4 ms·

As someone who absolutely despises libinput (I have an unsupported use-case which will never be supported) I applaud this effort. Thank you!

matheusmoreira 5y ago
> I have an unsupported use-case which will never be supported Can you please elaborate?
- fivre 5y ago
  Not OP, but when I tried Wayland way back when, I discovered that libinput didn't let you remap tap buttons, something Xorg does support. That feature is incredibly useful for me, since my touchpad has no physical buttons but does have a dedicated right-click zone, so it's useful to remap two-finger tap to middle-click, since I use that all the time for opening links in new tabs and pasting from the X buffer. The libinput dev's response was a combination of incredulity that someone wouldn't have physical buttons (in like 2014) and a statement that the project would never add this feature. I haven't gone back to Wayland since.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > remap two-finger tap to middle-click You can do this with libinput and Wayland.
  - Chyzwar 5y ago
    I think now xorg is using libinput. https://youtu.be/HllUoT_WE7Y https://youtu.be/HllUoT_WE7Y
  - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
    That "dev" you're criticizing here has been developing libinput solo since the beginning. He asked for help numerous times and never received any. So either step up and do the work, or stop complaining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HllUoT_WE7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HllUoT_WE7Y libinput is yet another of those fundamental libraries that receive almost no developer attention, but get all the blame when something goes wrong: https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/
    - bsjks 5y ago
      He could also not have written libinput to begin with. libinput became the default because of political pressure from Red Hat and now we can’t complain if it’s worse than the project it is replacing?
      - BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
        > libinput became the default because of political pressure from Red Hat I don't know if this is true, but when comparing the KDE configuration screens for both, it sure seems like it must be true. libinput is missing much that synaptics has and doesn't seem to do anything better as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, just because a developer is working hard and pouring his heart and soul into something, doesn't mean the result is actually worthwhile.
        shatteredgate 5y ago
        It's not really true at all. The libinput developer blogged about why having more configuration options has historically not actually been good for the project, or for users of the synaptics driver: https://who-t.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-libinput-doesnt-have-lot-of-config.html https://who-t.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-libinput-doesnt-have-... Particularly, once you add a configuration option, you're now on the hook to support that option indefinitely as long as the project exists and users expect that option to be there. With more maintainers and testers, it may become feasible to have more configuration options, but it's still not a good idea to just keep piling them in. It might be satisfying to see a big configuration panel with a lot of settings but it's a lot less satisfying when you figure out a lot of the configuration options don't work correctly because the underlying system has bugs or is under-maintained or was just never tested with your specific configuration because input is hard and requires near constant testing against an extremely large number of hardware devices.
        BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
        One-size-all doesn't fit me. synaptics gets the job done and libinput doesn't, it's really that simple as far as I'm concerned. An example from elsewhere in this thread: "In libinput the edge scrolling is hard coded to 7mm" Somebody please tell this dude that the size of a human finger varies dramatically from person to person. Not everybody has his hands. As for developer workload, the libinput developer could save himself a lot work by not starting his project in the first place. It doesn't seem to do anything better than synaptics so I don't see why it even exists.
- adisbladis 5y ago
  I exclusively use the trackpoint for mouse input and configuring the edge scroll to occupy the entire touchpad meaning that I can use my thumb to scroll without moving my hand away from the trackpoint. In libinput the edge scrolling is hard coded to 7mm and previous attempts at making it configurable were rejected.
  - garciansmith 5y ago
    Is there a reason to not just hold the middle button to scroll with the trackpoint? Seems easier than needing to move your thumb to the touchpad.
    - lallysingh 5y ago
      Depends on where the button is!
    - vladvasiliu 5y ago
      Some HP laptops (EliteBook 8xx) have a track point but only have two physical buttons. They're also quite large and flimsy, so I expect them to develop enough play that reliably pressing both at the same time becomes frustrating after a while.
    - adisbladis 5y ago
      The way I position my hands over the trackpoint my thumb is already hovering over the touchpad. Having to hold down a button to scroll is terrible ergonomics.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> I have an unsupported use-case which will never be supported Can you please elaborate?

fivre 5y ago
Not OP, but when I tried Wayland way back when, I discovered that libinput didn't let you remap tap buttons, something Xorg does support. That feature is incredibly useful for me, since my touchpad has no physical buttons but does have a dedicated right-click zone, so it's useful to remap two-finger tap to middle-click, since I use that all the time for opening links in new tabs and pasting from the X buffer. The libinput dev's response was a combination of incredulity that someone wouldn't have physical buttons (in like 2014) and a statement that the project would never add this feature. I haven't gone back to Wayland since.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > remap two-finger tap to middle-click You can do this with libinput and Wayland.
- Chyzwar 5y ago
  I think now xorg is using libinput. https://youtu.be/HllUoT_WE7Y https://youtu.be/HllUoT_WE7Y
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
  That "dev" you're criticizing here has been developing libinput solo since the beginning. He asked for help numerous times and never received any. So either step up and do the work, or stop complaining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HllUoT_WE7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HllUoT_WE7Y libinput is yet another of those fundamental libraries that receive almost no developer attention, but get all the blame when something goes wrong: https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/
  - bsjks 5y ago
    He could also not have written libinput to begin with. libinput became the default because of political pressure from Red Hat and now we can’t complain if it’s worse than the project it is replacing?
    - BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
      > libinput became the default because of political pressure from Red Hat I don't know if this is true, but when comparing the KDE configuration screens for both, it sure seems like it must be true. libinput is missing much that synaptics has and doesn't seem to do anything better as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, just because a developer is working hard and pouring his heart and soul into something, doesn't mean the result is actually worthwhile.
      - shatteredgate 5y ago
        It's not really true at all. The libinput developer blogged about why having more configuration options has historically not actually been good for the project, or for users of the synaptics driver: https://who-t.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-libinput-doesnt-have-lot-of-config.html https://who-t.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-libinput-doesnt-have-... Particularly, once you add a configuration option, you're now on the hook to support that option indefinitely as long as the project exists and users expect that option to be there. With more maintainers and testers, it may become feasible to have more configuration options, but it's still not a good idea to just keep piling them in. It might be satisfying to see a big configuration panel with a lot of settings but it's a lot less satisfying when you figure out a lot of the configuration options don't work correctly because the underlying system has bugs or is under-maintained or was just never tested with your specific configuration because input is hard and requires near constant testing against an extremely large number of hardware devices.
        BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
        One-size-all doesn't fit me. synaptics gets the job done and libinput doesn't, it's really that simple as far as I'm concerned. An example from elsewhere in this thread: "In libinput the edge scrolling is hard coded to 7mm" Somebody please tell this dude that the size of a human finger varies dramatically from person to person. Not everybody has his hands. As for developer workload, the libinput developer could save himself a lot work by not starting his project in the first place. It doesn't seem to do anything better than synaptics so I don't see why it even exists.
adisbladis 5y ago
I exclusively use the trackpoint for mouse input and configuring the edge scroll to occupy the entire touchpad meaning that I can use my thumb to scroll without moving my hand away from the trackpoint. In libinput the edge scrolling is hard coded to 7mm and previous attempts at making it configurable were rejected.
- garciansmith 5y ago
  Is there a reason to not just hold the middle button to scroll with the trackpoint? Seems easier than needing to move your thumb to the touchpad.
  - lallysingh 5y ago
    Depends on where the button is!
  - vladvasiliu 5y ago
    Some HP laptops (EliteBook 8xx) have a track point but only have two physical buttons. They're also quite large and flimsy, so I expect them to develop enough play that reliably pressing both at the same time becomes frustrating after a while.
  - adisbladis 5y ago
    The way I position my hands over the trackpoint my thumb is already hovering over the touchpad. Having to hold down a button to scroll is terrible ergonomics.