LucidTouchpadConfig

Revision 8 as of 2009-11-20 17:24:38

Clear message

Summary

KDE is currently missing a way to easily configure a touchpad for advanced options like scroll area, disable touchpad while typing, etc.

KDE should have a kcm module for configuring this. This used to be provided by the qsynaptics package, which is no longer maintained and is only for KDE/QT 3.X.

Release Note

kcm_touchpad provides a kcm config module for KDE, allowing the end-user to tweak their laptop touchpad and modify advanced settings like multi-touch, disable while typing, etc.

Rationale

For most users, the default Xinput settings for their touchpad will be adequate. However, there are cases where advanced settings would be beneficial to tweak how their touchpad behaves. This becomes especially important for things like multi-touch or multi-tap, defining scroll areas, setting sensitivity, etc. Some laptops also have misbehaving touchpads, that are too sensitive with their default settings (e.g. Dell Mini 10v). Allowing the user an easy way to adjust these settings will result in a better overall user experience.

User stories

jr finds that while typing, his hands sometimes accidentally activate the touchpad, causing erroneous clicks or mouse movement. jr wishes there was a way to set the 'disable while typing' feature available in his touchpad to prevent this.

Roman has a very small touchpad, and would like to disable the scrollbar area, as it impedes the available screen area used by the touchpad.

Assumptions

Touchpad interface is exposed via xinput. The kcm module will interface with xinput to get/set touchpad settings.

Design

The kcm module will be a native KDE application, which will allow us to upstream the project to KDE, and will integrate nicely.

Implementation

Create a kcm module to load and set touchpad settings from kconfig. Work has already started on this, by a non-Kubuntu member, and can be found here:

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/kcm_touchpad?content=113335

We will work closely with the developer to provide direction, support and assist in getting this upstreamed.

This will require usability review as well as a peer code review by the Kubuntu devs.

UI Changes

None: This is a new package.

Code Changes

None: This is a new package.

Migration

None: This is a new package and a previous way has not existed up to this point.

Test/Demo Plan

  • Verify features work on a variety of touchpads
  • Verify settings are saved/restored for each setting

Unresolved issues

BoF agenda and discussion

  • kcm touchpad has been updated and seems in pleasing shape for inclusion in Kubuntu
  • we will ask seele to do a usability review, some visual explainations for the more obscure terms would be useful
  • we will review the code for quality and help the developer get it into upstream KDE
  • settings do seem to be saved across reboots, it's unclear where this is done, we should find this out

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