This could lead into 'preference hell' with far too many options but
it might be part of a sensible accessability framework etc. Confirming
issue as valid.

On Windows, the cursor blink frequency can be set in the operating
system, but there is no option to switch off blinking.
Reassigned to Chrisatian.

Reassiged to Bettina.

I have a really hard time working with a blinking cursor.
It just drives me nuts. In MSWord I could always select
a letter and this would stop the blinking, while I reread
my text. The same behaviour happens with this form in Mozilla,
for another example. But with OpenOffice the blinking continues 
even when text is selected. PLEASE add this feature to the 
accessibility options!

Adding keyword "accessibility" 

This is an important issue, because some people cannot use any product with a
blinking cursor.  (For example: people with epilepsy.)

Windows has a way to disable cursor blinking.  GNOME has a preference to disable
cursor blinking; KDE probably does too.  OOo should check the system preferences
for cursor blinking, and abide by them.

I'll say it again: there are some people who CANNOT USE anything with a blinking
cursor.

Unfortunately KDE does not have cursor blinking setting, so this issue is still
needed as a separate setting, perhaps under Accessibility options.
For Gnome users, the system setting for cursor blinking is now correctly used
according to issue # 48001.

When I used openoffice with Kubuntu there was no blinking which was great.
But I now use Fedora Core 5 with KDE and the blinking is back, once more making
openoffice writer virtually unusuable. I really do hope you will offer a noblink
option in Tools|Options.

carlosflange said it all in 2003, still in 2008 as a new user i'm encountering
the exact same problem as him...please make this option available!

An easy to reach and to set option to turn off blinking is definitely needed.

In the meantime, for all of us that can't wait, Juri Linkov has led the way:
http://www.jurta.org/prog/noblink.en.html

In my case (openSUSE), it works when I add this line to my ~/.qt/qtrc:

  [General]
  cursorFlashTime=0

Well I'd like to start re-activating this task but:

It is clear that this feature is not OOo's job. The system should have an option
to disable the blinking cursor. We should read this option. And that's we do!

A little summary of the systems:
- Windows: Control Panel - Accessibility Options - Display - Cursor Options -
Blink rate.
-> OOo reacts on it

- KDE: as mentioned,
in ~/.qt/qtrc add:
 [General]
  cursorFlashTime=0
-> OOo reacts on it

- Gnome: start gconf-editor and uncheck /desktop/gnome/interface/cursor_blink
-> OOo reacts on it

- MAC OSX: AFAIK no solution. The system is not accessible on this point.

Sum Up: we may think about implementing such an option as pure convenience
(stand for system missing features) but without constrain, especially concerning
accessibility. We are accessible on this point.
Thus removing "Accessibility" keyword.

@FL: please take over.

CCed: es

I am satisfied with OOo complying with the system controls that disables blinking.
Could we have one comment added to the manual or to the FAQ that informs the
user to look for the system specific settings?

Just found out that the KDE method I reported here works with KDE3/Qt3 only.

So, compliance with KDE4/Qt4 is still outstanding (and I don't know how it
works). Could we focus this bug on Qt4, please?

I don't think we need to focus especially on Qt4. Thes implementation should
work for every environment.
And once again, it's not a bug in OOo but a feature from the system we will make
reachable inside of OOo only.

This seems to be an issue where applications (such as Apache OpenOffice) need to follow the settings in the operating system. Here is what I found:

* In Windows XP, the cursor blink rate can be slowed down, and cursor blinking can be turned off under Control Panel > Keyboard > Cursor blink rate. The values range from "None" to "Fast". OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 on Windows XP observes this setting.

* In Windows 7, the cursor blink rate can be slowed down, and cursor blinking can be turned off in the Keyboard properties. Either go to Control Panel > Keyboard, or type "cursor" after pressing the Windows key ("Change cursor blink rate" will be one of the search results) to access the keyboard properties. The cursor blink rate has the same range of values as in Windows XP. Apache OpenOffice 3.4.0 and 4.0 both adopt the cursor blink rate set in Windows 7.

* In GNOME 3.6 on Fedora 18, the cursor blink rate can only be set through gsettings, not through the Universal Access settings or the Gnome tweak tool. There is no user-friendly way to do this. gsettings can be set through the command line, or by using the dconf-editor. (On Fedora, dconf-editor needs to be added after OS installation; it is not installed by default). In dconf-editor, go to org.gnome.desktop.interface. Cursor blinking can be turned off by unchecking "cursor-blink". "cursor-blink-time" changes the blink rate (values range from 100 to 2500; the default is 1200). I have not checked AOO, but LibreOffice 3.6.3.2 observes these settings (although the extremely fast rates are not as fast as in gedit), and I lazily assume that this would apply to AAO as well.

So now we need a few volunteers to check Mac OS X and Linux with KDE. If cursor blink rate can be set on these OSs and AOO observes those settings, then this is not an OpenOffice bug.

To the best of my knowledge Mac OS X has no global cursor blink control. Some OS X applications (e.g. Terminal.app) allow blink to be switched off; others seem to offer no such control (which is another reason I don't use OS X).

KDE 3.x applications normally respect the cursor blink rate set using the qtconfig tool (which includes "no blinking"); I don't know about KDE 4.x.