VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Fri Jun 22 2018 - 03:15:09 CDT

Hi,
  I must have missed your email while I was traveling.
You didn't indicate what operating system you're running.
For MacOS X and Windows, the only way I know of modifying the
cursors is to make changes to the software source code, and the
degree of program control there is relatively low, so you may or may
not be able ot easily achieve what you're after even if you modify
the VMD source code and recompile.

For Linux (X11), there are a variety of ways to modify
the mouse cursor size and shape, both within the program itself
and externally through the use of user-customized X11 resource files.

For X11, you can modify the size of the cursor relatively easily,
without making any changes to the program source code. This is done
using so-called resource definitions. Here is a simple example of how
you can set the cursor size immediately prior to running VMD:
  #
  # Enable large X11 cursors on ultra-high-res 4096x2400 projector
  #
  xrdb /Projects/vmd/pub/scripts/vmd.bigcursor.resource

The contents of the .resource file look like this:
Xcursor.size: 48 ! 32, 48 or 64 may also be good values

Best regards,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Thu, May 24, 2018 at 01:48:30PM -0400, Daniel Strahs wrote:
> Hello:
> Is there a way in the preferences to alter the appearance of the mouse
> crosshairs? I'd like to alter either the color or the thickness.
> The crosshairs are difficult to see on my laptop; I can alter the
> background to increase their visibility but that's not the best approach.
> Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks!
> Dan Strahs 

-- 
NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/           Phone: 217-244-3349
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/