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I like using the large mouse cursor offered by Unity Tweak Tools. But everytime I restart my sytem the cursor defaults back to the standard size. The settings won't save. How do I fix this?

nichtNox
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    This is an annoying bug. As a workaround, you can either delete the smaller size image files for the cursor theme or you can replace the smaller size cursor size files in the theme with larger size image files so that they will always be the same size. The theme files are in /usr/share/icons and you can copy the theme to a newly created directory ~/.icon if you want to maintain the original theme files. – mchid Jul 18 '16 at 22:17
  • This method is complicated and involves using gimp to edit all non link files in the cursor directory of the theme to contain only one image instead of multiple layers. – mchid Jul 18 '16 at 22:27
  • Which ones are the larger them to replace the smaller theme with? It's not apparent from the name of each folder. – nichtNox Jul 18 '16 at 23:06
  • First, to reply to a comment from a user like me for example, begin the comment with @mchid so that I will get notified. As for the files: many times, each file will consist of multiple sized layers. Try opening some of them in gimp (the ones that are not links) and you will see what I am talking about. – mchid Jul 19 '16 at 17:05
  • What cursor theme are you using? – mchid Jul 19 '16 at 17:07
  • @mchid I am using the white default cursor theme. In Unity Tweak Tool I check the box for "use large cursors". – nichtNox Jul 20 '16 at 16:54
  • I have added a workaround although this is a bug and should be reported as a bug so that we can get this fixed. – mchid Jul 27 '16 at 06:17
  • @mchid please add a link to the bug report. – Luís de Sousa Jul 27 '16 at 09:26
  • @LuísdeSousa I'm not sure if there is one yet but this is clearly a bug so I believe the user should file a bug report for this if one does not exist. http://askubuntu.com/questions/5121/how-do-i-report-a-bug – mchid Jul 27 '16 at 11:32

1 Answers1

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Here is a bit of a workaround to make the pointer permanently big. You can go through the cursor theme directory where this file is located and you can adjust some of the other ones as well to get a more consistent running theme.

Run the following commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gimp
mkdir ~/.icons
cp -R /usr/share/icons/DMZ-White .icons
cd ~/.icons/DMZ-White/cursors

Now, run the following command which will open gimp for each of the three most commonly used images for the cursor theme:

for i in grabbing hand2 left_ptr; do gimp $i; done

it may take 15 to 30 seconds to open gimp for each image but be patient.

After the image opens, press PG DOWN, DELETE, PG DOWN, DELETE, CTRL+M. Now check the box for "discard invisible layers" and click merge.

Press CTRL+SHIFT+E rename the file with an .xmc extension on the file name. Then click export.

Press CTRL+Q, then CTRL+D.

Wait 15 to 30 seconds for the next file to open and then repeat the same steps.

When you are done, run the following command to convert the new files to the theme:

for i in $(ls | grep xmc); do mv $i $(echo $i | sed 's/.xmc//g'); done

This will give you a working theme. The "watch" files contain a whole bunch of files and must be dealt with differently. Repeat this process for any of the other non link non watch files if you desire.

You may have to delete any "cache" file if one exists in ~/.icons/DMZ-White/ (don't forget to check for hidden files).

Open unity tweak tool and select another icon theme then select the DMZ-White theme again and it should show a large arrow without selecting "large".

mchid
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