49 lines
2.1 KiB
HTML
49 lines
2.1 KiB
HTML
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<TITLE>Uncluttering Your Screen</TITLE>
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<CENTER><H2>The Unclutter Utility</H2></CENTER>
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<P>by <B>Larry Ayers</B>
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<A HREF="mailto: layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us"><
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layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us></A><BR>
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Copyright (c) 1996<BR> <H5>Published in Issue #7 of the Linux Gazette</H5> <HR>
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<BODY>
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Have you ever noticed when editing text that as soon as you release the mouse
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and start typing, the cursor ends up obscuring a letter you'd like to see?
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I'd
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always classified this as one of those minor unavoidable annoyances of life,
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like TV commercials or hangnails, which shouldn't be dwelled upon.<P>So why I
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am I writing this? Because a programmer named <A
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HREF="mailto:mmm@cetia.fr">Mark
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M. Martin</A> evidently had had enough of mouse cursors outstaying their
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welcome. He wrote a tiny memory resident program, most conveniently started
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from the xinitrc file, which initially does nothing but wait. It patiently
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waits for your mouse cursor to stay still for a configurable number of
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seconds;
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when this occurs the program simply makes the cursor transparent until you
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move
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it again.<P>The down side of this is that once you become accustomed to this
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behavior, any time you might be working at a computer which doesn't have
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unclutter installed, or happen to be using DOS or OS/2, you really notice
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that
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cursor. Unclutter becomes sort of a positive reinforcement for using Linux!
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<HR>
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<P><CENTER><H3>Availability</CENTER/></H3>
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Unclutter is probably on every Linux ftp site, but you have to watch out for
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an
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older version which may not work on current systems. This is version 1,
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dated
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1992. Version 2, released in 1994, compiles cleanly, and I've never had any
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trouble with it. It's a small download; just grab anything called
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unclutter.tgz
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and unpack it to see if it's the right one.
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<P>
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<BR>
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Back up to the <A HREF="./lg_issue7.html">Linux Gazette!</A>
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