I-Beam Cursor Color

I-Beam Cursor Color

4

    Sep 25, 2013#1

    I prefer a darker theme, but the "i-beam" cursor is black on black making it impossible to find in the window. Any way to adjust that?

    TIA.

    Chris

    6,603548
    Grand MasterGrand Master
    6,603548

      Sep 27, 2013#2

      The caret (name of a text cursor) is blinking always with the opposite color of the current background color. For example if the background color is yellow (active line) with RGB value #FFFF00 the caret is blinking with color blue with RGB value #0000FF.

      The background color can be
      • the background color of plain text if active line/column highlighting is not enabled, see Manage Themes - Editor - Plain Text,
      • the background color of active line/column highlighting if either active line highlighting or active column highlighting or both are enabled, see Manage Themes - Editor - Active Column and Active Line,
      • the background color of a read-only file if active line/column highlighting is not enabled, see Manage Themes - Editor - Read Only Background,
      • the background color configured for a color group in a syntax highlighted file different to normal background color, see Manage Themes - Syntax - Language - Color Group,
      • the background color set for bookmarks, or XML/HTML tag highlighting, or brace highlighting depending on which of those features is enabled, content of active file and position of the caret.
      So if you see the caret blinking with a color not being well for seeing it, the appropriate background color is not right configured for the theme.

      1
      NewbieNewbie
      1

        Jan 02, 2014#3

        No he does mean the I-beam. Not the blinking cursor. I have the same problem. The dark background themes completely hide the I-beam bar when you move your mouse around. Is there any way to change that? I like the dark theme but the black I-beam mouse cursor is impossible to find.

        6,603548
        Grand MasterGrand Master
        6,603548

          Jan 03, 2014#4

          After some research I know now what you mean with I-beam cursor which was an unknown term for me. Nobody in Austria names the mouse pointer looking like a big I (upper case i as displayed with Times New Roman) indicating that a text can be selected or the caret can be positioned now with the mouse an I-beam cursor.

          In uedit32.exe and in ueres.dll there are some mouse cursors as resources included, but not the I-beam cursor. So this mouse cursor used in UltraEdit is most likely one of the system wide mouse cursors. According to Microsoft article make the mouse easier to use, it is possible to change the color of the mouse pointers. I have not tested if changing the mouse pointer color system wide works for the I-beam cursor in UltraEdit, too.

          In general there will be always a problem with applying a color theme to an application which is completely different to the Windows color theme as there will be always some elements defined system wide which do not fit to the color theme of the application.

          However, you and anybody else using now with UE v20.00 a dark color theme can sent nevertheless a feature request email to IDM support to make the color of the mouse pointers also customizable, or give the users the possibility to overload mouse cursors from another source (resource DLL).

          I'm just wondering that the color of the text mouse pointer is raised now as a problem as the colors in document window area were always customizable and therefore it was always possible to use a dark theme for displaying the contents of text files.

            Jan 04, 2014#5

            I just looked once more on color of I-beam cursor with different dark themes applied. I found out that the color of the I-beam cursor is always the inverted color of the underlying pixels (usually plain text background color).

            For example the theme Slate uses as background color for Plain Text (tab Editor) #161616 and therefore the color of the I-beam cursor is #E9E9E9. Or theme Twilight has as plain text background color #000000 (black) and therefore the color of the I-beam cursor is #FFFFFF (white).

            But with active line highlighting enabled on theme Twilight the background color of the active line has the color #23221F. Therefore the color of the I-beam cursor positioned over the active line has the color #DCDDE0.

            Take a look on the image below made with theme Twilight on active line containing just Hi! with caret blinking after the exclamation mark and mouse pointer positioned over the H. Each pixel of the I-beam cursor has always the inverted color of the pixel covered by this pixel of the cursor.

            i-beam_cursor_color.png (244Bytes)
            I-beam cursor color example
            Best regards from an UC/UE/UES for Windows user from Austria

            2362
            MasterMaster
            2362

              Jan 05, 2014#6

              I can confirm that in my copy of UE and UEStudio (I have both), that the I-beam is always visible like he states in the above post.

              Using UE version 20.00.0.1056 and UES version 14.00.0.1012.

              I have not experienced the problem with a dark I-beam on a dark background in UE.
              “Don’t document the problem, fix it.” – Atli Björgvin Oddsson

              5
              NewbieNewbie
              5

                Jan 08, 2014#7

                I only experience this issue when I am logged in remotely using rdesktop. It is a fairly serious issue. I like the darker themes but I hate that I can't see the cursor/pointer when working remotely.

                1
                NewbieNewbie
                1

                  Aug 20, 2014#8

                  Same experience for me. Remote desktop both locally from Linux and whatever is used in the cloud.

                  The answer is to change the mouse cursor in Windows to something which is bi-color, so it can be used also it in the regular white-background email windows etc. I found a little arrow works, but you may be able to concoct your own.

                  Go to Control Panel and search for Mouse Cursor.

                  Select the Change the way the mouse looks option and select the Pointer tab, scroll down to the Text Select item and Browse... to another wee icon which contains some white as well as black.

                  That will be your mouse pointer from now until you change it, so you'll want to try a few to find what works for you.

                  HTH