XBANISH(1)

🌸 XBANISH — the xbanish(1) glow-up 🌸

okay bestie, gather round 💖 this is the xbanish manual page from the General Commands Manual (section 1, iykyk) and it is genuinely one of the most underrated little tools ever. it's giving "my cursor was being annoying so I fixed it globally." no cap.

✨ NAME ✨

xbanish — hide the X11 mouse cursor when a key is pressed 🖱️➡️💨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

xbanish [-a] [-d] [-i modifier] [-m [w]nw|ne|sw|se] [-t seconds] [-s]

that's the whole vibe. flags in, cursor out. 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so like, here's the tea 🍵 — xbanish hides the X11 mouse cursor the moment you press a key. keyboard girlies stay winning.

the cursor comes back tho, don't worry 🫶 — it reappears when you move the mouse or press a mouse button. so it's not gone gone, it's just... waiting for you to need it. main character energy honestly.

this is similar to the pointerMode setting in xterm(1), but the plot twist is that the effect is global in the X11 session 🌈 — so it's not just one terminal being cute, it's everywhere. obsessed.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -a — always keep the mouse cursor hidden while xbanish is running. like, forever. no takebacks. 💀
• -d — print debugging messages to stdout. for when you wanna see what's actually going on in there 🔍
• -i modifier — ignore a pressed key if modifier is being used. the modifiers you can pick from are:
  • shift
  • lock (that's CapsLock btw)
  • control
  • mod1 (Alt or Meta)
  • mod2 (NumLock)
  • mod3 (Hyper)
  • mod4 (Super, Windows, or Command)
  • mod5 (ISO Level 3 Shift)
  • and all 🌈
• -m [w]nw|ne|sw|se — when hiding the mouse cursor, move it to this corner of the screen or the current window, then move it back when showing the cursor again. the w prefix is part of the corner spec, so you've got nw, ne, sw, se 🧭
• -t seconds — hide the mouse cursor after seconds have passed without any mouse movement. yes, a timeout. yes, it's iconic. ⏱️
• -s — ignore scrolling events 🖲️ (so your scroll wheel doesn't ruin the whole bit)

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• XFixes(3) 🦋

✨ AUTHORS ✨

xbanish was written by joshua stein <jcs@jcs.org>. king behavior fr fr 👑

💡 tiny reminder bestie: everything above is exactly what the page says, I just made it slay. don't come for me if you -a and then can't find your cursor — that's literally the feature 💅

and that's the whole page!! 🎀 this lil number came from Debian, dated March 13, 2020, and it lives in section 1 of the XBANISH(1) manpage. bye bestie, go hide that cursor 🦋✨💖