Disable mouse cursor inactivity hide

Question

The default behavior when using an external mouse with Android is to hide the cursor/mouse pointer after ~15 seconds.

How can I disable this functionality, so the cursor is shown at all times?

I'm building from AOSP source.

Answer 1

Figured it out.

The file to look in is:

frameworks/base/services/input/PointerController.cpp

The file on AndroidXRef

The inactivity timeout is defined on line 39 (Android 4.2.2):

static const nsecs_t INACTIVITY_TIMEOUT_DELAY_TIME_NORMAL = 15 * 1000 * 1000000LL; // 15 seconds

The method used for fading the cursor:

void PointerController::fade(Transition transition) {
    AutoMutex _l(mLock);

    // Remove the inactivity timeout, since we are fading now.
    removeInactivityTimeoutLocked();

    // Start fading.
    if (transition == TRANSITION_IMMEDIATE) {
        mLocked.pointerFadeDirection = 0;
        mLocked.pointerAlpha = 0.0f;
        updatePointerLocked();
    } else {
        mLocked.pointerFadeDirection = -1;
        startAnimationLocked();
    }
}

Commented out everything in the method except:

removeInactivityTimeoutLocked();

Since there's no point in having the inactivity timeout running in the background, when it isn't used.