I have a multi screen desktop arrangement and I have been having some troubles with the mouse sticking to the screen edges a bit too much. I do like this feature but I felt like it was just a bit too aggressive for my liking and, there is a solution.
Background
When Plasma 6.1 was released, the mouse behavior changed, introducing a feature called “Edge Barrier.” This feature makes the mouse stick to the edge of a screen, requiring a bit more effort to move it to the next monitor. It’s an intentional feature, and many users were excited about it, as it helps prevent accidentally moving the cursor to another screen. However, for someone like me, who frequently moves between screens, it became a frustration. I found myself having to move the mouse faster or with more force to overcome the barrier, which disrupted my workflow.
Solution
I am currently on Plasma 6.3.4 but this should be applicable to at least 6.1 and beyond. I couldn’t find where the setting was for adjusting this “stickiness” on the screen edges but it was sort of making me a little irritated. Thankfully, the good folks of the KDE Community made this an easy option to adjust. Within the System Settings, under Mouse & Touchpad, select Screen Edges.
At the very bottom, there is a setting called Edge barrier: which is set in pixels. The default, as I understand it, is at 100 px which was too much. I shortened it to 40 px but now have it at 20 px to make the movement between screens a bit more fluid at slower speeds.
Final Thoughts
This is one of those Plasma features I think is really neat because I find that “snapping” to screen edges a valuable tool. Something I have appreciated for many years. Since Plasma gives you the option to tune that edge barrier to what works best with you is a fantastic and incredibly welcome feature. It’s little things like this why Plasma is my desktop environment of choice on my openSUSE Tumbleweed machine.
References
https://discuss.kde.org/t/6-1-plasma-mouse-sticking-a-bit-more-to-screen-edges/17437
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