I like the design of Plasma 5, however...

Please, change the select text cursor from the current 3px wide cursor to more "sharp" 1px wide cursor like that one in Windows.

The current one is unusable for me, because I get so frustrated after so many misselections during my work day, that I switch to Windows in the end, where selecting a text is so much less struggle because the cursor is 1px wide.

Let's try to select the middle character in strings like "lll" (especially on narrow fonts smaller than 9px) in Windows and than in Kubuntu or other distro with KDE 5.4+ DE. I guarantee you that you will find out that the 1 px wide select cursor is the superior.

Here is a Windows 7 1px wide select text cursor screenshot from the classic dark text on light background situation:



And here is the inverted color scheme with light text and dark background:


And here is a mix that is very unusual, but can happen:


Notice how the part of the character that overlay with the select cursor changes the color to a different color.

I like Plasma 5 and where it's heading but please consider this small adjustment to the select text cursor in the next version of Plasma DE.

Before I decided to post this question here, I posted this question here:

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/235759/is-there-any-reason-to-not-use-similar-cursors-to-windows-by-linux-distributions

But then I decided to address this question as a request to do something about it, if it's not a problem or legal issues of some sort, on the forum of my most liked desktop environment on Linux... KDE Plasma

UPDATE: Chromium OS does come with 1px wide I-beam cursor.

X11 cursors (that's not KDE specific) aren't XOR'd because MS holds a patent on that (though i think it ran out 2014, but I'm not sure) - not sure whether it's meanwhile supported, but it's not a KDE matter (the cursor is painted by the X11 server, resp. the loaded video driver, directly into the framebuffer)
The cursor can be translucent, though.

If you want to discuss the look of the (I-beam) cursor, you should head over to the visual design group subforum.

@luebking Thanks, so the code that change color of the cursor based on the background is patented (by MSFT?), right?

And nobody tried another way how to achieve the same thing using a different coding technique so far? interesting. You would assume that people will be trying to come up with something similar using a different code/technique. But whatever.

Btw. do you know if there is some way to get xor functionality and use 1px wide cursor on any of the Linux DE?

Btw2. If there is some mod reading this, please, move this post to the visual development group subforum, so I am not creating a duplicate. Thank you.

There's nothing such as different coding technique to invert colors.
Depending on the actual patent, one might have gone for something like inverting only one channel or whatever - but the technology is outdated anyway:
This was a way to not have to re/store the pixels below the cursor. The cursor is an overlay in X11, so there's no requirement to store anything from below itfp.

You'll have to patch the X server code (and that means the driver - so no chance in case you're using the nvidia or fglrx blob)

A pretty expensive way woud be to operate on the compositor, ie. write a plugin for the kwin compositor effects that hide the actual cursor and paint a texture instead (and use a Xor'ing composition method for this)
A code pattern on how to hide the cursor and paint a texture (though not flipped) instead can be found in the sources of the zoom effect.

So, it's possible, but I need to ask X.org community to implement this feature and not KDE or other DE, right?

The FIRST google result: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/x ... 29922.html
I don't know the patents actual text, but you may enlighten me about the many ways to flip a bit or invert an RGB.
Everytime I write such code it ends up being pretty much the same, and I doubt one would get away with "r = 128+127-r;" (or the patent stated some implementation)

Thank you for the link.

So, I guess I will post a question about this in X.org or Mir forum and we will see what will be the answer of these guys working on these projects. Any suggestion who should i ask about this except X.org and Mir (Canonical) ?

The patent is expired:

http://www.patentbuddy.com/Patent/4197590

So, what is the reason Xorg can not implement this feature?

Btw. I do not see a navigation breadcrumbs on this website. Is this a feature or something wrong on my side? Also the font used on this forum is very hard to read on Windows 7 and Chrome.

The forum uses my default sans serif, no idea about breadcrumbs which is also completely off topic (there's a subforum to discuss the forum) and you missed http://www.patentbuddy.com/Patent/5359347 (which is however owned by samsung), which is mentioned in the link I posted.

Ok, thanks.

So, Microsoft is paying Samsung some fee for using this patent in Windows? Right?

Chromium OS can do 1px wide I-beam check this Chromium OS review by AJ Reissig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5sFZTFqmvM

You can see the I-beam being 1px wide here:

0:29 - 0:30

or

1:12

So, why it's not possible in KDE if it's possible in Chromium OS?

The cursor in the video is the standard X11 cursor - the outline is something specific to the breeze cursor theme (that's why you should talk to the VDG)

The cursor in the video does not XOR the framebuffer at all.

Bye.

No it's not:

Chromium cursors:
http://www.omgchrome.com/new-cursors-co ... chrome-os/

KDE cursors:
https://i.imgur.com/pYb0uT4.jpg

If you examine them you can CLEARLY see that the chromium I-beam is 1 px solid black wide while the KDE cursor is 1px solid black and 1px solid white on each side and that makes it 3px wide in total.

And i was unable to find the original X11 mouse cursors ecept some themes on deviant art, which, I suppose, is not the official outlet of the Xorg.

Could you move this thread to the visual group section, please? Thank you.