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Make the mouse disappear in some apps System
While it's not the most groundbreaking hint of all time, it could be seen as handy tip for when you want to take a screengrab and don't want the mouse visible. Simply hold down both shift keys and press the space bar. Voila -- the mouse cursor disappears. It reappears when you move the mouse.

It works in Safari, Mail, and Firefox, but it doesn't work in the Finder.
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Make the mouse disappear in some apps | 11 comments | Create New Account
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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: Mikey-San on Jul 13, '06 07:56:32AM

Grab.app can do this regardless of what application you're using. (You can set a cursor type, including none at all.)



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: Phosphor on Jul 13, '06 08:34:09AM
Doesn't work for me...

OS X 10.4.5
Firefox 1.5.0.4
and if it makes a difference...
LogiTech Control Center (newest)
USB Overdrive (newest)

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Oh, and I forgot to mention...
Authored by: Phosphor on Jul 13, '06 08:36:32AM

...I'm also using a MacAlly iMediaKey keyboard.



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: rbrough on Jul 13, '06 10:18:35AM

It sort-of works for me...

The mouse disappears alright, but the window scrolls up to the top (for example, tried while reading the hint on the MacOS X Hints front page, the mouse disappeared but I was back at the top of the page). Only tried this in FireFox 1.5.0.4.

R



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: rofl on Jul 13, '06 10:38:39AM

It's the standard behaviour for the cursor in front of text areas, if you move the text area with the up/down/left/right/space/shift-space key, the cursor will be hidden.
This is standard since OS 7 or earlier...

So if you read and scroll with the keyboard, no cursor is blocking your sight.

-rofl



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: RussellK on Jul 13, '06 12:59:13PM

<spacebar> is a well-documented way of scrolling a window (i.e., within a web browser) down by a set increment (usually equal to one "page" of your window). Adding a <shift> to this keyboard command is like pressing <shift> while <tabbing> through fields in most apps...it simply reverses the direction (up instead of down).



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: ocdinsomniac on Jul 13, '06 10:39:17AM

Any program that accepts text input will hide the cursor as soon as you start typing. There is no magic key-combo for this, and certainly no reason to press both shift keys and the spacebar. In fact, doing so has the same effect as if you'd typed any other key on the keyboard. A "space" is typed and the mouse cursor disappears. Typing an arrow key works better and doesn't type an actual character. But I'm not really sure this "hint" is accurate, and at best simply describes behavior that's been around in the OS for quite some time.



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: Phosphor on Jul 13, '06 02:49:02PM

Good point, ocdin*.

I never paid attention to this much.

Just typing a comma, or a period, or whatever makes the cursor disappear.



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: dan55304 on Jul 14, '06 05:47:26AM

Cursor does not disappear for me on 10.4.7 and Safari when I type characters reading this hint. It does disappear with the arrow keys or the shift-spacebar as mentioned. Spacebar alone scrolls the screen down. Characters do nothing.



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: wsdr on Jul 14, '06 06:05:43AM

I'll second rofl, that this is standard behavior for text fields-- it's been around since Finder 1.0

(Yep, been around that long, in fact, I still have my copies of Finder and System 1.0, MacWrite, Paint, etc. A couple of years ago I dug up an old Mac Plus of mine [no longer have the old 128K] and booted from a 400K floppy, thinking I would laugh at how long it took. I was astonished to be looking at the desktop in less than 15 seconds from power-on-- this from floppy, mind you. What is even more amazing is that my floppy disk has held out these 22 years.)



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Make the mouse disappear in some apps
Authored by: barr104 on Jul 16, '06 01:49:20AM

Wait, since when does the mouse cursor even appear in screen captures? I press Apple+Shift+3 and all it saves in the image is my screen. no mouse cursor.



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