Arch Linux

Also the cursor changes to the default when I run smplayer (or vlc) and mouse over its window.
EDIT: seems like it is for any qt application

I've observed that some cursor modes aren't reset, like: text cursor, hand cursor (when hovering urls), all direction cursors (when resizing a window). The busy cursor may or may not be reset depending on the application it's above (not reset above Nautilus).

Michael and Eugene, you are right. I didn't found any patch trying to solve this issue.

I can affirm Michael's observations, but they only apply to gnome/gtk applications. In qt applications, all cursors are reset, also the text, hand, busy and direction cursors.

Also, Firefox shows strange behaviour:
Navigating through the menus sometimes changes the cursor to the default. Just klick on 'File' and move the cursor to 'Edit', 'View' and so on.
In my case now, it is reset to the default on 'File' and 'History', but this changes from time to time, I also saw it changing on 'Edit'.

I confirm the strange behaviour in Firefox. Any ideas?

Using the following workaround (cf. http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/X11_Cursors#Configuring_Cursor_Themes) it works now for me:

- create a directory /usr/share/icons/default/ (did not exist in my case)
- create /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme and add the following lines:

[icon theme]
Inherits=foobar

It doesn't solve the problem :/

I believe I have successfully worked around this.

It appears the DMZ-White theme is pretty complete as far as a cursor set goes. If you inherit that, you will find that drag and drop cursors etc. appear in Firefox (and anywhere else).

Any cursor that isn't included in your own cursor set will use the DMZ-White version. However you still have to do the /usr/share/icons/default/ hack in order to have the theme you want not get overridden by an ugly X cursor.

You also have to inherit your own cursor theme in order for it to not get overridden by a DMZ-White cursor e.g.:

[Icon Theme]
Inherits=Aero,DMZ-White

I have attached a file of terminal output that (I hope) shows how I've gotten it to work.

Cheers!

Bug still present with GNOME 2.32 and Compiz 0.8.6-2. Apparently, the Ubuntu guys have a fix https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/459647

This is not a bug in GNOME, but a shortcoming in compiz. When GNOME sets the cursor theme, it sets this in a GConf key and makes metacity (or probably mutter in upcoming 3.0) do the change. When you replace the window manager, the cursor theme is no longer applied. What Ubuntu does is patching Compiz to support GNOME cursor themes by reading the settings from GConf and applying it trough libXcursor.

Technically, this is not a bug in GNOME, but I don't get it why they designed the cursor choice system to use Metacity instead of gnome-settings-daemon. Except for the window borders, all other appearance settings are set trough gnome-settings-daemon, why would someone want to set cursor themes trough the window manager then?

Exactly, can I say this is a projectual error? :P

I looked up the code (or ehm, bugreports a few years back when GTK 2.8 was released) that actually sets the cursor... gnome-settings-daemon DOES set the cursor, but only GTK applications respond to that. To update the root cursor, the window manager has to do all the work, and so does metacity.

Assinging to Ronald and moving to community. This is not a GNOME bug, but a shortcoming in compiz and other window managers.

I agree. But we want this to be fixed! :D

note to myself so I don't have to search again for the patch: http://zenwalk.pinguix.com/user-accounts/bip/EXTRA/xap/compiz/013-add-cursor-theme-support.patch

I'll give the patch a try next week and see if no side effects come up. If everything is fine (also in kde) I'll apply it, if not...bad luck.

appreciation. What package needs patching? I can try out now :P

I tried applying the patch, but I get the following errors, despite having the appropriate headers.

display.o: In function `compDisplaySetCursorTheme':
display.c:(.text+0x613): undefined reference to `XcursorSetTheme'
display.c:(.text+0x622): undefined reference to `XcursorSetDefaultSize'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status

I have also attached the modified PKGBUILD.

Any ideas?

any update?