Re: [RFC] Changing the default cursor on the Linux console?
On 6/10/19, Samuel Thibault <sthibault@debian.org> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm here looking for opinions from debian-accessibility from people with
> low vision.
>
> Samuel Thibault, le lun. 10 juin 2019 22:02:05 +0200, a ecrit:
>> > whenever i have to use the linux console, i have significant
>> > neurological issues, due to the blinking cursor.
>>
>> Oh, I did not know that even just the blinking cursor could have an
>> impact.
>>
>> > there is an ansi sequence that turns off blinking, but it
>> > frequently gets reset again for unknown reasons.
>
> We can probably try to change the default value in the kernel (it's
> really not only about Debian), if it makes consensus that it doesn't
> hurt most people. I guess the kernel uses a small blinking cursor by
> default solely because that was the default VGA hardware parameter.
>
> When looking around in xterms and such, I see that they are using by
> default a blocked cursor. Xterms usually don't make it blink, I see only
> Gnome-terminal making it blink by default.
>
> A non-blinking small cursor would pose visibility problem, but perhaps a
> non-blinking big cursor would be fine? (perhaps even more visible than
> the current blinking small cursor?)
Hi, Samuel.. #ThankYou for all the work you do! I do know that blink
rates are one touch point on something like the W3C (World Wide Web
Consortium) list of considerations with respect to epilepsy.
Outside of that, I really don't have much feedback, BUT... I
remembered seeing a toggle for cursor blinking. I got lucky and FOUND
IT!
It's a preference for xfce4-terminal. It's under Edit > Preferences
and then on the front, default "General" tab. I'm on a small screen
where activities like that get chopped off with no work-around to pop
them into view. I got lucky because that cursor blink option is the
last thing visible on my screen here. Yay!
But now I'm sitting here thinking I remember seeing a toggle somewhere
about the actual rate of blinking, too. If it's on that xfce4-terminal
screen, it's out range for my little laptop to view. It's possible
that was also something on a text editor, instead and maybe....
This is one of those things where there's never going to be a 100%
consensus, that's for sure. I choose to have the blinking cursor on
because it's a visual trigger that's *cognitively friendly*.
A blinking cursor's presence helps my mental focus'er find it amongst
all the "gobblety-goop" that some pages look like on some days. While
I do like it to blink, I'm also hinky about the rate of flashing...
because too fast is distracting to a point of being almost
"irritating".
My ultimate take on this is that it's much more *fair* for me to have
to track down and manually toggle that feature ON in a new setup than
it is for someone with epilepsy to have to risk being detrimentally
triggered if that feature was instead turned on and thus flashing by
default.....
Cindy :)
--
Cindy-Sue Causey
Talking Rock, Pickens County, Georgia, USA
* runs with birdseed *
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