Touchegg - ArchWiki

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# Touchegg

From ArchWiki

Touchegg is a multitouch gesture program, that runs as a user in the background, recognizes gestures, translates them to more conventional types of events and/or performs custom actions in response to them.

Touchegg is not compatible with Wayland.

## Installation

Install toucheggAUR package. Alternatively, it is also available at touchegg-gitAUR. Install toucheAUR if you want a desktop application to configure touchegg.

## Configuration

The default configuration can be found in `/usr/share/touchegg/touchegg.conf`.

To customize it, copy the default configuration to `~/.config/touchegg/touchegg.conf` and make your changes.

It is a basic XML file that defines various gestures. Please note that at this time `TAP_AND_HOLD`, `PINCH`, and `ROTATE`, do not appear to work.

The list of triggers can be found here.

The list of actions can be found here.

The two-fingers scrolling emulation has been droped, due to bad user experience, in the recent 2.0 rewrite of touchegg. To restore it, install xdotool, and add the following to the configuration file :

       <gesture type="SWIPE" fingers="2" direction="DOWN">
         <action type="RUN_COMMAND">
           <repeat>true</repeat>
           <command>xdotool click 4</command>
           <decreaseCommand>xdotool click 5</decreaseCommand>
         </action>
       </gesture>
       <gesture type="SWIPE" fingers="2" direction="UP">
         <action type="RUN_COMMAND">
           <repeat>true</repeat>
           <command>xdotool click 5</command>
           <decreaseCommand>xdotool click 4</decreaseCommand>
         </action>
       </gesture>

Note that on Kde, text gets selected while scrolling (see).

## Start on login

The daemon is started with systemd : `systemctl enable touchegg.service` The client can be loaded from the wm.

### For gnome

1. Hit `alt-f2`;
2. Type `gnome-session-properties`;
3. Hit `add`;
4. In the box labeled "Command" type `touchegg`. Fill in "Name" and "Label" as you choose;
5. Hit `OK`.

Note: `gnome-session-properties` has been removed from `gnome 3.12`. Currently, you can install gnome-session-propertiesAUR from the AUR. See more details in the BBS thread

Alternatively, you can create a desktop entry in ~/.config/autostart/

    ~/.config/autostart/touchegg.desktop

    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=Touchegg
    StartupWMClass=touchegg
    Comment=Gestures for touchpad
    GenericName=Gesture Deamon
    Exec=/usr/bin/touchegg
    Icon=touchegg
    Type=Application
    Path=/usr/bin

### For the startx command

You can modify your .xprofile:

    ~/.xprofile

    touchegg &

Category:

- Input