[HN Gopher] Animated Cursors
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Animated Cursors
Author : speckx
Score : 93 points
Date : 2025-07-25 17:59 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tattoy.sh)
(TXT) w3m dump (tattoy.sh)
| baq wrote:
| This is way cooler than I expected.
|
| It's an over-the-top animation of a _terminal_ cursor moving from
| position to position, helps notice where it moved to. I thought
| it 'll be something about mouse cursor animations. I could see
| myself using this if a) I was using more TUI apps and b) it'd be
| toned down quite a bit.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| I think was popularized by Neovide
|
| https://neovide.dev/features.html#animated-cursor
| nine_k wrote:
| Here it's less dramatic and hence more useful.
|
| I wish more terminals implemented something similar.
| tombh wrote:
| Author here, I just chose the fire cursor for the demo.
| There are lots of other shaders available, eg
| https://github.com/KroneCorylus/ghostty-shader-
| playground/tr..., they have a simple smear cursor like
| Neovide's.
| nine_k wrote:
| The fire is _perfect_ for the demo, and for screencasts
| maybe.
| echelon wrote:
| I never knew this was a thing.
|
| This is so fucking cool. I'm going to add this right away.
| Rendello wrote:
| Reminds me of the old Compiz plugin that would make your
| windows burst into flames on closing.
| andrepd wrote:
| Compiz effects was truly the killer feature for Linux for 12
| year old me :)
| tombh wrote:
| The home page has GIFs of both a simpler smear-fade cursor and
| a wilder manga-slash cursor https://tattoy.sh
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Barely useable, pfff. Needs at least two out of three of
|
| - airhorn and/or light saber sound effects,
|
| - a sixel-based rendering of lens flares, or
|
| - a fluid dynamics engine to simulate rippling of characters
| around the path along which the cursor moves
|
| (Joke, looks very cool even though i'd probably find it too
| distracting)
| Nevermark wrote:
| > - airhorn and/or light saber sound effects,
|
| I will take the light saber sounds.
|
| With stereo-spacial transformation, so the sounds "direction"
| and "distance" match my own physical dynamic orientation
| relative to the cursor's motion on the screen.
|
| And, the ability to open a small window, which gives me the
| cursor's visual point-of-view, as it zooms through the graphics
| on the screen.
|
| Also, each traversed character should get "hot" as the curser
| goes over it, indicated with a stable glow for a quarter of a
| second, followed by an exponential fade over another second.
|
| I think we can all agree that when in flow, functional
| distractions need to work harder, be more immersive, to be
| effective.
| somat wrote:
| Here you go.
|
| https://ash-k.itch.io/textreme
| mholm wrote:
| iTerm2 has a basic animated cursor that I like, just a frame or
| two long, and fairly subtle. It would be nice if it expanded to
| support this type of animation, I do wish it were a bit more
| visible (though not, perhaps, the EDM show presented)
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is pretty cool. Helps trace where the cursor is going. I
| prefer the Ghostty style now that I see it, but nonetheless cool
| UI feature.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I assumed this meant mouse cursors, so I was confused why the
| pointer didn't move in the same video. Would have been better
| just to turn it off for the recording.
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| i swear to god i can hear the laser sounds
| kingforaday wrote:
| I applaud this effort and think it is amazing graphically for a
| tty, but serious question: does anyone use this as their daily
| driver?
| tombh wrote:
| I'm the creator of Tattoy, so thanks. A significant part of the
| motivation for the project is that it's fun, like a "toy", as
| the name suggests. I do use it everyday, but only for one
| serious usecase, to allow my Twitch chatters to visually
| interact with my terminal by sending emotes to it. I'm not
| personally into the animated cursors, they were just easy to
| implement because I'd already built out support for Ghostty's
| background shaders.
|
| But, if you want a truly serious usecase, then my pipe dream is
| that Tattoy becomes the "XWayland" for an entirely new protocol
| for terminals that explores moving on from ANSI codes, the
| terminfo database and so on. I wrote a blog post about this
| idea: https://tattoy.sh/news/an-end-to-terminal-ansi-codes
| coldblues wrote:
| Emacs has https://github.com/Malabarba/beacon
| o11c wrote:
| Honestly, just `:set cursorcolumn` is far more useful. Less
| distractions at the moment of change, but still visible if you
| alt-tab back.
| ionwake wrote:
| I installed it with homebrew but I dont see this shader tracer, I
| even see the blue pixel top right. Ive read the docs but it
| doesnt seem to explain if I need to do anything further which
| means it must be my already customised iterm which is the issue.
| Ill see if I can sort it.
| tombh wrote:
| The creator here, sounds like I need to improve the docs. Did
| you set `enabled = true` in the `[animated_cursors]` section of
| the config? If so, then this could be bug, and I'd be very
| grateful for a report in the repo's issues:
| https://github.com/tattoy-org/tattoy
| ionwake wrote:
| tbh im not sure what Im doing wrong, I already have a highly
| customised iterm window and have spent a hour with chatgpt
| trying to troubleshoot this to no avail... must just be my
| setup for some reason. I will let you know if I figure it out
| - thanks
| getflourish wrote:
| Inspiring. So cool, yet useful.
| incognito124 wrote:
| Love to see another atuin user
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| For a demo of the new Cursor feature in Ghostty:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enwDjM7pNNE
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