How to lock mouse movement using xdotool

AzurBarnitzke

10/7/23, 5:06 PM

How can I achieve locking my mouse movement on the spot rather than moving to some defined X and Y coordinates? on the spot means if my mouse is in the middle, with just a keybind it'll lock it there rather than moving to the top right or left of the screen.

213

1 + 0

scripts

xdotool

Score:0

Ubuntu

earthmeLon

10/7/23, 7:04 PM

It's unclear to me the goal of such a script, but you could look up the current position, and keep setting the cursor position to that position.

You'll probably want a more reliable way of killing it, vs Ctrl+C. Think carefully about that before running the following:

eval $(xdotool getmouselocation --shell)
while true
do
  xdotool mousemove $X $Y
  sleep 0.1
done

xdotool getmouselocation --shell provides output like this:

$ xdotool getmouselocation --shell
X=420
Y=69
SCREEN=0
WINDOW=1

When you eval $(xdotool getmouselocation --shell), $X and $Y variables are set.

+ 5

AzurBarnitzke

10/7/23, 7:21 PM

I am currently using xbindings and within that using xdotool, I'm thinking of assigning my button 9 (extra side mouse buttons) to lock the mouse movement and button 8 to disable it, any idea how to implement said changes...?

earthmeLon

10/7/23, 7:46 PM

Create this as a script with executable flag (`chmod +x /usr/bin/mouselock`). Execute that with a binding. Then, execute `killall mouselock` or similar with another button. I use `xdotool` to reset my SNES and live splits at the same time hehehe.

AzurBarnitzke

10/7/23, 7:48 PM

Thanks a lot! Will try this out

AzurBarnitzke

10/8/23, 6:58 AM

Hello just tried this out, just wanted to know when I execute the script it locks it in place but it keeps flickering and returning back to the position where I left, is there any way to fix this up without my cursor flickering?

earthmeLon

10/8/23, 5:20 PM

You could remove/decrease the timeout, which may reduce flickering, if you haven't already. Otherwise, I'm not too sure. Potentially, only move it if you detect a change in X or Y. If you can't figure it out, feel free to ask and create a new question, vs comments.

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