Change hardware cursor?

[smguyk]

I want to have a custom mouse cursor in my game, and instead of hiding the cursor and drawing a sprite at its position I want to change the hardware cursor.

Something like this: https://love2d.org/wiki/Cursor

Is that possible?

[eXpl0it3r]

Not (yet) with SFML directly.

[smguyk]

Okay, thanks!

[GalakTozawr]

You must using winapi and unsubscribe from standart cursor. Next step create sprite end draw his on coordinate mouse.

[Mario]

You must using winapi and unsubscribe from standart cursor. Next step create sprite end draw his on coordinate mouse.

That's essentially a "software cursor". And you don't have to use the WinAPI with that, because SFML can just hide the cursor.

[Forceofaqua]

You can do what I did and implement a sprite as the cursor.

call

<window name>.setMouseCursorVisible(false);

to turn off cursor while inside the window.

Then within your window make a sprite with the cursor texture you would like.

Now all you have to do is set the sprite origin to the cursors location

sf::vector2i mouse = sf::Mouse::getPosition(<window name>);
<cursor sprite>.setOrigin(mouse.x, mouse.y);

For me personally I had to change the coordinates to negatives before I saw the cursor flying around my window. I'm not that knowledgeable in SFML so I don't know if that's how its supposed to be.

[Jesper Juhl]

You are (again) describing a software cursor. OP asked about changing the hardware cursor.

[Mörkö]

I want this as well, because even at its most basic there is a noticeable delay in a software rendered cursor, see attached video.

#include <SFML/Graphics.hpp>
int main() {
    sf::RenderWindow win{sf::VideoMode{1600, 900}, "Cursor test"};
    while (win.isOpen()) {
        sf::Event e;
        while (win.pollEvent(e))
            if (e.type == sf::Event::KeyPressed) { win.close(); }
        sf::RectangleShape rect{sf::Vector2f{50, 50}};
        rect.setPosition(sf::Vector2f{sf::Mouse::getPosition(win)});
        win.clear();
        win.draw(rect);
        win.display();
    }
}

[Hapax]

even at its most basic there is a noticeable delay in a software rendered cursor

It's only noticable because you can see the hardware cursor. The actual location of the software cursor is in fact the location that you are using in any mouse position calculations.

That said, you'll need OS-specific code to change the hardware cursor, although it shouldn't be too complicated.