RFC: Disabling blinking cursor by default

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Tuesday, 03 February 2009 at 12:44, Panu Matilainen wrote:
[...]
> Ignore the power savings aspect just for a second.
> 
> My television has a power on led below the screen. It blinks when the tv 
> is starting up and when the remote control is used, both cases have a very 
> clear and sane purpose. It does NOT blink while you're watching the tv, 
> and for a good reason too.

Bad analogy. TV is non-interactive.

> Blinking things tend to draw attention, and in the case of Blinky the 
> Cursor it's drawing your attention to the fact that there is nothing at 
> all to attend to.

False.

> It can also cause seizures for people with epilepsy or 
> other disorders.

Really? Do you have links to some conclusive research?

> Now, somebody please tell me: what is the grande justification of 
> consuming a few extra wats per every computer in the world to attempt to 
> draw the users attention to exactly nothing, despite being known to cause 
> health issues to some people while doing so? And "it's always done that" 
> is not an answer.

While I agree that power savings are important, the blinking cursor indicates
(to me) that the application is waiting for my (textual) input "here"
or that "this is where you stopped typing". Both are worth drawing my
attention. So please, change the default if you will, but mention it in the
release notes and give me a way to turn it back on.

Regards,
R.

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