Cursorcerer: Hide Your Cursor at Will
Cursorcerer is a little tool I hacked together which allows you to hide the cursor at any time by use of a global hotkey. It can also autohide an idle cursor and bring it back as soon as you move the mouse.
The inspiration for this tool is one of my favorite and most utilized OS X features: the control-scrollwheel zoom trick. I use it all the time to make things like embedded flash videos full screen. The trick’s only major downfall is that it’s a constant battle to get the cursor out of the way.
To install, just double click on the prefpane. Hit control-option-k to zap and unzap the cursor. If you want to uninstall, go to ~/Library/PreferencePanes/ and trash Cursorcerer.
The technique behind this global cursor hiding hack originates in a useful post to the Apple carbon-dev mailing list from Red Sweater’s Daniel Jalkut.
Download Cursorcerer 1.0
July 10th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Nice! I can also see this being useful when using other full screen video apps, VLC, Democracy, etc. The cursor is always in my damn way.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Thank you very much. I’m using this with my MacMini on my HD TV.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:50 am
Kudos for this one, some people suggested that tapping any key while zoomed in works just as well, but it won’t and never has for me afaik so your implementation seems to be the sole solution to this issue. Thanks!
July 13th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Yea!! I, too, am always trying to manage getting the most zoom with my cursor being just below the movie .. and now you’ve solved it! Bravo!!
I don’t see a paypal link here to chip in beer money. Consider it!
July 22nd, 2007 at 12:33 am
just wanted to say thanks for this, it works amazingly well!
August 6th, 2007 at 8:23 am
You have answered my prayers. I’ve wanted this for a LOOOOOOONG time, now when I put my wacom pen back in its holder to type, the cursor disappears after 3 seconds.
YOU ARE THE SHIT!
August 29th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
The ability to toggle this via an AppleScript would be awesome. I control Apple’s DVD Player with AppleScript to be full screen and turn off the controller. To also hide the cursor would be Sweet.
September 8th, 2007 at 1:37 am
At last! I found the great solution! Thanks a lot!
September 11th, 2007 at 4:23 am
It doesn’t stick… For me… I need to activate the control panel AND click on the slider to have the functionality restored… It then works some time… Not sure what makes it stop. But it doesn’t survives restarts…
if it would do that too it would be perfect…
i have al the latest and gratest os updates
September 11th, 2007 at 11:03 am
I too have been looking for this for a long time, but could never find anything through message boards or googling.
1) Get the word out there! Other people might not know what search terms to use either.
2) Add a donate button. This is worth $5 to me, and maybe to some other people.
September 11th, 2007 at 11:14 am
Actually, as a further comment—I’d like to recommend a keystroke for people to use. The “clear” button on the number pad. Not sure what this key does in Mac OS X; it doesn’t seem to clear anything at all. Macbook users can access this with Fn+6. If you are like me, then you like your keyboard shortcuts to make sense, and I can think of nothing more fitting for the “clear” button than to make the mouse disappear.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Thanks this is a big help to me, just last Friday night I was showing zoomed video on a big screen and annoyed at the damn mouse pointer.
FYI: Minor possible bug: after install I opened the preference pane and in the hot key window it said “ctrl-option-k.” I then exited system preferences and tried the hot key combo; it did not work. I went back to the preference pane and this time the hot key window said “⌥⌃K.” I exited preferences & this time it worked.
September 27th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Cheers for this!
I’ve written a script to autoload a QuickTime on startup, and go full-screen (for a video screening in an exhibition space).
Previously, half the time the cursor vanished, half the time it hung around. Irritating.
With this however, the little bugger is out of sight for good
September 27th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Bas :
I have the same problem on one machine. The hot key toggles, but the cursor does not obey the “Always show cursor if moved” setting. Intel Mac Mini. In my case I am loading DVD Player at login. I wonder if the cursor hiding in DVD Player is interacting with Cursorcerer.
October 4th, 2007 at 8:05 am
thanks for a great product.
October 8th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Wow, I absolutely LOVE this, but I find that no matter how many seconds I set it for, the “Hide Idle Cursor After:” setting hides the cursor after a random amount of time, usually around 15 seconds, sometimes more, sometimes as little as 8! Other than that one little quibble, though, this little add-on is the absolute BEST, and I think we should all nominate it for the upcoming MacWorld Reader Awards!! Write to: Philip Michaels pmichaels@macworld.com to nominate it!
October 15th, 2007 at 12:45 am
i am not worthy …
may your guinness never be headless or empty.
tanx, man.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Somehow or another I have turned into the go to tech guy everytime we start a new season of Between the Lions. After finding this golden nuggett of tech lovelyness I wont be waiting but sending it to all of the cast and crew. Wow! Big big thanks.
anthony
aka
“Lionel”
Between the Lions
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:22 am
I love Cursorcerer, the best mouse app on mac os x.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:58 pm
I’ve been looking for this for a long time. Thanks!
December 4th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
You rock! May your ancestors smile upon you and the Fates be most kind to you. Hiding the mouse cursor is a great service to MacManKind.
December 9th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Hey I love Cursorceror, I have it set to disappear after 3 seconds. But when I reboot, it doesn’t do it anymore until I go into the preference pane and alter the timing slightly to 2 or 4 seconds.
Is there a way to have it permanently automatically hide after 3 seconds, and last through reboots, without ever having to go back into the preference pane?
January 13th, 2008 at 5:28 am
I use a mac mini with keynote as a player and hide the menubar with menu bar tint (http://www.manytricks.com/blog/?id=21). By making the menu bar black it only shows up when I move the cursor above it. Every nigh I do a reboot for my system, but after a reboot the cursor is always on the left up corner, and Cursorcerer doesn’t work yet, I first have to click on the prefernce panne to activate it? “”What I need for a perfect presentation machine is Cursorcerer to hide the mouse after a reboot.”"” Or a script witch moves the corsor after a reboot? Maybe I can activate Cursorcerer with the login pane.I would be very happy with a tip.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Hello:
Just trying your utility with a ModBook Mac (tablet mac) that I just received. It’s great because it allows me to forget that there is a slight offset of the pen. I have a request to keep the cursor hidden at all times as well as one to allow the utility to work after a reboot, without having to go to the control panel.
Great job.
Thanks!!
January 19th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Hi,
I’ve been looking for a way to look at those flash embedded movies without my cursor being in the way (as you described)
just perfect! thanks for the tool!
grtz,
Julien
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
FANTASTIC application. But I am running into the issue with reboots. After a reboot on a Tiger machine the cursor doesn’t hide until I go into the cursorcerer pref panel and click on the timing slider.
February 1st, 2008 at 4:20 am
Brilliant app thingy! Thank you very much! ^_^
February 4th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I can’t seem to get it to work using Photoshop, which is what I really wanted this app for. Any reason why PS seems to thwart Cursorcerr.
February 28th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I’m with Jack - getting it to function in Photoshop is my number one wish. Just got my Modbook also, and if the pencil cursor could be eliminated… I’d have to do a little dance.
March 2nd, 2008 at 7:56 am
Great little app, just one comment, do we really need to fill the console log with these lines?
2008-03-02 14:50:28.833 Cursorcerer[212] HIDING IDLE CURSOR!
2008-03-02 14:50:30.233 Cursorcerer[212] SHOWING CURSOR! autoShow: 1
etc…
etc..
etc.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Great little app!
Want to report a little bug:
Hide idle cursor after: NEVER
Always show
April 16th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
1) I like your application, it’s very handy!
2) I hereby file a BUG REPORT.
SETTINGS in my System Preferences Tab:
Hide idle cursor after: NEVER
Always show cursor if moved: FALSE
BEHAVIOUR
If I set it like this the program works correct, also after awaking from a system-sleep, but after the next reboot, Cursorcerer forgets its adequate behaviour, although the settings at com.doomlaser.cursorcerer.plist look correct.
WORKING ENVIRONMENT
MacOSX 10.4.11 + Cursorcerer 1.0
Please fix this! You can contact me via email. Please keep my address really private (as you promised next to the form).
May 19th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Good app but I wish you didn’t write so much text to stdout. In fact, I use Cursorcerer at 1 second and I get a lot of console messages telling me that it is showing or hiding the cursor.
Could you please include a “verbose off” function in the preference panel? In that case my console will be much cleaner
thanks a lot and great job
cheers
(I just realized other people have commented on th same thing
May 27th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I found very good the Cursorcerer, working with a Cintiq and it is very useful to me that design. But the hotkey is not working, is it because I’m using MacOS 10.5.2? Have a upadate the Cursorcerer?
June 11th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Love this tool, it is a lifesaver. However, everytime I restart I have to open up the preference pane and move the seconds selector a bit then back to have it work again.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Whem launch Cursorcerer Update ? sometimes Cursorcerer lost the capacity to hide the cursor.
Thanks
June 29th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Great little utility. I have one suggestion. When I type on the keyboard, the cursor flickers back to life. Actually, this is exactly what I don’t want. I fill out forms frequently, and in so doing must position the cursor over a text field and click to enter new text. Unless I use the mouse to flick the cursor out of the way first, the cursor remains exactly where I’m trying to enter text, blocking my view of the entry field. Cursorcerer solves half of this problem. The other half would be solved if there were an option whereby the cursor only reappears when the mouse is moved (not also when the keyboard is tapped). Thank you very much for a terribly useful tool.
July 4th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Hi again, Whem launch Cursorcerer Update ? sometimes Cursorcerer lost the capacity to hide the cursor.
August 15th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Thank you! I’m watching the Olympics on my 17″ MacBook Pro, using ctrl & the two-finger scroll to zoom the video to fill the screen. The video is stunningly beautiful (I actually have to give Microsoft some credit for Silverlight and the great quality of the streamed video) but the darn pointer was in the center.
My first workaround was to have another Safari window have the focus and then I’d slide this other window to the edge of the screen to get it out of the way of the video window. Then by pressing the left or right arrow the pointer would disappear. However, I really wanted the video window to be the active window so that the spacebar would pause the video. I discovered Cursorcerer and it’s working great.