[NTLUG:Discuss] Default Cursor??

[kbrannen@gte.net]

Val W. Harris wrote:
> David Stanaway wrote:
> 
>> On Sun, 2002-05-26 at 13:24, David Stanaway wrote:
>>
>>> Have you first tried changing the cursor with xsetroot ?
>>>
>>> xsetroot -cursor /usr/X11R6/include/X11/bitmaps/{dot,dot}
>>>
>> xsetroot -cursor /usr/X11R6/include/X11/bitmaps/opendot{,Mask}
>>
>> Is better.
>>
>> I don't know if that was the cursor you were after.
>>
>> -- 
>> David Stanaway
>>
> David,
> 
> Thanks, xsetroot does the trick.
> 
> Now I want to modify the default cursor in Mozilla, Galeon, or Opera.
> Anybody know how to do that?
> 
> Val
> 


That's probably an X resource thing.  In your ~/.Xdefaults (or whatever you 
use), you'll need to add a line or two, then restart X (or put the commands in 
a tmp file and do "xrdb -load tmp_file" to hold you until you restart X, or 
you can use the "-xrm" command line arg as shown below).  You'll probably have 
to do a bit of experimentation (and/or reading of documentation :-), but you 
probably want something like:

*mozilla*pointerShape:  whatever

And do that once for each application.  I do this for all my xterm's with:

*xterm*pointerColor:            yellow
*xterm*pointerShape:            trek

(I have a blue background so the yellow shows up nicely. :-)  There's probably 
a man page (which I don't know) that lists all the standard X pointer shapes, 
though I beleive you can also define/create your own.  The cursors are really 
just a font (try "xfd -fn cursor" to see all of them, though that doesn't help 
you with the name :-/ ), so if you change the font, I guess you could have 
anything you like.  If you have or can find an O'Reilly X-Window System Volume 
2 book, Appendix I (as in eye).  There are 84 listed; the xfd command will 
show you 154.

Oh wait, I just found /usr/include/X11/cursorfont.h.  It shows the names of 77 
of them, though it seems to indicate there should be 154 (hmmm).  Anyway, if 
the numbers and the xfd command don't help you figure out what you need, 
experimentation will.  Just lose the "XC_" and throw it in an xterm like:

xterm -xrm "xterm*pointerShape: X_cursor"

To pick on the first one in the file.

On a completely other hand, it may not be X at all.  I'm not sure what toolkit 
the Mozilla GUI was done with.  If it was QT or perhaps GDK, then it may 
ignore X resources altogether--in which case all the above is mere a fun 
academic exercise. :-)

HTH,
Kevin