Lately running a lot of Konsole windows for various apps, and the default GUI cursor style of I-Beam makes it hard to find. I would like to change this to normal arrow for more visibility.
I checked Window Manager / Application Settings (which I use often for sizing and positioning), but nothing in there involving cursor.
Checked all Profile settings - only mouse settings are e.g. copy on select.
I tried editing ~/.config/konsolerc with CursorTheme=Default as well as CursorName=left_ptr per Arch Wiki lead below.
Checked Konsole Handbook PDF.
With Arch wiki I’ve found some notes related to changing the “cursor_name” for defaulting on the entire system (Cursor themes - ArchWiki), but this is relating to X window system entirely - and I am very happy with my current custom left-handed cursor theme, I just want to override for Konsole.
Can anyone point me to how to correctly override the GUI Cursor for a specific application / for Konsole?
Thank you for your reply, but this is not it. As I indicated in my post, ‘Note that this is not the “Terminal Cursor” / caret style, which is easy enough to change’.
I already have my Konsole Profile set to block cursor for that. That’s the Terminal Cursor style.
The answer might be to find a new favourite cursor theme… everyone has different display settings - I use a HDTV which basically sucks for fine graphics/text but rocks for the big view.
For years, I’ve been stuck on Chameleon cursor, despite migrating to some others (comix stayed a while, and a couple of others, but in the end I always go back to Chameleon).
Firstly, the colours are excellent - personally I enjoy the dirty blue colour on both dark and light backgrounds.
The I-beam is animated (slow flashing) and there are a couple of sizes. For some reason it’s gone from the AUR, but I have a local copy - give it a try… it’s in my Dropbox Dropbox - Chameleon.tar.gz - Simplify your life
Don’t forget, the themes exist inside a folder - you can enter the folder and edit… Chameleon is a non-scalable but is easily edited because they are simply PNG files, so you could design your own fat/colourful I-beam and export it (in gradual shifts of colour for animated effect) like this:
I am no stranger to cursor editing, as I use my mouse left-handed and finding decent themes has been a challenge, so I have hacked together my own.
The I-beam is useful in every other context – text editing, webforms, etc. – and I was hoping to be able to keep that / not have to hack my cursor theme globally. But as I think about it, an oversized I-beam plus a little extra color or contrast would probably solve the dilemma.
For a moderate technical solution, I’m thinking about putting together a KWin Script, based on this:
#!/bin/bash
while true; do
window_id=$(xdotool getmouselocation --shell | grep WINDOW | cut -d'=' -f2)
window_name=$(xdotool getwindowname "$window_id")
echo "Window under mouse cursor: $window_name"
# here: test for Konsole, dynamically adjust the cursor (xsetroot?)
sleep 0.1 # Doesn't seem to hit cpu too bad
done
Once I dig in and figure out how that works, I may try to contribute a patch to the Window Manager / Window rules with a rule to do that… but don’t know much about Qt / C programming.
I love KDE Plasma because of the flexibility of the desktop manager (pin windows, keep on top, default locations for things, enforcing sizes, etc). I couldn’t imagine using anything else!
