microsoft
Auto Hide mouse pointer/cursor
Auto Hide mouse pointer/cursor
Windows 10 already has this characteristic but it does not really work.
Possible options to add
- Hide mouse after a selected time
- Hide mouse after a key stroke
This is something I'd love to see. The "hide pointer while typing" feature in the standard mouse properties only seems to be supported by apps that specifically look at the value of that setting, so it can be hit and miss as whether it'll actually work in a given situation. The ideal solution would work unilaterally once enabled - hide the pointer when I start typing, or if no input is detected for a configurable timeout period.
A similar utility is available in X11 (xbanish), and there are various 3rd party implementations for Windows (I'm using "Hide Mouse Cursor on Idle.exe") but it would be good to have this functionality bundled in Power Toys.
If this is now the main 'universal hide cursor while typing' feature request issue what are the next steps for it? Is there anything I can do to progress it into the main build? It seems to be widely implemented in stand-alone projects and there doesn't seem to be much contention in how it should function within PowerToys so hopefully just a case of picking the best version to import or to start from?
It would be sooo great if this were implemented in PowerToys!
Many different Windows forums, official and community, are filled w/ people who [rightfully] expect that the "Hide cursor when typing" option is Mouse settings should...well, hide the cursor when typing. Finding out that app builders have to opt in, and most don't, is deflating.
For years I ran the AutoHotkey version of this functionality, which worked. Showing that it can in fact be done w/out application makers opting in. Which is as it should be. As a user, I expect to be given ultimate control over my mouse and keyboard settings.
However, currently, the AHK method ends up mangling the cursor "image", so it's pixelated. Not the worst thing. But not optimal.
All the *.exe utility versions of this functionality come up w/ positives on VirusTotal.
Having a trusted PowerToy utility to implement this will be most excellent.
I don't speak C++, but am an experienced software developer in other languages, and could contribute to testing, documentation, and generally any other thing not related to C++ coding...
Possible Refinements: Only hide cursor when it is near to/has possibility of masking entered text. E.g. supports not hiding when a keyboard key is pressed as part of a command etc, only when visible text entry is underway, or when mouse cursor is very far away from the text entry.
Allow cursor to gradually fade/use alpha channel value as the typing gets close to mouse pointer rather than instantly vanish as soon as any key is pressed anywhere. Potentially to change cursor to one that minimises the masking effect of any text it happens to sit on top of rather than just hiding/fading the default cursor.
Configure number of pixels of mouse movement needed to make mouse cursor visible again, potentially also the number of keystrokes taken to constitute typing and to require the cursor to hide. Useful when mouse is sensitive / high DPI and tiny inadvertent movements are received from it, esp when typing vibrations are happening.
To defer to per-application cursor hiding support in applications that do implement the feature and to allow per-app preferences potentially.
Does anyone know what happens now? This has just had its second birthday and no indication of what is required to have it considered for inclusion in the app?
Another year another beg sorry. If anyone from the core team sees this message is there any information about the roadmap and things that are being considered for it that we can look at? This is so frustrating to resolve with the existing separate utilities and getting it built into powertoys would be so useful to so many. Would be great if it doesn't see out its 3rd year in status of 'nice idea'.
Would love to have this feature without needed 3rd party software. But for anyone who wants it with 3rd party software: https://github.com/Stefan-Z-Camilleri-zz/Windows-Cursor-Hider
This successfully hides the cursor when typing on any application. You do need to either download their executable or AHK and run the script though. PowerToys should definitely have this.
Do keep us posted on if you get permission to work on it Dreaming Spider and what the plan is, here if you need any testers but probably don't have much to add on the development side of it myself. Would be good to have this implemented and hopefully not a massively complicated feature, compared to some at least. There is some scope for configurability with it but the main feature just working would be a major win.
so many people independently trying to get this functionality added, it's wild, but clearly a large unmet need
so many people independently trying to get this functionality added, it's wild, but clearly a large unmet need
i thought about it and no longer want since i figured out how to trap the mouse and then twist it until it reaches a high level of volatility since i just told grandma to wash the dishes :)
@crutkas Didn't we had a similar/same issue? And isn't this a new feature in Win11 Dev/Canary? Can find the other issue where I commented anymore.
+1 for this.
Personally, I tried several approaches, and ended up with solution you can check out here: https://github.com/johnnyjob/single-cursor
It works well with most of 3rd party applications: web browsers, Visual Studio, MS Word.
It's written in C++ (just for fun), but initial version I created was in C# (the language I usually program in). If you don't mind, I even can contribute.
I like the notion of not 'hiding' the mouse while typing but just to mean there's only one cursor on the screen at any one time, so there's no masking of one cursor by another OR duplication of the cursor in use
I sometimes want to be able to see where the mouse is separate to where the keyboard focus is though so not sure these are quite the same thing as hiding the mouse cursor while the keyboard cursor is being actively used
how can we get this feature into the pipeline, is there anything we can do to progress this? need any testers or use case writers or pseudo code writers? 🤣