GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 707857
Enable middle mouse button on touchpad ASUS Zenbook
Last modified: 2016-06-01 22:36:57 UTC
Please offer a checkbox to enable middle mouse button on touchpad of ASUS Zenbook. At least support the models Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A/UX21A/UX32VD, see also https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AsusZenbookPrime#Touchpad The command to enable this is: $ xinput set-prop "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad" "Synaptics Soft Button Areas" 1956 0 1737 0 1304 1955 1737 0 Implementing this will enable users to easily paste selected test with their touchpad, which is usually possible by clicking both left and right at the same time. However, contemporary touchpads function differently but the need for a middle mouse button remains.
The default soft button area uses the same defaults as whatever the touchpad offers on Windows. You should however be able to use 3-finger click to paste. If you really want to change the soft button area, use a script like this one: https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-settings-daemon/tree/plugins/common/input-device-example.sh This is what I did to disable soft area buttons on my Lenovo machine for example: https://gist.github.com/hadess/6779414
I would like to request to open this as a feature request for the following reasons: 1) This is too technical for an average user to do by himself or herself. 2) Enabling the middle mouse button with this command allows for middle button select which is needed for: * https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/multi-links-plus/ * https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/snaplinksplus/ * https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/linkclump/lfpjkncokllnfokkgpkobnkbkmelfefj (see also https://github.com/benblack86/linkclump ) A three-finger tap can be used for a middle button click but not for a middle button select, hence this is in my view a valid feature request.
fwiw, if you have software buttons enabled on a recent distribution with libinput, clicking both the left and right software button simultaneously will produce a middle button.
Thanks but the buttons on many touchpads, such as the Zenbook, physically don't allow to be pressed at the same time.
Are they on a rocker-switch or something? Then definitely file a bug for that against libinput so we can auto-enable some solution to provide middle-button ability out of the box.
That is exactly how the buttons can be described, a rocker-switch. Since, in this respect, I am only an end-user, I have no idea what kind of bug to file for libinput, i.e. what to request. Could you do that please?
Filed here: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94474 Let's move the discussion there to figure out what we'll do for those devices.
Meanwhile, libinput 1.3.0 and later (now at 1.3.1) has been fixed for this. See: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94755 https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2016-April/027832.html https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2016-May/028704.html Please, move status of this bug away from INCOMPLETE to NEW or COMPLETE or whatever is appropriate to move this forward.
Created attachment 328866 [details] Mockup
(In reply to Pander from comment #9) > Created attachment 328866 [details] > Mockup The bug is closed. The mockup is based on a version of GNOME that doesn't even resemble what we ship nowadays. And you can seriously keep it to your local hard drive if the "mockup" is adding a single checkbox. File a new bug. Next time, don't fiddle with the statuses [1].
I'm sorry, I was not aware that I fiddled with the status. Someone set it to WONTFIX but it is a valid feature request as libinput support it. New bug has been files as https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=767099 What I use for GNOME Control Center is 1:3.18.2-1ubuntu6 that is the latest stable that ships with Ubuntu Xenial and is only a month old. Is that really that outdated?
(In reply to Pander from comment #11) > I'm sorry, I was not aware that I fiddled with the status. Someone set it to > WONTFIX but it is a valid feature request as libinput support it. > > New bug has been files as https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=767099 > > What I use for GNOME Control Center is 1:3.18.2-1ubuntu6 that is the latest > stable that ships with Ubuntu Xenial and is only a month old. Is that really > that outdated? Yes, see "Redesigned Mouse and Touchpad Settings": https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.20/more.html.en You also have a theme that's nothing like the upstream GNOME theme, meaning that the mockup loses all interest because it doesn't show what GNOME would look like.
you don't actually need an option for this. the new middle button area is enabled by default and cannot be turned off. the middle button emulation is still there but will disappear over the next couple of libinput releases because with a physical area you don't need the emulation bit. So I don't think adding an option to GNOME CC is needed or preferable