I tried different methods, such as changing the background of the event box to transparent etc, but all of them were quite complicated.
The simplest solution I found was the following:
static GdkCursor *_normal_cursor = NULL;
static GdkCursor *_hand_cursor = NULL;
/* in main */
_normal_cursor = gdk_window_get_cursor(widgets_to_remember->window->window);
_hand_cursor = gdk_cursor_new(GDK_HAND2);
/* create the event box */
gtk_event_box_set_visible_window(GTK_EVENT_BOX(event_box), FALSE);
gtk_widget_set_events(event_box, GDK_BUTTON_PRESS_MASK | GDK_ENTER_NOTIFY_MASK | GDK_LEAVE_NOTIFY_MASK);
_fix_event_box(event_box, window);
/* rest of main */
static gboolean _set_hand(GtkWidget *w, GdkEventCrossing *e, gpointer data)
{
gdk_window_set_cursor(w->window, _hand_cursor);
return TRUE;
}
static gboolean _set_normal(GtkWidget *w, GdkEventCrossing *e, gpointer data)
{
gdk_window_set_cursor(w->window, _normal_cursor);
return TRUE;
}
static void _fix_event_box(GtkWidget *eb, GtkWidget *window)
{
g_signal_connect_swapped(eb, "enter_notify_event", G_CALLBACK(_set_hand), window);
g_signal_connect_swapped(eb, "leave_notify_event", G_CALLBACK(_set_normal), window);
}
What this basically does is set the event box invisible, and then set its enter-notify-event
and leave-notify-event
signal handlers to change the window cursor when the mouse enters or leaves their window.