reappears as soon as I release the
> key.

This seems better than the other behaviour. On ns, it reappears after
move the mouse.

-- 
Leo's Emacs uptime: 23 days, 5 hours, 51 minutes, 14 seconds

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Lennart Borgman]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 9:15 PM, Eli Zaretskii<eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:08:26 +0200
>> From: =?UTF-8?B?SmFuIERqw6Rydg==?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
>> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com,
>>       emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>> Lennart Borgman skrev:
>> > Hm, yes, it disappears during typing and then reappears again as soon
>> > as I stop. Is that what you see too? Is it this behaviour you have
>> > tried to implement in Emacs? (Then to me it looks good.)
>> >
>>
>> Yes, except the pointer appears when you move the mouse, not when you stop
>> typing
>
> Not here, it isn't.  In notepad, it reappears as soon as I release the
> key.

Hm, this is a bit confusing. I believe I saw before that the mouse
pointer appeared in notepad as soon as I stopped typing, but now it
behaves as Jan describes it. It does not appear until I move the
mouse. My memory is a bit bad but ... ;-)

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:30:29 +0200
> From: "Jan D." <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
> CC: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, fitzsim@fitzsim.org, 
>  drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Lennart Borgman wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Jan Djärv<jan.h.d@swipnet.se> wrote:
> >> On MS Windows XP there is MS Word, Visual Studio, Notepad and Wordpad that I
> >> have seen.
> > 
> > Excuse me, I might misunderstand you, but are you saying that the
> > mouse pointer is invisible by default (before moving the mouse) in
> > Notepad on XP? It does not seem so to me. Maybe this is something new
> > in Vista?
> > 
> 
> I haven't seen Vista so I don't know. Put the mouse inside the notepad 
> edit area.  It is a bar. Type something => bar is gone, pointer is 
> invisible.

It's not invisible, it just blinks.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Eli Zaretskii skrev:
>> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:30:29 +0200
>> From: "Jan D." <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
>> CC: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, fitzsim@fitzsim.org, 
>>  drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>> Lennart Borgman wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 7:26 PM, Jan Djärv<jan.h.d@swipnet.se> wrote:
>>>> On MS Windows XP there is MS Word, Visual Studio, Notepad and Wordpad that I
>>>> have seen.
>>> Excuse me, I might misunderstand you, but are you saying that the
>>> mouse pointer is invisible by default (before moving the mouse) in
>>> Notepad on XP? It does not seem so to me. Maybe this is something new
>>> in Vista?
>>>
>> I haven't seen Vista so I don't know. Put the mouse inside the notepad 
>> edit area.  It is a bar. Type something => bar is gone, pointer is 
>> invisible.
> 
> It's not invisible, it just blinks.
> 
> 

For me it is invisible.  For Lennart Borgman as well.

	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:26:15 +0200
> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan_Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
> Cc: fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> >       DEFVAR_LISP ("make-pointer-invisible", &Vmake_pointer_invisible,
> > 		   doc: /* If non-nil, make pointer invisible while typing.
> >     The pointer becomes visible again when the mouse is moved.  */);
> >       Vmake_pointer_invisible = Qt;
> > 
> > Why is this behavior such a good idea?  Looking for and not finding my
> > mouse pointer doesn't sound like a fun at all.
> > 
> 
> The ns-port for Emacs has it on by default.

Too bad, Emacs should behave the same by default on all platforms,
IMO.

> On MS Windows XP there is MS Word, Visual Studio, Notepad and Wordpad that I 
> have seen.

Since when we model Emacs behavior on MS Word?  Word also lets you
scroll the equivalent of point out of the visible portion of the
screen (and the jumps back there whenever it wishes) -- will we be
changing Emacs to do that as well?

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Eli Zaretskii skrev:
>> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:26:15 +0200
>> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan_Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
>> Cc: fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>>>       DEFVAR_LISP ("make-pointer-invisible", &Vmake_pointer_invisible,
>>> 		   doc: /* If non-nil, make pointer invisible while typing.
>>>     The pointer becomes visible again when the mouse is moved.  */);
>>>       Vmake_pointer_invisible = Qt;
>>>
>>> Why is this behavior such a good idea?  Looking for and not finding my
>>> mouse pointer doesn't sound like a fun at all.
>>>
>> The ns-port for Emacs has it on by default.
> 
> Too bad, Emacs should behave the same by default on all platforms,
> IMO.
> 
>> On MS Windows XP there is MS Word, Visual Studio, Notepad and Wordpad that I 
>> have seen.
> 
> Since when we model Emacs behavior on MS Word?  Word also lets you
> scroll the equivalent of point out of the visible portion of the
> screen (and the jumps back there whenever it wishes) -- will we be
> changing Emacs to do that as well?

We don't.  MS word was one of 14 examples I gave and 10 where not on MS 
Windows and 7 where free software.  There is plenty these other applications 
does that Emacs doesn't.  No need to single out MS Word, that is just slly. 
I'd say in this case we model Emacs behaviour after Gtk+.  I made Emacs behave 
as gnome-terminal behaves, that was what I compared to.

	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Lennart Borgman]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 9:08 PM, Eli Zaretskii<eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:26:15 +0200
>> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan_Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
>> Cc: fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>> >       DEFVAR_LISP ("make-pointer-invisible", &Vmake_pointer_invisible,
>> >                doc: /* If non-nil, make pointer invisible while typing.
>> >     The pointer becomes visible again when the mouse is moved.  */);
>> >       Vmake_pointer_invisible = Qt;
>> >
>> > Why is this behavior such a good idea?  Looking for and not finding my
>> > mouse pointer doesn't sound like a fun at all.
>> >
>>
>> The ns-port for Emacs has it on by default.
>
> Too bad, Emacs should behave the same by default on all platforms,
> IMO.

I agree, but I think making the mouse pointer invisible is far better
than moving it.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Eli Zaretskii skrev:
>> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:50:07 +0200
>> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan_Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
>> Cc: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>> Thomas Fitzsimmons skrev:
>>> I also looked into this a while ago and couldn't find a way to
>>> completely hide the pointer, so I wrote the attached patch.  Ideally
>>> this low-level functionality would be exposed through a new mouse
>>> avoidance mode, as you suggest.
>> I just checked in a fix for this so the pointer becomes invisible when you 
>> type something.
> 
> Why are we doing this in C, rather than adding the invisible-pointer
> option to avoid.el?
> 

Because it uses a timer.  The alternative to use a timer is to track mouse 
which is heavy in lisp.
There is no need to add more CPU-consuming thing to Emacs, it already does far 
too many task over and over again, which isn't really needed.

	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:14:43 +0200
> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan_Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
> CC: fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > Why are we doing this in C, rather than adding the invisible-pointer
> > option to avoid.el?
> > 
> 
> Because it uses a timer.  The alternative to use a timer is to track mouse 
> which is heavy in lisp.

But avoid.el already does all this, and works just fine.

> There is no need to add more CPU-consuming thing to Emacs, it already does far 
> too many task over and over again, which isn't really needed.

Emacs Lisp timers don't consume any CPU cycles.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Jan Djärv]

Eli Zaretskii skrev:
>> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:14:43 +0200
>> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan_Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
>> CC: fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>>> Why are we doing this in C, rather than adding the invisible-pointer
>>> option to avoid.el?
>>>
>> Because it uses a timer.  The alternative to use a timer is to track mouse 
>> which is heavy in lisp.
> 
> But avoid.el already does all this, and works just fine.

It only does it if you enable it.

> 
>> There is no need to add more CPU-consuming thing to Emacs, it already does far 
>> too many task over and over again, which isn't really needed.
> 
> Emacs Lisp timers don't consume any CPU cycles.

avoid.el checks point 10 times per second.  Try doing that without using CPU 
cycles.  avoid.el even says itself at the top:

";; Bugs / Warnings / To-Do:
;;
;; - Using this code does slow Emacs down.  "banish" mode shouldn't
;;   be too bad, and on my workstation even "animate" is reasonable.
"


	Jan D.

Re: invisible mouse pointer?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:25:41 +0200
> From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jan_Dj=E4rv?= <jan.h.d@swipnet.se>
> CC: fitzsim@fitzsim.org, drew.adams@oracle.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> avoid.el checks point 10 times per second.  Try doing that without using CPU 
> cycles.  avoid.el even says itself at the top:
> 
> ";; Bugs / Warnings / To-Do:
> ;;
> ;; - Using this code does slow Emacs down.  "banish" mode shouldn't
> ;;   be too bad, and on my workstation even "animate" is reasonable.
> "

When I enable it I don't see any visible slowdown.