GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 761708
Have ability to add cursor trail
Last modified: 2021-07-05 14:31:29 UTC
On Windows, and I think possibly (though I'm not sure as it's been a while since I used it) in the unity-tweak-tool, there is the ability to change things to do with the cursor, for instance, load new cursor themes, change the size of the cursor, and add cursor trail, and of course a slider to change how much of a trail there is. And I think that these would be some very good features to have in the gnome-control-center in the "Mouse & Touchpad" section. I initially filed a report on this here, but thought I should also do so upstream: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-gnome/+bug/1540078
Theme changes are relegated to gnome-tweak-tool, where you'll already find cursor theme settings. Cursor size changes should possibly be tied to the large text accessibility settings.
Ok, but there is currently no way to make it so that the cursor has a trail so I'll reopen this bug report under the gnome-tweak-tool for that.
why is that a desirable feature ?
Well, I personally just like the style and think that users should be given the option to customize their cursor in this way. However I also know people who have for instance eyesight problems meaning that it is rather hard for them to see where the mouse is moving so having a trail behind it would greatly help them as they would be able to see it and its path much better, at least, that is what they have told me and they have found it useful on other Operating Systems which allow for it.
(In reply to cooks.go.hungry from comment #4) > Well, I personally just like the style and think that users should be given > the option to customize their cursor in this way. However I also know people > who have for instance eyesight problems meaning that it is rather hard for > them to see where the mouse is moving so having a trail behind it would > greatly help them as they would be able to see it and its path much better, > at least, that is what they have told me and they have found it useful on > other Operating Systems which allow for it. Well if it's needed for a11y, we gotta support it in mainstream component(s) and not an add-on targeted for advanced users (tweak-tool).
Then I leave it to you to reopen this issue where you think best.
I haven't seen this advertised as an a11y feature, and it has not been brought up as 'needed for a11y' by the a11y team, ever. So I wouldn't draw that conclusion too quickly.
Look, I just know several people who would find this very useful because of eyesight problems, and I also like the look of it so I thought I'd file a report... But now I'm not too sure what you want me to do with this report...
(In reply to cooks.go.hungry from comment #8) > Look, I just know several people who would find this very useful because of > eyesight problems, and I also like the look of it so I thought I'd file a > report... But now I'm not too sure what you want me to do with this report... Thanks for that, please don't get frustrated. It's normmal for us developers to be sceptical about requests for new features. Besides you already learnt one thing from this discussion: if this is needed for a11y, it shouldn't be in a side-project like tweak-tool. I'm not sure however which component to assign it to for evaluating this for a11y, so I'll just add folks who know of a11y to add their input.
(In reply to Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) from comment #9) > (In reply to cooks.go.hungry from comment #8) > > Look, I just know several people who would find this very useful because of > > eyesight problems, and I also like the look of it so I thought I'd file a > > report... But now I'm not too sure what you want me to do with this report... > > Thanks for that, please don't get frustrated. It's normmal for us developers > to be sceptical about requests for new features. Besides you already learnt > one thing from this discussion: if this is needed for a11y, it shouldn't be > in a side-project like tweak-tool. That is not 100% accurate. There are some a11y needs that are still configured through the tweak-tool. For example control-center:universal access text size only allows you to switch between "normal" and "large text". For some users, that is not enough, and need to rely to the tweak tool to set the size they want. As Matthias mentioned on comment #2, cursor changes are tied to themes so on gnome-tweak-tool. FWIW, being able to configure the size, etc was asked before on the accessibility mailing list (in relation to Matthias's question on comment #3) > I'm not sure however which component to assign it to for evaluating this for > a11y, so I'll just add folks who know of a11y to add their input. Usually we ask first to be added on gnome-control-center. If not possible for some reason given by the maintainers, adding it to gnome-tweak-tool would be good enough. Having said so, and that is one of the TODO item lists on the a11y team, writing a good documentation about how to configure your environment using both tools is still missing. Finally, I find the bug summary somewhat misleading. The bug summary is about the cursor trail, but description at comment #0 seems to suggest a list of features. So Im not sure if this bug description is asking just cursor trail or all those features.
Sorry about that, I thought at first that it would be a good thing to implement with lots of other features, but as most of those seem already to have been implemented I thought it best to stick to the main reason why I came here. But now I am only suggesting the feature allowing one to have a cursor trailer to clarify that. There is no way to edit the description is there to remove the misleading stuff is there? If I knew of one, I would have done so already as I have done on the LaunchPad one.
(In reply to cooks.go.hungry from comment #11) > Sorry about that, I thought at first that it would be a good thing to > implement with lots of other features, but as most of those seem already to > have been implemented I thought it best to stick to the main reason why I > came here. But now I am only suggesting the feature allowing one to have a > cursor trailer to clarify that. There is no way to edit the description is > there to remove the misleading stuff is there? If I knew of one, I would > have done so already as I have done on the LaunchPad one. Description is AFAIK like another comment, and can't be edited. In any case, don't worry, as far as the summary properly describes the purpose of the bug, and you clarified here my doubt, I think that everything is clear. Thanks for the extra explanation.
Seeing as it not possible to have a cursor trail right now, moving this to gnome-shell so that the feature can be implemented first.
Any progress on this issue?
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of gitlab.gnome.org. As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately quite limited so not every ticket can get handled). If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent and supported software version, then please follow https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines and create a new ticket at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/ Thank you for your understanding and your help.