TextPad and blinking cursor

General questions about using TextPad

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MarJohn
Posts: 32
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2021 6:17 am

TextPad and blinking cursor

Post by MarJohn »

With TextPad, running on Windows 10 64-bit, my cursor stops blinking after about 3 seconds of inactivity. It is, however, still visible as a vertical line.

The Help file only says:

The cursor (also known as the caret) is the blinking vertical line or block, which indicates the insertion position for text.

Is what I'm seeing the result of a setting in TextPad (that I can't find), or considered normal, or a bug.

The reason I ask is that I haven't noticed the same behaviour in any other programs, and am unable to find any mouse settings in Windows that could be affecting it.
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AmigoJack
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Re: TextPad and blinking cursor

Post by AmigoJack »

unable to find any mouse settings in Windows
Because it is not related to the mouse in any way. How are you able to input text where a cursor blinks with a mouse? You aren't: you use the keyboard. That's why one is called "mouse cursor" and the other "text cursor" and both can live unrelated to each other. If anything, look for keyboard settings.

No, it's a Windows setting and TextPad is not the culprit: https://superuser.com/questions/1436937 ... windows-10 or in general https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Windows+text+ ... s+blinking should show where this comes from and how to adjust it. I'm quite interested if this solves it for you (and if you can name "any other program" that ignore such a setting).
ak47wong
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Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by ak47wong »

Interesting that MarJohn says "I haven't noticed the same behaviour in any other programs" because I'm having a hard time finding examples of programs that don't have this behaviour.

Notepad, WordPad, the address bar in my browser, the text field that I'm composing this reply in, the Windows "Run" dialog, they all do the same thing: the cursor stops blinking after 5 seconds.

The only counter-example I can find is Microsoft Office programs.
MarJohn
Posts: 32
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2021 6:17 am

Post by MarJohn »

Cursor stops blinking in:

TextPad
WordPad
NotePad

Cursor doesn't stop blinking in:

Notepad2
Word
No, it's a Windows setting and TextPad is not the culprit:
I tried the Regedit tweak - ComputerHKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop, doubleclicked on "CaretTimeout" and set the value to "ffffffff" hexadecimal, and it worked!

Sorry, don't know how to get the back slashes to show in the Regedit key.

Now, cursor doesn't stop blinking in:

TextPad
WordPad
NotePad
Notepad2
Word

The information at the link you provided did the trick, so thanks for your assistance.
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