[ rdesktop-Bugs-1271896 ] Color of the "text select" mouse pointer

Bugs item #1271896, was opened at 2005-08-25 05:56
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by jey69
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Category: Visual
Group: None
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: Yar Tikhiy (yarq)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: Color of the "text select" mouse pointer

Initial Comment:
This problem is reproduced easily with PuTTY, the popular 
SSH client for Windows. PuTTY is started in a remote 
desktop session, of course. The "text select" mouse cursor 
over a PuTTY window is black and thus hardly visible on the 
window's default black background if using rdesktop. The 
cursor is white, as it should be, if using MSTSC. Moreover, 
the mouse cursor becomes black or white if reconnecting to 
the same session with rdesktop or MSTSC, respectively.

In general, rdesktop always seems to use black color for 
the "text select" mouse pointer while MSTSC, as well as the 
regular Windows desktop, does something like logical NOT 
over the underlying pixels to get the pointer image on the 
screen. The latter approach ensures easily that the pointer 
is visible over any solid filling or pattern.

Versions used to reproduce the bug:
MS Windows Server 2003 SP1
rdesktop 1.4.1
PuTTY 0.58

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Comment By: pjakob (jey69)
Date: 2011-12-24 07:47

Message:
I found a workaround here (submitted by David Simmons) :
http://osdir.com/ml/network.rdesktop.user/2005-03/msg00012.html

The workaround is to change the "Text Select" pointer on the Windows
machine by going to Control Panel->Mouse->Pointers. I changed it to the
beam_r.cur image, which is a beefier version of the I-beam bitmap which
does render nicely in rdesktop.

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Comment By: Yar Tikhiy (yarq)
Date: 2011-02-05 20:32

Message:
Warren,

I really appreciate that this issue is remembered and understood.  Indeed,
it is deeper and more of an architectural one than I would anticipate back
when I submitted it.

Thank you!

Yar

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Comment By: Warren Falk (warrenfalk)
Date: 2011-02-04 11:53

Message:
This isn't really an rdesktop bug but a limitation of X.  (That's the short
answer - but there may be a workaround)

For performance, rdesktop is mapping windows cursors to X cursors.  RDP
servers transmit the actual bitmaps of the cursors (i.e. it doesn't say
"switch to I-beam cursor, it sends the I-beam cursor image over the
network).  Rdesktop creates an X cursor from that data.

The problem is that windows is capable of using "xor" pixels which change
based on the pixels underneath them.  X is not capable of this.  So you
can't simply map a windows cursor onto an X cursor.

There may be a workaround which would be to hide the X cursor and just
simulate a windows cursor right on the main surface.  I don't know what the
performance impact would be (might need to be an option on the cmd line)

A short term workaround might be to find a windows I-beam cursor that isn't
all black (or all white either, probably), or use putty with a non-black
background or something.

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Comment By: Matt LaPlante (cyberdog3k)
Date: 2007-11-29 13:16

Message:
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Originator: NO

I'd like to bump this bug.  I've recently started using Putty over rdesktop
sessions, and the black on black I-beam cursor is killing my eyes.  Windows
XP here, although I'm sure it's a fairly generic issue.

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Comment By: Bill Allen (sectionhiker)
Date: 2006-08-31 21:12

Message:
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Forgot to mention the versions I'm using:

MS Windows 2000 Professional
rdesktop 1.4.1 (compiled on Mac OS X 10.4.7)
Visual Basic 6


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Comment By: Bill Allen (sectionhiker)
Date: 2006-08-31 21:10

Message:
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I am running into this problem as well.  I use a black background in Visual
Basic, 
and the text cursor (the I-beam) is black as well, making it hard to select
text or 
position the mouse on a line.  

Some sort of logical NOT makes sense here.  

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https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=381347&aid=1271896&group_id=24366

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