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)