How to autohide mouse cursor in full screen on Windows client?

[mkanet]

I've had this problem as long as I can remember. I manually have to move the mouse cursor to a corner of the screen when watching TV/movies in fullscreen. I still see a pixel or two from the cursor; but it never bothered me.

I'm hoping someone has a tip to be able to get the mouse cursor to go away when watching stuff full screen. For me, VLC and MCP both know how to hide the mouse cursor. If sageTV doesnt know how to do this; or, it's not working properly on my machine, maybe someone could please recomment a VERY light weight Windows utility that does this (preferably just a single executable that doesnt require an installer).

I already verified that my mouse driver/utility doesnt offer this feature.

Thanks,
MKANET

[Fuzzy]

lightweight utility: (I've not tested this) http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic2197.html

[mkanet]

Thanks Fuzzy, I saw that utility when I did a google search. However, I wasn't sure how I would get it to automatically hide the cursor IF sageTV is playing video at full screen. Is there a way to query sageTV to see if the media player is playing a video? I know how to detect window size via command line. Plus the cursor would have to reappear autoamtically upon movement. Im not sure how I would automate all of this. Most media player apps have this kind of stuff builtin.

As an alternative, maybe I could use something much more basic; a memory resident utility which just hides the cursor after x seconds of inactivity and reappear when upon mouse movement.

[Fuzzy]

not really.. though I've never noticed the cursor NOT getting hidden.

[mkanet]

This might be a dumb question, but is the Windows SageTV client's Mouse cursor supposed to hide when in full screen movie mode?

Anyway, I found a Windows utility that hides the mouse after x seconds:
Cursor Hider.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by mkanet

This might be a dumb question, but is the Windows SageTV client's Mouse cursor supposed to hide when in full screen movie mode?

Yes. But it will come back if you move the mouse, and stay visible until there's a pause in keyboard (not mouse) activity. So just tap the Ctrl or Shift key to get it to go away again.

[mkanet]

Oh okay, thats good to know. On my machine, it doesnt automatically go away. However, sageTV does respond to Ctrl ad Shift for manually hiding the mouse.

Any ideas what could interfere with hiding the mouse automatically? What criteria does sageTV have to meet in order for the cursor to hide automatically. SageTV definitely has the ability to do it; but, appears to not realize a movie/TV show as has started in full screen; hence never hide the mouse.

Important:
Is there a properties setting to enable autohiding the mouse or is it hardcoded to do this no matter what?

Thanks,
MKANET

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Yes. But it will come back if you move the mouse, and stay visible until there's a pause in keyboard (not mouse) activity. So just tap the Ctrl or Shift key to get it to go away again.

[korben_dallas]

I've found that sending the fullscreen toggle 2x (windowed, then back to fs) usually solves the issue.

[mkanet]

I know why the cursor wouldnt automatically hide. It's because I'm not using sageTV's builtin fullscreen toggle feature. IMO, the native sageTV fullscreen toggle its way too clunky; particularly when there's active video being displayed. It's almost as bad as the old Full Screen Exclusive mode toggle a while back. When I use this method, the cursor hides fine. I almost forgot how clunky it was until I just tried it now.

I made my own full screen toggle feature via my TV remote control which provides a seamless/uninterrupted way to toggle window to full screen (even with active video present). I had originally made this alternate full screen toggle method for a different reason; which had a very nice unexpected side-effect. Unfortunately, I didnt realize that this was the cause of my cursor not automatically hiding.

The good news is the light-weight "Cursor Hider" app completely fixes problem; and never have to think about about it again; and, makes my full screen toggle feature even more valuable!

[korben_dallas]

Clunky? Your client PC must be under-powered.

I'm on Windows 7 using EVR, and I can toggle in and out all day long with video playing.

[cwills75]

I use nomousy. The version I have is 1.5, not sure if it's the newest or not. The three files besides the two .bat files I created came with the program. There is a mouseon.bat and mouseoff.bat. Run either one to show or hide your cursor.

The way I have mine setup is with EventGhost. When I push a button on my remote to launch SageTV, it also launches mouseoff.bat. When I exit SageTV, it launches mouseon.bat. I also have two buttons programmed on the remote to specifically turn the mouse on or off through EventGhost as well.