26. Move Mouse Pointer Out of the Way of Editing

For those who are annoyed by the mouse pointer obscuring text, this mode moves the mouse pointer - either just a little out of the way, or all the way to the corner of the frame. To use, type M-x mouse-avoidance-mode. To set up permanently, add the following to your initialization file:

  (if window-system (mouse-avoidance-mode 'animate))

The 'animate can be 'jump or 'banish or 'exile or 'protean if you prefer. See the documentation for function mouse-avoidance-mode for details of the different modes.

For added silliness, make the animatee animate by put something similar to the following into your initialization file:

  (if window-system
      (mouse-avoidance-set-pointer-shape
       (eval (nth (random 4)
                  '(x-pointer-man x-pointer-spider
                                  x-pointer-gobbler x-pointer-gumby)))))

For completely random pointer shape, replace the setq above with (setq x-pointer-shape (mouse-avoidance-random-shape)).

To configure this package, type:

  M-x customize-group RET avoid RET