[Wayland-bugs] [Bug 99212] Button areas on Lenovo Thinkpad W540

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99212

--- Comment #8 from Markus Schmidt <schmidt at boomshop.net> ---
Hey Peter,

(In reply to Peter Hutterer from comment #7)
> Exposing the full button configuration is something I'm very hesitant to
> expose, especially for what is now 3 year old hardware. Plus, options fix it
> on exactly one machine and then spread like an STD across forums, half the
> time without the users knowing what they actually set. So I'm looking for
> something that improves the touchpad for every user with a simple update.

>From my understanding as UX/UI dev both (extreme) ways is a can of worms:

* I'm not aware of any slightly complex interaction scheme where "one button
fits all" i.e. "one config fits all" works. One might make things usable for
lots of people in a "WFM" manner but it always stays behind users expectations
or technical capabilities.

* OTOH handing out every configurable value might lead to lots of support but
raises the need for a) mature manuals and/or b) a more or less self-explaining
user interface.

I guess the paragraph I quoted in the initial report doesn't come out of
nothing so it seems you were already facing lots of requests about at least
some configuration. I fully understand your reservation against letting users
fuck up their input devices by altering some random values in a text file -
but.

What about a helpful, easy-to-use, restriction-aware _graphical_ user interface
for configuring libinput? I don't mean a couple of meaningless faders or
numerical values but something like I did with e.g. xplanetFX (
https://youtu.be/x9SyYLu_M6M ) or WifiRadar ( http://bit.ly/2irXgvY )

I would love to offer my help in this topic and to build a GUI for configuring
the users-most-wanted settings of libinput. This way

* total noobs would still be able to use libinput the OSFA-way
* pro users with the need of having a custom configuration could easily tweak
some of the most demanded values via a (restricted) GUI without the jeopardy of
making their input devices unusable (preventing from lots of support requests)
and
* hardcore users would still be able to fuck up their systems intendedly by
tweaking a text file

> there are a few options we have here: we could make the buttons bigger while
> the trackpoint is in use and for longer afterwards. This would avoid the
> issue with pointer movement but may still have the left button out of reach
> for you. And from what I gather, the issue isn't so much that you're missing
> the middle/right button areas but rather that you can't left-click (without
> pointer movement) below those buttons - that's really what you need, right?
> 
> If so, then extending the timeout to include most of the northern part of
> the touchpad for palm detection for longer should fix that. It's not the
> same as your configuration (buttons would remain the same size) but you can
> now click below them to trigger left-clicks.

After using libinput for a couple of weeks now I still find myself e.g. closing
tabs in my browser while I only wanted to scroll down (I'm using firegestures),
hammering on my clickpad cause it doesn't react (note to myself: LIFT THE THUMB
FIRST, IDIOT!) or opening menus on my desktop instead of switching to the next
one. So trying to fiddle with timeouts or other settings might make it a bit
more usable to myself but - everyone has different
fingers/hands/wrists/touch-/clickpads - so possibly it makes things worse for
others. So for my clickpad the button zones don't fit the marked ones on the
hardware, and if they would they would still be quite uncomfortable for my
work.

So I would like to finish with a possibly controversial statement - what I love
*most* on Linux is the fact that normally everything is tweak-able to the users
needs. You don't like something? Open a terminal and change the configuration.
I really don't understand e.g. the Gnome3 way - strip off every single
button/menu entry/config to force the user to use the software *their* way. I
love to have (hidden if you like) choices.

Thanks for still taking care of my needs, best Markus

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