How to set left-handed mouse pointer?
It does not seem there are many left-handed cursor themes. You have the following options:
comixcursors-lefthanded (ugly)
You have to install comixcursors-lefthanded and gcursor (gnome cursor theme managing software). Although gcursor
doesn't seem to do install the theme for me it is useful to see what a cursor theme looks like.
The theme ComixCursors-LH-White-Small looks the most decent, so let's pick that one
Installation
First we need to add an extra line to the themes index.themes
file. All themes are located in /usr/share/icons
, and for the ComixCursors-LH-White-Small theme we need to do
sudo gedit /usr/share/icons/ComixCursors-LH-White-Small/index.theme
This file looks like this:
[Icon Theme]
Name = Comix Cursor LH White Small Bold
Comment = The left-handed Comix Cursors - White Small Bold
Example = default
Now we need to add the following line at the bottom (of course if you pick another theme, you should write the name of the other theme)
Inherits = ComixCursors-LH-White-Small
Now save and close the file.
On Ubuntu the utility update-alternatives
manages the cursor themes, so we need to tell it about this new theme we want to use, execute
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/share/icons/default/index.theme x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/ComixCursors-LH-White-Small/index.theme 91
sudo update-alternatives --set x-cursor-theme /usr/share/icons/ComixCursors-LH-White-Small/index.theme
Now if you log out and log in again, you should have your new cursors.
Note:
You can use
sudo update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme
to change between the installed cursor themes.
Modifying the default (DMZ-White) theme (beautiful)
The above approach works but the cursors are ugly, however you can also modify the default theme. The cursors that you use most are the normal pointer and the hand (which appears if you hover over a link):
which are /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursors/left_ptr
and /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursors/hand2
.
The DMZ-White theme also provides a pointer that points to the right, and I made my own mirrored hand using gimp (see note at the end):
The pointer is /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursors/right_ptr
, and mirrored hand is called hand3
and I made it available on mediafire (if you follow the instructions below, you will download it automatically to the correct directory).
Now we need to replace these cursors. First go to the DMZ-White cursor directory
cd /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White/cursors/
Then download the hand3
cursor
sudo wget http://www.mediafire.com/download/v45c56ewol1k140/hand3
Now backup the original left_ptr
and hand2
files
sudo mv left_ptr left_ptr_orig
sudo mv hand2 hand2_orig
Now let the new left_ptr
and hand2
point to the right_ptr
and hand3
files
sudo ln -s right_ptr left_ptr
sudo ln -s hand3 hand2
Now if you log out and log in again, you should have your new (beautiful) cursors.
Note: Editing cursor files using gimp
You can edit cursor files (and make your own cursor theme :) ) using gimp which is a free alternative to Photoshop. If you want to save your file choose Export to and then pick X11 Mouse Cursor. This will save your file with the .xmc
extension, but you can simply remove the extension.