Apologies for resurrecting an old topic but was a setting to invert the mouse cursor ever added to Komodo? I’m remoting into osx and it’s damn near impossible to see the black mouse cursor on a dark background. In newer OSX versions only cursor size can be changed through system preferences. Other editors such as VScode, Sublime, and Atom have implemented setting to invert the mouse cursor. I can’t seem to locate a similar setting in Komodo.
Hi, there is no setting to invert the mouse cursor. However, you can change the cursor to something more readable. Create a userscript or run the following from the console:
require('ko/editor').scimoz().cursor = 2
The number can be anything from -1 to 8 for a variety of different cursors (the default is -1). Sadly none is an inverted insert cursor, but maybe you can find something that suits you. You’ll have to have this code run for every document, which a userscript can do.
I agree it would be helpful, but this would involve patching our third-party editing component, and since it only affects a small number of users in niche cases, it’s unlikely we’ll address this with the workaround I gave.
Thank you Mitchell for the quick response. Unfortunately, while the mouse cursor in Windows 10 responds to the userscript, the script has no effect in OSX El Capitan which is where I need the option.Thanks for moving this to a feature request. I look forward to the day this setting is included in Komodo.
I think he’s talking about the system cursor, not the caret in the editor itself, so your script won’t help
More over, you can change the color of the caret in Komodo.
So, I realize it’s two years later but having searched this is apparently the “mouse cursor is invisible when using dark themes on OSX” thread. This is a problem only with dark color themes like, um… “Default”.
On OSX, the mouse cursor is set by the application, not the OS, so there is absolutely no way to change the cursor unless KomodoIDE lets me do it. Is there still no way to change this?
I, at least, am using KomodoIDE on Mac (El Capitan). I realize I may be quite alone, and that the number of programmers who prefer a dark background is a vanishingly small market, and the number who use Macs is even smaller, and the number who are willing to pay to use Komodo on top of that may be just me and (at least once upon a time) somebody named kawitt.
(Just to confirm: yes this was never about the insert location caret, but the “insert text” mouse cursor that we get instead of an arrow when hovering the mouse over the text window.)
I’ve had this issue as well with several apps not just Komodo but Eclipse and even Visual Studio(2017). Apparently I’m part of that shrinking population of programmers who can only work with dark(ish) color palettes especially the background. I’m always shocked by download counts for themes/etc for programmer-targeted software that are massively high contrast! I stay more in the SolarizedDark world.
That said, I’m wondering if the OP still has issues and if this is an OSX vs Windows problem. My solution has been to use a custom set of cursors I whipped up with Photoshop on a system wide basis, so my insert caret is fairly large and mostly whitish - works great on any background. I also use Komodo’s feature to turn the text cursor into a very bright block instead of a line. I’m wondering if the same solution wouldn’t work on a Mac?
But the real reason I’m replying is to ask a question regarding the “single cursor that is system wide” thing. I just today found out that my secondary monitor horks up my cursor if I let the hardware do it, and apparently it’s a long-known issue! LOL So I have been messing with cursor stuff all day - and learning some details along the way.
My question is - couldn’t scintilla be enhanced, and I don’t mean rewritten, I’m thinking it wouldn’t be such a huge undertaking, to present a software cursor that could be altered by the host app? I’m not a win32api expert by any stretch, but couldn’t we hook the mouse move event early enough in the startup and present whatever cursor the user wanted? The “single cursor controlled by the OS” thing doesn’t stop video games and lots of non-game apps from presenting their own cursors (which I hadn’t noticed until today). Just wondering! It would be the type of challenge I would take up just for fun! LOL
PS: I just realized that it’s a moot point since Scintilla is open-source but Komodo-Edit isn’t (is it?). I’ve been testing mostly open-source stuff lately!
Oh it most definitely is open-source, and to answer your question - I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be able to enhance it. Whether that will be easy is another question which I do not have an answer for at this point.
Just keep in mind Komodo Edit and Komodo IDE are not the same product. Edit is open-source, IDE is not. Some of the differences are explained here - Komodo Edit - ActiveState
Hi Everybody, interesting to see this thread revived. I’ve since moved on from OS X to a windows environment. For what it’s worth, I still prefer dark themes both for ease on the eyes and prolonged battery life. I wasn’t even aware coders are moving away from dark themes.
Anyway, long ago when I had this issue, after messing around with all the cursors and various themes proved fruitless, I found my only solution was a cursor highlighting app. Specifically ‘Mouse Locator’ from http://www.2point5fish.com/index.html but there are several other alternatives, some paid with expanded configuration. This free one was a good work around for me. Hope that helps. Happy New Year!!
Oh darn! Pardon me I should have looked further!
This is good news but I admit the cursor issue is solved for me with my dark theme. But issues like code folding and toolbar issues… those I can consider possible projects I will undertake.
I know edit and ide are different, but doesnt ide include edit? or does it have its own? (which would make no sense but…)
I have no problems with the dark theme on Windows or Linux, it’s only when I’m working on Mac that it’s basically unusable. On Windows the default mouse cursor is quite visible, and on Linux the cursor is a proper old-school X “works against any background” design.
On Mac, the app sets the mouse cursor to dark. So these are my current options: 1) use white backgrounds in KomodoIDE, or 2) use a different IDE.
