NAME

       unclutter - remove idle cursor image from screen

SYNOPSIS

       unclutter  [-display|-d  display]  [-idle  seconds]  [-keystroke]  [-jitter  pixels]  [-grab] [-noevents]
       [-reset] [-root] [-onescreen] [-visible] [-regex] [-not|-notname name ...]  [-notclass class ...]

DESCRIPTION

       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.

OPTIONS

       -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' ''.

LIMITATIONS

       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.

DIAGNOSTICS

       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.

AUTHOR

       Mark M Martin. cetia 7feb1994. mmm@cetia.fr

                                                                                                    UNCLUTTER(1)