I asked:
> > Is there some way to simply double or quandruple the default
> > size of the top_left_arrow cursor?
(Using fedora Xfce with ctwm selected as window manager)
Tadziu Hoffmann provided a very useful answer:
> Don't know about Fedora, but many modern X servers can load
> mouse pointers not only from the cursor font but from specially
> prepared bitmap images.
>
> Here's what worked for me:
>
> * Install a package with X cursors, on opensuse for example
> "xcursor-themes", which contains (among others) the cursor
> theme "whiteglass".
I did not find that available for Fedora, but discovered that I had a theme
called Adwaita, and if I used the Xfce window manager (default for my 'reduced'
version of Fedora) it provided a menu option to change the cursor size using
Adwaita. So I tried using that.
> * Put "Xcursor.size: 32" and "Xcursor.theme: whiteglass" in
> the .Xdefaults file.
For some unknown reason I could not get anything in the .Xdefaults file to work.
E.g. I tried:
in .Xdefaults
Xcursor.theme: adwaita
Xcursor.size: 48
(with various numbers) and it had no effect.
So I tried your second option.
> * Or: add "export XCURSOR_THEME=whiteglass" and
> "export XCURSOR_SIZE=32" to .xsession.
>
> (and restart the X session). The last point of course assumes
> you're actually using a custom .xsession file, but for someone
> using ctwm instead of one of the current preconfigured desktop
> systems, I believe that's not too improbable.
I use ~/.xinitrc rather than .xsession.
In this file
/usr/share/xsessions/ctwm.desktop
I have this, copied from somewhere long ago:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Ctwm
Comment=Log in using the ctwm window manager (without a session manager)
Exec=$HOME/.xinitrc
Icon=
Type=Application
So in my .xinitrc after
xrdb .Xdefaults
I added
export XCURSOR_THEME=adwaita
export XCURSOR_SIZE=48
(48 seems to be the largest size that is recognised on my system.)
> The environment variables override the settings in .Xdefaults,
> so you can start individual programs such as xterm, for
> example, with "XCURSOR_SIZE=64 xterm".
I confirm that changing the environment variable works -- at least partly.
In browsers the new setting seems to be respected.
In some contexts, e.g. 'atril' (part of the 'mate' desktop) which I use for
displaying PDF in preference to evince, the value seems to affect only the
'text' cursor (vertical). The arrow used outside the text area does not change.
Perhaps there's a different environment variable for that.
But it seems that not all applications respect the environment variable,
and it doesn't seem to affect the cursor size in the root window in Ctwm.
I get round that by having a uniform pale grey root window, against which the
default cursor is sufficiently visible.
Anyhow that's a great improvement for me.
> In principle, you can also unpack downloaded xcursor theme files
> to your ~/.icons directory and use them as above (replacing
> "whiteglass"), or even create your own cursors (see xcursorgen(1)).
I have not tried that. I see there's a lot more information in MAN XCURSOR
which I have not yet studied carefully.
Thanks very much for your help.
Aaron
