Bug 92015 - RFE: Please support tap-and-drag for right and middle buttons
Summary: RFE: Please support tap-and-drag for right and middle buttons
Status: RESOLVED MOVED
Alias: None
Product: Wayland
Classification: Unclassified
Component: libinput (show other bugs)
Version: 1.0.1
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Linux (All)
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Wayland bug list
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
: 100355 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2015-09-16 02:07 UTC by Anders Kaseorg
Modified: 2018-06-05 09:57 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
i915 platform:
i915 features:


Attachments

Description Anders Kaseorg 2015-09-16 02:07:01 UTC
With the synaptics driver, I could do a two finger tap followed by one finger down and move to achieve a right button drag, and a three finger tap followed by one finger down and move to achieve a middle button drag.  libinput should support this too.  (I use it all the time to resize windows with Alt+middle drag.)
Comment 1 Peter Hutterer 2015-11-09 06:01:55 UTC
How exactly does the synaptics version work for two/three finger drag? When dragging, how many fingers do you have down?

And which WM supports resizing with a middle drag?
Comment 2 Anders Kaseorg 2015-11-09 10:27:17 UTC
Like I said, three finger tap followed by one finger down and move.  (So, to answer your question, one.)

All the window managers I’ve used in recent memory support resize with Alt+middle drag by default: at least Metacity, Compiz, Unity, and GNOME Shell, to name a few.
Comment 3 Peter Hutterer 2015-11-11 01:10:34 UTC
I wonder what setting needs to be enabled and where. This doesn't work on gnome classic or gnome 3 here, but it does work in gnome on wayland.

Anyway. Right/middle drag is a unusual interaction on most desktops, I wonder: have you ever seen unintentional right drags when you wanted a right-click + move? I'm wondering if a more conservative option here would be to use a 2fg tap followed by a 2fg move, or three fingers in the case of middle click.
Comment 4 Anders Kaseorg 2015-11-11 01:52:36 UTC
> I wonder what setting needs to be enabled and where. This doesn't work on
> gnome classic or gnome 3 here, but it does work in gnome on wayland.

The relevant configuration settings are

https://github.com/GNOME/gsettings-desktop-schemas/blob/3.18.1/schemas/org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences.gschema.xml.in#L6-L26

Apparently the default changed in GNOME 3.6 from <Alt> to <Super>:

https://github.com/GNOME/gsettings-desktop-schemas/commit/19fe99f2f9ed8ebc77fd28465906db33c4782604

but Ubuntu overrides it back to <Alt>:

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/wily/ubuntu-default-settings/wily/revision/2#debian/ubuntu-default-settings.gsettings-override
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-branches/ubuntu/wily/ubuntu-gnome-default-settings/wily/revision/2#debian/ubuntu-gnome-default-settings.gsettings-override

So, try Super+middle drag?

> have you ever seen unintentional right drags when you wanted a right-click +
> move?

I don’t remember having such a problem.  Do you see unintentional left drags when you want a left-click + move?
Comment 5 Peter Hutterer 2015-11-11 02:09:32 UTC
(In reply to Anders Kaseorg from comment #4)
> So, try Super+middle drag?

tried that but didn't work except under Wayland. doesn't really matter though, let's assume it's still there and works :)


> > have you ever seen unintentional right drags when you wanted a right-click +
> > move?
> 
> I don’t remember having such a problem.  Do you see unintentional left drags
> when you want a left-click + move?

sometimes, yes. One of my touchpads has a broken button so I can only tap with it and I do trigger this sometimes. but left-click and drag is a different interaction than right-click and drag, the latter is significantly less common. And from a UI point of view, right-click and drag doesn't usually do anything whereas in most cases a stuck left click becomes obvious to the user.

though maybe I'm just overthinking it, if it doesn't do much anyway, having it stuck doesn't hurt that badly either. What do you think of the two-finger move idea?
Comment 6 Anders Kaseorg 2015-11-11 02:26:20 UTC
I could probably get used to the difference.  I note that it is still a difference, and it could make things hard for users moving between synaptics systems and libinput systems.  (I checked, the proposed gesture doesn’t work in synaptics: a 2 finger tap followed by 2 finger move just causes scroll events with the right button held down.  I’m not aware of any use cases for this effect.)  But I won’t presume to speak for such users, since you have as much information about them as I do.
Comment 7 Peter Hutterer 2015-12-01 07:19:34 UTC
fyi, not opposed to the idea if we can make it work but I don't have time to implement this right now, sorry.
Comment 8 Tim Allen 2016-03-14 02:56:33 UTC
Another use-case: in games like Minecraft, holding right-click to mine resources is pretty important, so libinput will need to support it eventually.
Comment 9 Peter Hutterer 2017-03-26 23:59:37 UTC
*** Bug 100355 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Peter Hutterer 2018-03-12 04:12:48 UTC
Help needed.

Please do not add 'me too' to this bug, we need this feature implemented (or at least ideas on what to implement). see comment #7.
Comment 11 John 2018-04-30 18:23:18 UTC
Hope this doesn't count as a "me too", but I have an implementation idea that's different from the suggestions above.  This may actually need its own bug; I can't decide.

My issue is that I have a Trackpoint mouse ("eraser mouse") and when scroll wheel emulation is enabled there's no way to do a middle-click-drag (because as soon as you hold down the middle mouse button, it activates the scroll wheel emulation).

The thought I had, and I admit this is hacky and I'm open to suggestions, was that if you hold the middle mouse button down for a threshold amount of time without moving the pointer, it would switch back from scroll wheel emulation to normal behaviour (where the middle button is acting like a middle button again).  So you can do a middle-click-drag, you just have to hold the mouse button down for say 1 second before you can start dragging.  Not perfect, but certainly better than not ever being able to do it at all.

Thoughts?  And again, let me know if touchpads and Trackpoints are apples and oranges and I'll open this in its own bug.
Comment 12 Peter Hutterer 2018-04-30 22:56:05 UTC
John, please file a separate bug for this, this bug is specifically about tap-and-drag for right and middle buttons
Comment 13 GitLab Migration User 2018-06-05 09:57:45 UTC
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to freedesktop.org's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/issues/1.


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