Comfortable Swipe (Ubuntu)

Comfortable, seamless, and fast 3-finger (and 4-finger) touchpad swipe gestures for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and beyond. May work for other Linux distros that support libinput.

New in Version 1.1.0: Added mouse gestures, see #mouse-gestures-experimental

New in Version 1.2.0: Autostart now switched ON by default

Installation

1. Install git and g++

   sudo apt install git g++
   

2. Install libinput-tools and C libraries

   sudo apt install libinput-tools libinih-dev libxdo-dev
   

3. Clone this repository

   git clone https://github.com/Hikari9/comfortable-swipe.git --depth 1
   cd comfortable-swipe
   

4. Install

   bash install
   

5. You may delete the downloaded comfortable-swipe folder after installation.

How to Run

1. You'll need some group permissions to read touchpad input data. Run

   sudo gpasswd -a "$USER" "$(ls -l /dev/input/event* | awk '{print $4}' | head --line=1)"
   

2. Important: After inputing your sudo password, log out then log back in

List of Commands

1. Start the Program

   comfortable-swipe start
   

   You will see this output:

   $ comfortable-swipe start
   Comfortable swipe is RUNNING in the background
   

2. List configurations

   comfortable-swipe config list
   

   Example:

   $ comfortable-swipe config list
   threshold = 1.0
   left4 = ctrl+super+shift+Right
   right3 = ctrl+super+Left
   right4 = ctrl+super+shift+Left
   up3 = ctrl+F12
   up4 = super+d
   down3 = ctrl+F12
   down4 = super+d
   mouse4 = button1
   left3 = ctrl+super+Right
   

1. Get config

   comfortable-swipe <PROPERTY>
   

   Examples:

   $ comfortable-swipe left3
   ctrl+alt+Right
   

   $ comfortable-swipe left4
   ctrl+alt+shift+Right
   

   $ comfortable-swipe threshold
   1.0
   

2. Set config

   comfortable-swipe <PROPERTY> [=] <VALUES>
   

   Examples:

   comfortable-swipe left3 super+Right
   comfortable-swipe right3 super+Left
   comfortable-swipe right4 ctrl   alt + Left
   comfortable-swipe down4 super+d
   comfortable-swipe up3 = ctrl+shift+Up
   

3. Show path to config file:

   $ comfortable-swipe config path
   /home/hikari9/.config/comfortable-swipe.conf
   

Other Commands

1. Autostart

   comfortable-swipe autostart
   comfortable-swipe autostart on
   comfortable-swipe autostart off
   comfortable-swipe autostart toggle
   comfortable-swipe autostart status
   comfortable-swipe autostart path
   

2. Configurations

   comfortable-swipe config list
   comfortable-swipe config get <PROPERTY>
   comfortable-swipe config set <PROPERTY> [=] <VALUE>
   comfortable-swipe config path
   comfortable-swipe config keys
   

3. Help and Version

   comfortable-swipe --version
   comfortable-swipe --help
   

4. Show output with --attach

   Example output of 3-finger left, 4-finger left, 3-finger right, 3-finger up:

   $ comfortable-swipe start --attach
   SWIPE left3
   SWIPE left4
   SWIPE right3
   SWIPE up3
   ...
   

   You can also pass --bare to attach without actually swiping.

Swipe Gesture Configurations

The default configuration file is located at ~/.config/comfortable-swipe.conf. Comfortable swipe makes use of keyboard shortcuts to perform swipes, through xdotool.

Edit the configuration file by running:

gedit ~/.config/comfortable-swipe.conf

After making changes, make sure to restart the program:

comfortable-swipe start

Warning

: For v1.1.0 below, the configuration file is located at /usr/local/share/comfortable-swipe/comfortable-swipe.conf

Note

: You can locate the absolute path to your configuration by running: comfortable-swipe config path

Configuration Reference

Key	Value	Defaults
left3	3-finger swipe left	ctrl+alt+Right
left4	4-finger swipe left	ctrl+alt+shift+Right
right3	3-finger swipe right	ctrl+alt+Left
right4	4-finger swipe right	ctrl+alt+shift+Left
up3	3-finger swipe up	ctrl+alt+Down
up4	4-finger swipe up	ctrl+alt+shift+Down
down3	3-finger swipe down	ctrl+alt+Up
down4	4-finger swipe down	ctrl+alt+shift+Up
threshold	mouse movement pixels that trigger a swipe (can be as large as 1000.0)	0.0, 240.0, 1000.0
mouse3	mouses a mouse button when 3 fingers are down	button1 (see Mouse Gestures)
mouse4	mouses a mouse button when 4 fingers are down	button1 (see Mouse Gestures

Keystrokes

Taken from man xdotool:

Type a given keystroke. Examples being "alt+r", "Control_L+J", "ctrl+alt+n", "BackSpace".

Generally, any valid X Keysym string will work. Multiple keys are separated by '+'. Aliases exist for "alt", "ctrl", "shift", "super", and "meta" which all map to Foo_L, such as Alt_L and Control_L, etc.

In cases where your keyboard doesn't actually have the key you want to type, xdotool will automatically find an unused keycode and use that to type the key.

Refer to https://www.linux.org/threads/xdotool-keyboard.10528/ for a complete list of keycodes you can use.

Keyboard shortcuts:

• Unity Keyboard Shortcuts
• GNOME Keyboard Shortcuts
• KDE Keyboard Shortcuts

Example Configurations

This section includes some example configurations which you can use for your swipe experience.

1. Switch workspace (horizontal)

   comfortable-swipe config set left3 = ctrl+alt+Right
   comfortable-swipe config set right3 = ctrl+alt+Left
   

2. Switch workspace (vertical)

   up3 = ctrl+alt+Down
   down3 = ctrl+alt+Up
   

   up3 = super+PgDown
   down3 = super+PgUp
   

3. Move window to workspace (horizontal)

   left4 = ctrl+alt+shift+Right
   right4 = ctrl+alt+shift+Left
   

4. Move window to workspace (vertical)

   up4 = ctrl+alt+shift+Down
   down4 = ctrl+alt+shift+Up
   

   up4 = super+shift+PgDown
   down4 = super+shift+PgUp
   

5. Move window to other monitor

   left4 = super+shift+Right
   right4 = super+shift+Left
   

6. Toggle workspace overview

   up3 = super+s
   

7. Show desktop

   down3 = super+d
   

   down3 = ctrl+super+d
   

   down3 = ctrl+alt+d
   

8. Snap windows to the left/right

   left3 = super+Left
   right3 = super+Right
   

9. Toggle maximize

   up3 = super+Up
   

10. Toggle minimize

    down3 = super+Down
    

11. Alt+Tab switch application (experimental)

    left3 = alt+Tab
    right3 = alt+shift+Tab
    

Mouse Gestures (Experimental)

You can also play around with mouse gestures during swipe. This enables certain mouse behaviour to trigger along with a 3/4-finger swipe.

Keys:

• mouse3 - for 3-finger mouse gestures
• mouse4 - for 4-finger mosue gestures
• hold3 (deprecated) - old equivalent of mouse3
• hold4 (deprecated) - old equivalent of mouse4

Possible Values:

• button1 - left click
• button2 - middle click
• button3 - right click
• button4 - wheel up (experimental)
• button5 - wheel down (experimental)
• move - just move the mouse cursor while fingers are down
• scroll - 3/4 finger natural scroll (no acceleration, very experimental)
• scroll_reverse - 3/4 finger reverse scroll (no acceleration, very experimental)

Examples:

• 3/4-finger drag

  mouse3 = button1
  

  mouse4 = button1
  

• 3/4-finger natural scroll

  mouse3 = scroll
  

  mouse4 = scroll
  

• 3/4-finger reverse scroll

  mouse3 = scroll_reverse
  

  mouse4 = scroll_reverse
  

• Move 3/4-fingers with the cursor

  mouse3 = move
  

  mouse4 = move
  

Note: Applying any mouse-mouse configuration may disable up/left/right/down behavior to avoid gesture conflicts. The logic of this will be improved in the future.

Debugging

You can check your touchpad driver by running

comfortable-swipe debug

This is an alias of libinput debug-events. This logs all gestures you make on your touchpad, along with other input-based events that can be captured by libinput.

A working swipe gesture will show the following:

$ comfortable-swipe debug
...
-event9   DEVICE_ADDED     TouchPad                     seat0 default group7  cap:pg  size 70x50mm tap(dl off) left scroll-nat scroll-2fg-edge click-buttonareas-clickfinger dwt-on
...
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_BEGIN  +2.03s   3
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.03s  3 -9.95/ 2.64 (-26.90/ 7.12 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.03s  3 -10.44/ 3.19 (-28.22/ 8.62 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.04s  3 -9.71/ 2.64 (-26.25/ 7.12 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.05s  3 -8.98/ 2.64 (-24.28/ 7.12 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.06s  3 -7.40/ 2.36 (-20.01/ 6.37 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.06s  3 -6.31/ 2.50 (-17.06/ 6.75 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.07s  3 -5.34/ 1.80 (-14.44/ 4.87 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.08s  3 -4.61/ 2.08 (-12.47/ 5.62 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.09s  3 -4.49/ 1.53 (-12.14/ 4.12 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.09s  3 -4.01/ 1.25 (-10.83/ 3.37 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_UPDATE  +2.10s  3 -4.13/ 0.42 (-11.15/ 1.12 unaccelerated)
event9   GESTURE_SWIPE_END  +2.11s     3
...

If you can see GESTURE_SWIPE_XXX in your output, that means your touchpad supports multi-touch swipe gestures.

FAQ: Can I run a shell command instead of a keystroke?

Answer 1: Unfortunately NO...

For the following reasons:

1. We want prioritize "comfort" over functionality, which we deliver through performance in our near-zero-overhead implementation (that's why C++)
2. Running a new shell command with unpredictable process time will break our unthreaded optimizations (unlike native keystrokes)
3. There are other gesture libraries that already do this properly (eg. libinput gestures, Fusuma), we don't want to be a clone of them

That's why it's not possible...

Answer 2: ... but actually YES!

Although we don't provide this out of the box in our config, this can definitely be done with the default bash tools.

Hack: Shell command on swipe

Running shell commands our NOT part of the core features of comfortable-swipe, but through the default bash tools you can mimic this functionality via our program output.

Use Case: "I want to run gnome-terminal if I swipe up with 3 fingers."

1. Attach the program to the shell:

   comfortable-swipe start --attach
   

   Verify it outputs when you swipe left, left, up, right, up with 3 fingers:

   $ comfortable-swipe start --attach
   SWIPE left3
   SWIPE left3
   SWIPE up3
   SWIPE right3
   SWIPE up3
   ...
   

2. Filter out the wanted gesture with grep.

   In our case, we want 3-finger swipe up which is "SWIPE up3":

   $ comfortable-swipe start --attach | grep --line-buffered "SWIPE up3"
   SWIPE up3
   SWIPE up3
   ...
   

   Note

   : The flag --line-buffered ensures the output prints line-by-line.

3. Now we can execute our shell command with xargs.

   So if we want "SWIPE up3" to open the terminal,

   comfortable-swipe start --attach | grep "SWIPE up3" --line-buffered | xargs -I@ gnome-terminal
   

   Note

   : The flag -I@ in xargs substitutes the line "SWIPE xxx" to the charatcter "@", which you can use for your program.

4. Bonus: Add to autostart

   Open our autostart file:

   gedit "$(comfortable-swipe autostart path)"
   

   Tweak the Exec section:

   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Exec=comfortable-swipe start
   Name=Comfortable Swipe
   Comment=Comfortable 3/4-finger touchpad gestures
   Hidden=false
   NoDisplay=false
   X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
   

   To:

   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Exec=comfortable-swipe start --attach | grep "SWIPE up3" --line-buffered | xargs -I@ gnome-terminal
   Name=Comfortable Swipe
   Comment=Comfortable 3/4-finger touchpad gestures
   Hidden=false
   NoDisplay=false
   X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
   

5. Log out and log back in. You should now be able to run your custom shell commands on startup.

6. Bonus: Use --bare instead of --attach to NOT run keystrokes while swiping

   comfortable-swipe start --bare | grep "SWIPE up3" --line-buffered | xargs -I@ gnome-terminal
   

7. Bonus: You can pipe multiple gestures with tee:

   comfortable-swipe start --attach | \
   tee >(grep "SWIPE left3"  --line-buffered | xargs -I@ <COMMAND>) | \
   tee >(grep "SWIPE left4"  --line-buffered | xargs -I@ <COMMAND>) | \
   tee >(grep "SWIPE right3" --line-buffered | xargs -I@ <COMMAND>) | \
   tee >(grep "SWIPE right4" --line-buffered | xargs -I@ <COMMAND>) | \
   tee >(grep "SWIPE up3"    --line-buffered | xargs -I@ <COMMAND>) | \
   tee >(grep "SWIPE up4"    --line-buffered | xargs -I@ <COMMAND>) | \
   tee >(grep "SWIPE down3"  --line-buffered | xargs -I@ <COMMAND>) | \
   tee >(grep "SWIPE down4"  --line-buffered | xargs -I@ <COMMAND>)
   

   Substitute <COMMAND> with the shell command of your choice.

Uninstall

Run the following script:

wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Hikari9/comfortable-swipe/master/uninstall | bash

Bug Reports

Search in Issues if the problem has already been solved.

Otherwise, create a new issue to report your bug.

Please include the output of the following:

1. lsb_release -a
2. g++ --version
3. ls -l /dev/input/event*
4. xinput list | grep touchpad -i
5. lsmod | grep hid
6. comfortable-swipe status
7. comfortable-swipe start (if you can run it)
8. comfortable-swipe debug (try swiping if you can see GESTURE_SWIPE_XXX)
9. cat $(comfortable-swipe config)