[PATCH] synaptics: Add TouchpadOff=3 to disable pointer motion only

[Andy Lutomirski]

On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 3:22 PM, Peter Hutterer <peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
> On 2/02/13 03:38 , Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Peter Hutterer
>> <peter.hutterer at who-t.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 08:21:02PM -0800, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I have a Lenovo laptop with a trackpoint and a touchpad.  I much
>>>> prefer the trackpoint for moving the cursor, but the touchpad is
>>>> handy for two-finger scrolling.  The Windows driver allows a mode
>>>> with gestures only on the touchpad; add such a mode in Linux too.
>>>> (Leaving the touchpad fully enabled is no good; palm detection is
>>>> spotty at best.)
>>>>
>>>> Signed-off-by: Andy Lutomirski <luto at amacapital.net>
>>>> ---
>>>> I'm a little surprised that this apparently can't be done in the XI2
>>>> core.  Is there a better way?
>>>
>>>
>>> You should be able to get the same effect by setting ConstantDeceleration
>>> on
>>> your device to something really high (50 or so will likely do). The
>>> touchpad
>>> will still submit motion events, but x/y pointer movement will be slowed
>>> down enough to never actually change.
>>>
>>> would that work for you?
>>
>>
>> That seems to work.  The docs are a bit misleading IMO, though -- this
>> decelerates by a factor much more than 50.
>>
>> Are there any easy-to-use hotplug-aware tools for setting XI2
>> properties on a per-device basis?  Doing this in xorg.conf seems kind
>> of sad.
>
>
> why? that's what the InputClass sections were designed for - give you
> configuration that works on a class of devices, even when hotplugged.

Privilege.  Editing xorg.conf requires root; setting XI2 properties does not.

>
> your desktop environment could handle this in the client, but afaik none of
> the major ones currently do set this particular setting.

If GNOME ever adds detailed controls like this, I'll be amazed :/

--Andy