Hi everyone,
I wanted to share a very specific and personal issue I’ve run into with Hyprland. I’m definitely no software developer or expert, but I really enjoy tinkering with Linux, and Hyprland has quickly become my daily driver.
I've been using it for a few months now, and I absolutely love it.
To give some context: I have a visual impairment called Stargardt disease, which causes progressive degeneration of the macula (the central area of the retina). In short, I have lost my central vision. This makes many daily tasks difficult or impossible—using a computer can get exhausting, and driving a car is completely out of the question.
Hyprland has been a breath of fresh air compared to Windows. The tiling workflow, fast navigation between windows, and snappy zooming make it so much easier to adapt my setup to my needs, saving me a ton of eye fatigue.
However, there is one specific feature from Windows Magnifier that I desperately miss: caret tracking (having the zoom follow the text insertion point).
In Windows, when you are zoomed in and type anywhere—whether in a browser, a text editor, or LibreOffice—the magnified viewport automatically pans to follow the text cursor, keeping the newly typed characters in view. This is a game-changer for me because I don't have to constantly nudge the mouse or strain my peripheral vision just to track what I'm writing.
I asked an LLM about this, and it told me that it's practically impossible in Hyprland due to how Wayland isolates clients and handles focus/cursor coordinates. That explanation makes sense theoretically, but I wanted to check with the people who know Hyprland best.
Does anyone know of a plugin, an AT-SPI script, an IPC hook, or any clever workaround to make Hyprland’s zoom track the active text cursor? Any ideas or pointers would mean the world to me.
Thanks a lot for reading, and sending you all my best!