WP Manifestindependent plugin directory
manifest / themes / mouse-mode

Mouse Mode

Replace your dark mode toggle with MOUSE MODE! Its a tiny cursor wardrobe of 3 mice: oozing blob, magnifying loupe, and a way to switch to the default/normal cursor.

by Kelly Hoffman · github.com/kellychoffman/mouse-mode · website

★ 1stars

Install

Download source zip No release zip yet

This is the repository archive. It installs, but the folder name will carry the branch suffix and updates will not flow.

Install straight from GitHub with WP-CLI:

wp plugin install https://github.com/kellychoffman/mouse-mode/archive/refs/heads/main.zip
No built-in updater. New versions won't appear under Dashboard → Updates. Install new releases yourself, or let Git Updater track the repository.
Readme github.com/kellychoffman/mouse-mode ↗

Everyone's adding dark mode switchers, but what about mouse mode? This is a tiny cursor wardrobe for your site's homepage. A little pill appears in the upper right corner with three mouse modes to choose from:

  • A blob (default)
  • Loupe (good for photo heavy blogs)
  • And a way to switch back to the default cursor (for the normies)

See it in action on my personal site: https://kelly.blog/

Details:

  • The choice is remembered per visitor in localStorage.
  • The picker is a liquid glass pill a clear, blurred material with a refractive rim and a glass selection bubble that glides between options.
  • The widget detects dark sites from the page background and flips its whole palette automatically.
  • Hovering over the picker, or the WordPress admin bar, and any menu it opens, hands control back to the normal system cursor (and the blob/loupe melt out of the way).
  • Link detection is forgiving: anything interactive within ~18px of the pointer counts as a hover, so the blob doesn't demand pixel-perfect aim.
  • Mouse users only (pointer: fine); phones and tablets are left alone.
  • Entrance/wobble animations respect prefers-reduced-motion.

Install

Copy (or zip and upload) this folder into wp-content/plugins/ and activate Mouse Mode in wp-admin. No settings, it just shows up on the homepage.

Where it appears

By default only on the homepage (is_front_page() || is_home()). To show it everywhere:

add_filter( 'mouse_mode_should_load', '__return_true' );

Try it without WordPress

Open demo.html through any local web server, it's a fake dark homepage with the plugin's CSS/JS wired up.

Notes

  • The picker is position: fixed at top: 45px; right: 25px (the top offset clears the WordPress admin bar) — nudge .tm-root in assets/mouse-mode.css if it crowds your theme's nav.
  • The loupe clones document.body on activation and strips scripts, iframes, and videos from the clone. If your homepage changes after load (infinite scroll, etc.) the loupe view refreshes the next time it's re-selected or the window is resized.