Hide Mouse Pointer on Android

Question

I'm writing a game for OUYA and Android and I'm using the trackpad on the OUYA controller. When ever you touch it a mouse pointer comes up and I can't find a way to hide it. I image this would be a problem for games on an Android netbook as well. Has anyone found a way to interact with the cursor instead of just listening for events?

Answer 1

This won't hide the mouse, but it will at least help prevent touch events from interfering with your joystick processing code -- not a proper solution I know, but still might help people who land on this page:

public boolean onGenericMotionEvent(MotionEvent event) {
    if ( (event.getSource() & InputDevice.SOURCE_CLASS_JOYSTICK) != 0) {
        //handle the event
        return true;
    }
    else {
        return false;
    }
}

Answer 2

Android currently does not expose any functionality to hide the mouse cursor. Whenever you have an external pointing device (ie. usb/bluetooth mouse, trackpad, etc) a mouse pointer will appear on the screen whenever you interact with the device.

Unfortunately (as of JB 4.2.2) this means it is impossible without a modified ROM.

Answer 3

It is possible to request pointer capture now. You need to explicitly request capture:

fun onClick(view: View) {
    view.requestPointerCapture()
}

As documented:

Android delivers pointer events from sources other than the mouse normally, but the mouse pointer is not visible anymore.

You can either handle pointer events by overriding onCapturedPointerEvent:

override fun onCapturedPointerEvent(motionEvent: MotionEvent): Boolean {
    // Get the coordinates required by your app
    val verticalOffset: Float = motionEvent.y
    // Use the coordinates to update your view and return true if the event was
    // successfully processed
    return true
}

or registering an event handler for OnCapturedPointerListener:

myView.setOnCapturedPointerListener { view, motionEvent ->
    // Get the coordinates required by your app
    val horizontalOffset: Float = motionEvent.x
    // Use the coordinates to update your view and return true if the event was
    // successfully processed
    true
}

And it's up to you to release the pointer when you're done:

override fun onClick(view: View) {
    view.releasePointerCapture()
}

I know that the context of this question overall may not apply (ie: Ouya development), but this was the first search result when I looked into how to do this myself. So I figured that I'd update the answer!