Arch Linux

nil

Member

Registered: 2012-10-15

Posts: 33

Touchpad Synaptics: Touch-and-drag while scrolling

Say there's text you want to highlight, but it spans more than the current amount displayed on your screen. On a touchpad, I do the touch-and-drag gesture (tap once, then drag with touchpad) until I highlight all of the text. However, if the text is large, then merely putting the mouse at the bottom of the screen makes for considerbly slow scrolling. Normally on Windows, I would instead apply a second finger to drag up and down, which would scroll the screen at a desired faster rate.

Is there an equivalent that you can do in Linux? The TapAndDragGesture in synaptics allows for the touch-and-drag feature, but it doesn't allow for the extra one where you can apply the second finger to scroll up/down while still highlighting. I haven't found any other alternatives that allow one to highlight while scrolling relatively fast. (LockedDrags doesn't do this either.)

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Github.

GSF1200S

Member

Registered: 2008-12-24

Posts: 474

Re: Touchpad Synaptics: Touch-and-drag while scrolling

Say there's text you want to highlight, but it spans more than the current amount displayed on your screen. On a touchpad, I do the touch-and-drag gesture (tap once, then drag with touchpad) until I highlight all of the text. However, if the text is large, then merely putting the mouse at the bottom of the screen makes for considerbly slow scrolling. Normally on Windows, I would instead apply a second finger to drag up and down, which would scroll the screen at a desired faster rate.

Is there an equivalent that you can do in Linux? The TapAndDragGesture in synaptics allows for the touch-and-drag feature, but it doesn't allow for the extra one where you can apply the second finger to scroll up/down while still highlighting. I haven't found any other alternatives that allow one to highlight while scrolling relatively fast. (LockedDrags doesn't do this either.)

This topic isnt really something normally answered in the Arch forums. Im not saying people wont answer (as I myself am going to), but generally this is something better for upstream developers to consider as opposed to Arch users. Just trying to point you in a more productive direction for the future Many times if you ask something like this Archers will just ignore you so you get the point..

That said, my touchpad on Arch works exactly as you describe desiring. I double-tap 1 finger to initiate the highlight function, then move down to select more text of course. If I reach the end of the visible page, I can simply swipe my second finger and it will initiate vertical scrolling without affecting text selection. FWIW, I switched to xf86-input-synaptics-git in the AUR for multitouch, and that is how it works for me.

I do not have edge scrolling or sustained scrolling enabled on my system as it drives me nuts. When I really want to select a ton of text quickly, Ill initiate by holding the left touchpad mouse button down, then two-finger scrolling up or down. That is the easiest way for me..

nil

Member

Registered: 2012-10-15

Posts: 33

Re: Touchpad Synaptics: Touch-and-drag while scrolling

@GSF1200S: Actually, I asked the question here because I was wondering if there were already an existing method that could do this. I just tried xf86-input-synaptics-git (was using xf86-input-synaptics previously), and it hasn't helped. Did you mean xf86-input-synaptics-multitouch-git or xf86-input-synaptics-mtpatch?

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Github.

GSF1200S

Member

Registered: 2008-12-24

Posts: 474

Re: Touchpad Synaptics: Touch-and-drag while scrolling

@GSF1200S: Actually, I asked the question here because I was wondering if there were already an existing method that could do this. I just tried xf86-input-synaptics-git (was using xf86-input-synaptics previously), and it hasn't helped. Did you mean xf86-input-synaptics-multitouch-git or xf86-input-synaptics-mtpatch?

Nope. I use xf86-input-synaptics-git. The mtpatch and multitouch versions didnt work at all for me. The xf86-input-synaptics package in the main repos worked, but no mutitouch features worked.

You need to go to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf and edit to enable the features you want enabled.

Also, it might help others if we knew what computer you have, and the results of:

xinput -list

You will need the xorg-xinput package installed for this command to work. For reference I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T530.