MacOS – How to disable hiding of the mouse pointer while typing text

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I think I'm finally annoyed enough with my mouse pointer disappearing as I start typing to want to do something about it.

I want to move the mouse. I want to click. I want to start typing, but I want the mouse pointer to stay as is. I end up having to move the mouse just to figure out where the pointer is and I hate that.

How do I do this? Is this a switch I can toggle from within Mac OS or will I have to use a third-party app? I dug around System Preferences and Keyboard settings, but I didn't find anything relevant.

I'm running Mountain Lion 10.8.2 on an iMac. At this moment, it's a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 1000 along with the regular Apple Wireless Keyboard.

Best Answer

This is the default global behavior and can't be changed through a system preference. (I can't find any third-party utilities to change this either.)

Apple's reasoning is probably that users (but not all users) don't want the mouse pointer to obscure the text while typing. A developer might work around this by using NSCursor with setHiddenUntilMouseMoves:NO or unhide, etc., but this would be considered bad form due to creating an inconsistent user experience compared to other apps.

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