Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

yochaigal · 2013-06-19 00:08:52

Edit: Solved see posts 6 and 7.

On my Samsung Series 9, the touchpad works very well.
However, when I press the bottom-right corner of the touchpad, it it interprets a right-click - no matter what I do.

I've disabled GNOME's mouse settings daemon, and enabled all the other features I want via syndaemon and Xorg; so two-fingered scrolling for example works fine.
Following this wiki entry I've tried a number of tweaks but to no avail. For example, when I do

synclient RTCornerButton=0

or

synclient RBCornerButton=0

It continues to work - in fact, any integer I put there is ignored. However things like

syndaemon -t -k -i 1 -d &

or

synclient TapButton1=0

Work just fine!

Relevant bits of /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        Option "TapButton1" "0"
        Option "TapButton2" "2"
        Option "TapButton3" "3"
	Option "RTCornerButton" "0" #right-click to bottom right
	Option "RBCornerButton" "0" #right-click to bottom right

Last edited by yochaigal (2013-06-19 13:07:23)

cfr · 2013-06-19 02:16:35

What does e.g.

xinput list-props <id>

give for the relevant <id>?

And/or the output of synclient, I guess. Have you looked through the manual page? Because I don't have keys like those you are using in my output but I do have keys for various *Area* settings.

yochaigal · 2013-06-19 02:23:12

[yochai@sammy ~]$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad                	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             	id=5	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=6	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               	id=7	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                            	id=8	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Webcam SC-13HDL11624N                   	id=9	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard            	id=10	[slave  keyboard (3)]

xinput list-props "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad"
Device 'ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad':
	Device Enabled (134):	1
	Coordinate Transformation Matrix (136):	1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
	Device Accel Profile (259):	1
	Device Accel Constant Deceleration (260):	2.500000
	Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (261):	1.000000
	Device Accel Velocity Scaling (262):	12.500000
	Synaptics Edges (263):	130, 3130, 123, 2159
	Synaptics Finger (264):	1, 1, 0
	Synaptics Tap Time (265):a	180
	Synaptics Tap Move (266):	175
	Synaptics Tap Durations (267):	180, 180, 100
	Synaptics ClickPad (268):	1
	Synaptics Middle Button Timeout (269):	0
	Synaptics Two-Finger Pressure (270):	282
	Synaptics Two-Finger Width (271):	7
	Synaptics Scrolling Distance (272):	79, 79
	Synaptics Edge Scrolling (273):	0, 0, 0
	Synaptics Two-Finger Scrolling (274):	1, 0
	Synaptics Move Speed (275):	1.000000, 1.750000, 0.050264, 0.000000
	Synaptics Off (276):	2
	Synaptics Locked Drags (277):	0
	Synaptics Locked Drags Timeout (278):	5000
	Synaptics Tap Action (279):	0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 3
	Synaptics Click Action (280):	1, 3, 2
	Synaptics Circular Scrolling (281):	0
	Synaptics Circular Scrolling Distance (282):	0.100000
	Synaptics Circular Scrolling Trigger (283):	0
	Synaptics Palm Detection (284):	0
	Synaptics Palm Dimensions (285):	10, 200
	Synaptics Coasting Speed (286):	20.000000, 50.000000
	Synaptics Pressure Motion (287):	30, 160
	Synaptics Pressure Motion Factor (288):	1.000000, 1.000000
	Synaptics Grab Event Device (289):	1
	Synaptics Gestures (290):	1
	Synaptics Capabilities (291):	1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1
	Synaptics Pad Resolution (292):	31, 31
	Synaptics Area (293):	0, 0, 0, 0
	Synaptics Soft Button Areas (294):	1630, 0, 1871, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
	Synaptics Noise Cancellation (295):	19, 19
	Device Product ID (252):	2, 14
	Device Node (253):	"/dev/input/event9"

Last edited by yochaigal (2013-06-19 02:23:50)

cfr · 2013-06-19 02:30:17

So do you want that area defined as a button?

yochaigal · 2013-06-19 02:42:55

I want it to do left click only.

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-19 04:47:11

The relevant part of your 50-synaptics.conf is the section with the identifier of "Default clickpad buttons". The "SoftButtonAreas" is the area you are going to want to change. The synaptics man page lays this out pretty well.

yochaigal · 2013-06-19 13:06:30

Bingo. There is a section called

# This option enables the bottom right corner to be a right button on
# non-synaptics clickpads.
# This option is only interpreted by clickpads.
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Default clickpad buttons"
        MatchDriver "synaptics"
        Option "SoftButtonAreas" "50% 0 82% 0 0 0 0 0"
#       To disable the bottom edge area so the buttons only work as buttons,
#       not for movement, set the AreaBottomEdge
       Option "AreaBottomEdge" "82%"
EndSection

I ignored it because it used the word "ClickPad' which is something I hadn't heard before. This is a ClickPad! I feel stupid now. Thanks for the help, solved.

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-19 15:05:51

yochaigal wrote:

I ignored it because it used the word "ClickPad' which is something I hadn't heard before. This is a ClickPad! I feel stupid now. Thanks for the help, solved.

Yes it is a bit confusing when the entire industry seems to call them touchpads and then this one synaptics driver calls it a clickpad. But when I think about it, the thing is a pad, and it certainly clicks...

I think for the sake of closure on the thread here, it would probably be nice if you posted the actual "SoftButtonAreas" settings you actually ended up with. I think you would just put all zeros, since the first four numbers are the left, right, top, and bottom settings of the right button (repsectively), and the second four numbers are the same, but apply to the middle button. But I think you should indicate your final solution in any case.

yochaigal · 2013-06-19 15:15:06

Sorry, you're absolutely right. See below for the complete file.

[yochai@sammy ~]$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf 
# Example xorg.conf.d snippet that assigns the touchpad driver
# to all touchpads. See xorg.conf.d(5) for more information on
# InputClass.
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE, your distribution will likely overwrite
# it when updating. Copy (and rename) this file into
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d first.
# Additional options may be added in the form of
#   Option "OptionName" "value"
#
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        Option "TapButton1" "0"
        Option "TapButton2" "2"
        Option "TapButton3" "3"
	Option "RTCornerButton" "0" #right-click to bottom right
	Option "RBCornerButton" "0" #right-click to bottom right

# This option is recommend on all Linux systems using evdev, but cannot be
# enabled by default. See the following link for details:
# http://who-t.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-ignore-configuration-errors.html
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad ignore duplicates"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchOS "Linux"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/mouse*"
        Option "Ignore" "on"
EndSection

# This option enables the bottom right corner to be a right button on
# non-synaptics clickpads.
# This option is only interpreted by clickpads.
#Section "InputClass"
#        Identifier "Default clickpad buttons"
#        MatchDriver "synaptics"
#        Option "SoftButtonAreas" "50% 0 82% 0 0 0 0 0"
#       To disable the bottom edge area so the buttons only work as buttons,
#       not for movement, set the AreaBottomEdge
#       Option "AreaBottomEdge" "82%"
#EndSection

# This option disables software buttons on Apple touchpads.
# This option is only interpreted by clickpads.
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Disable clickpad buttons on Apple touchpads"
        MatchProduct "Apple|bcm5974"
        MatchDriver "synaptics"
        Option "SoftButtonAreas" "0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0"
EndSection

Now if I could just fix my suspend issue....

cfr · 2013-06-19 21:19:56

As I understand it only some touchpads are clickpads. A clickpad is the kind where the actual pad is a sort of large button as well. So you can actually click with the whole pad as opposed to just tapping. Mine is one of these though I never use it that way.

EDIT: In fact, I just discovered my config for that is broken and I hadn't noticed.

EDIT EDIT: OK. I seem to have left myself a note to the effect that I wish I could get it to work. No wonder I don't use it . (Basically, I want trackpoint, touchpad configured for right hand and any other mouse configured for left hand but this is not terribly straightforward to figure out. I've got it all working except that the clickpad bit works as secondary rather than primary click although {1,2,3}-finger tap works fine and so do the trackpoint buttons, as well as the any-other-mouse bit. But the clickpad bit seems to go with the any-other-mouse bit rather than the touchpad/trackpoint bit for reasons I don't understand.)

Last edited by cfr (2013-06-19 21:30:13)

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-19 21:25:05

cfr wrote:

As I understand it only some touchpads are clickpads. A clickpad is the kind where the actual pad is a sort of large button as well. So you can actually click with the whole pad as opposed to just tapping. Mine is one of these though I never use it that way.

Yeah that is what I meant. Yes it is a touchpad, but the whole pad can be clicked so that must make it a clickpad. I just feel like I never see these things advertised under the name "clickpad", but then I don't really pay that great of attention to such things either.

You really use tapping instead of clicking? I can't stand tapping... or rather, I guess I can't stand having tapping enabled because my palms hit the trackpad sometimes, which every so often generates a "click". So if tapping is enabled, often times I'll be trying to type something and then an accidental tap will happen and then I'm typing in a whole different window (or text box). If that didn't happen, then maybe I would actually like it, but I have never been able to leave it enabled for long enoughto find out.

cfr · 2013-06-19 21:37:49

See my EDIT EDIT.

Yes, I really use tapping instead of clicking. 99.99999% of the time if I don't have an external mouse attached. If I do have a mouse, I use tapping as well as the mouse but I'm not sure what proportion. A touchpad which can do this is a must for me. Drives me nuts if I have to use a laptop where it isn't supported or configured. I basically use {1,2,3}-finger tap for clicking and I have it set to lock and drag. I forget the term synaptics uses for this. Basically so I can pick something up, move it around without dropping and then click to drop it in place. Takes a bit of fiddling to set up as I usually like it to be more sensitive than defaults and to do more things.

I do remember that when I first got a laptop with a touchpad, the first 2 or 3 days were hell. But after that was heavenly. To be honest, it seems to me that it *ought* to be a complete pain and it *ought* to have the issues you mention. Just it doesn't seem to - at least, hardly ever. Not enough to notice. I find Linux's middle-click-to-paste much more of an issue.

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-19 21:50:09

Hmm... if you are using a touchpad/clickpad and a mouse, woudn't the mouse be handled by evdev, while the trackpad is being handled by synaptics? I'm really not sure about this one, as I don't use an actual mouse on this machine. I have another Arch machine, but it is a headless server, so I never attach a mouse to it anyway.

n fact, I think that the trackpoint (and associated buttons) are also using a different driver than the trackpad as well. In that case, it is just considered a standard ps/2 pointing device I think. So I know that you can redefine the buttons for the trackpoint and have them be different than the trackpad, so I am sure that you could also do this with a mouse.

If you use tapping for the touchpad, then there is really no need for it to be considered "right handed" because it would function the same way whether you are using your left or right hand. Am I right about that, or are there other functions that are specific to which hand you are using in that case? Like for instance, I would imagine that if you use your right hand with side scrolling it is going to be on the right side, and side scrolling for left handers will be on the left side. But tapping seems universal.

cfr · 2013-06-19 22:37:31

So here is my ideal configuration:

mouse: right button - primary click, left button - secondary click, middle button - middle click

trackpoint/trackpad buttons: left - primary click, right - secondary click, middle - middle

clickpad: primary click, click

touchpad: primary click - one finger tap, secondary click - two finger tap, middle click - three finger tap

The issue is that most guides on switching the mouse buttons also switch the tapping so one finger gets secondary click and two finger is needed for click. However, I work around this by basically setting the touchpad tapping configuration to be the opposite of what I want. I do the same for the trackpoint buttons. That way, the modifications to mouse buttons reverse them back to what I want. Since I don't configure the mouse to be the opposite of anything, the modification switches its buttons to be the way I like. However, I cannot figure out how to set the click of the clickpad independently of everything else. That is, I can't find a hack for the clickpad click specifically.

I apologise for bordering on incoherence. I've read almost 300 essays since last Monday afternoon and I'm somewhat brain dead at this point.

$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf 

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
        Option "LockedDrags" "1"
        Option "TapButton1" "3"
        Option "TapButton2" "1"
        Option "TapButton3" "2"
        Option "ClickFinger1" "3"
        Option "ClickFinger2" "1"
        Option "ClickFinger3" "2"
        Option "FingerLow" "20"
        Option "FingerHigh" "25"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad ignore duplicates"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchOS "Linux"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/mouse*"
        Option "Ignore" "on"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "Disable clickpad buttons on Apple touchpads"
        MatchProduct "Apple|bcm5974"
        MatchDriver "synaptics"
        Option "SoftButtonAreas" "0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0"
EndSection

$ cat .trackpoint.conf

/usr/bin/xinput list | /bin/sed -ne 's+^[^ ][^V].*TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint.*id=\([0-9]*\)[^0-9].*$+\1+p' | while read id
do
        /usr/bin/xinput --set-button-map $id 3 2 1 4 5;
done

$ cat .xmodmap 
pointer = 3 2 1 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Basically, modmap switches the buttons universally. Everything else is a work around which switches stuff back. For some reason, I also have KDE setting the mouse to left-handed although I am not entirely sure why I have .xmodmap as well in that case. I do remember I fiddled some to get as much as I could working.

It would obviously be simpler to just configure each device independently but I'm not sure how to do that. I do not want to specify the external mouse by model, for example, because I use different mice with the same laptop depending on where I am.

EDIT: My work around for the tapping is probably from the synaptics manual page which I just re-read and my work around for the trackpoint is based on that. So I assume that this is the way to do it even though it feels horribly hackish.

Last edited by cfr (2013-06-19 23:01:45)

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-20 00:51:29

So let me just clarify here to better my understanding. You set the touchpad with 50-syncpatics.conf, then you set your trackpoint buttons with a script, then apparently (partially?) invert the "mouse" buttons with xmodmap, which in turn also flops the track{pad,point} buttons back to the normal way. Is that right?

If so, I think that it should be that you are setting all three with xorg.conf.d files. Specifically, see evdev(4)'s "ButtonMapping" parameter. So you would basically have some kind of "MatchProduct" or "MatchIsPointer" or something to control the things that evdev catches in 10-evdev.conf, while the touchpad is configured the way you want it and is controlled by your settings in 50-synaptics.conf.

The only issue I can see with that is that you are either going to have to specify the brand of the mouse or if you use MatchIsPointer, you may end up with the mouse and trackpoint being caught by the same configuration section. I'm not sure, but maybe the MatchProduct might be able to function with some kind of globbing, since it recognizes an or operator.

In any case, I feel like there has to be a better way than using three separate tools to have this work.

cfr · 2013-06-20 01:16:08

WonderWoofy wrote:

So let me just clarify here to better my understanding. You set the touchpad with 50-syncpatics.conf, then you set your trackpoint buttons with a script, then apparently (partially?) invert the "mouse" buttons with xmodmap, which in turn also flops the track{pad,point} buttons back to the normal way. Is that right?

Yes. Pretty much. I flip left and right mouse buttons but not the middle one. I really do it this way based on the synaptics manual page which says to flip the settings back in that way if you flip buttons on the mouse. And then the other things were just based on that. I guess I just assumed that the manual page was giving me the best/only way to do it without thinking about it very much.

If so, I think that it should be that you are setting all three with xorg.conf.d files. Specifically, see evdev(4)'s "ButtonMapping" parameter. So you would basically have some kind of "MatchProduct" or "MatchIsPointer" or something to control the things that evdev catches in 10-evdev.conf, while the touchpad is configured the way you want it and is controlled by your settings in 50-synaptics.conf.
The only issue I can see with that is that you are either going to have to specify the brand of the mouse or if you use MatchIsPointer, you may end up with the mouse and trackpoint being caught by the same configuration section. I'm not sure, but maybe the MatchProduct might be able to function with some kind of globbing, since it recognizes an or operator.

This is pretty much the issue. There is also the question of DE interference although I am not entirely clear that is doing much at the moment. To be honest, it worked initially. Then at some point it went haywire and I more-or-less repaired it by trial and error. So I don't have a great sense at this point of what is doing what. You may be right that it should be done through xorg .conf files although I have to say this always seems wrong to me. Linux is a multiuser system. Why would you assume that all users mouse with their left hands? For that reason, I used to script the synaptics stuff in my home directory, too, but I switched to the recommended way when I had issues, I believe.

In any case, I feel like there has to be a better way than using three separate tools to have this work.

I tend to agree but it is not clear to me just how best to do it. It is also not clear that it would solve the actual problem I have although I admit that it might simplify my existing setup. Actually, maybe it would solve the problem. What I need is a way of telling xorg something like "Apply this to everything which is not a touchpad, clickpad or trackpoint i.e. anything which is a regular mouse" but I have not looked into whether this is possible.

WonderWoofy · 2013-06-20 01:24:38

cfr wrote:

You may be right that it should be done through xorg .conf files although I have to say this always seems wrong to me. Linux is a multiuser system. Why would you assume that all users mouse with their left hands?

Yeah, you are probably right that this should not be a universal thing. But I just assumed that because you had actually flipped all the buttons on the 50-synaptics.conf file that the whole idea of having sane defaults for a multi-user system had gone out the window.

cfr wrote:

What I need is a way of telling xorg something like "Apply this to everything which is not a touchpad, clickpad or trackpoint i.e. anything which is a regular mouse" but I have not looked into whether this is possible.

This is why I was musing about whether globbing was allowed in a MatchProduct section. I would venture to say that most mouse devices will likely include something about being a mouse, and apart from that if there are any other outliers, you could probably cover most things with a few globbed or's.

Well, since the trackpoint is ps/2 and the touchpad is driven by synaptics, I wonder if you could specify somehow that it is a usb device. I assume that your machine likely does not have an additional ps/2 port on it anywhere since it is a laptop.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-06-19 00:08:52

Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#2 2013-06-19 02:16:35

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#3 2013-06-19 02:23:12

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#4 2013-06-19 02:30:17

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#5 2013-06-19 02:42:55

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#6 2013-06-19 04:47:11

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#7 2013-06-19 13:06:30

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#8 2013-06-19 15:05:51

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#9 2013-06-19 15:15:06

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#10 2013-06-19 21:19:56

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#11 2013-06-19 21:25:05

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#12 2013-06-19 21:37:49

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#13 2013-06-19 21:50:09

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#14 2013-06-19 22:37:31

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#15 2013-06-20 00:51:29

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#16 2013-06-20 01:16:08

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

#17 2013-06-20 01:24:38

Re: Disable right-click on bottom-right corner of touchpad? [SOLVED]

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