Input Actions

Input handler that executes user-defined actions, currently in a very early stage of development.

Supported environments: Plasma 6 Wayland

Features

• Stroke gesture: draw any shape
  • Multiple strokes can be specified for each gesture
• Mouse gestures: press, stroke, swipe, wheel
  • Horizontal scrolling wheels are supported
  • Multiple mouse buttons can be specified (and all of them must be pressed in any order)
  • Mouse buttons can still be used for normal clicks and dragging, depending on gestures
  • Supports left, middle, right and 24 extra mouse buttons
• Touchpad gestures: click, pinch, press, rotate, stroke, swipe
  • Supports 2-finger swipe and stroke gestures (requires edge scrolling to be disabled)
  • Click gestures (hard press) are only available on touchpads that do not have separate physical buttons below and instead act as one button
  • Absolute positions and pressures of each finger are provided in variables and can be used in conditions - swipe from edge and tip tap gestures are possible (see examples)
• Actions: run command, emit input, invoke Plasma global shortcut
  • Executed at a specific point of the gesture's lifecycle (begin, update, end, cancel)
  • Update actions can repeat at a specified interval
    • Based on time for press gestures and distance for all other ones
    • Bidirectional motion gestures can have actions with negative intervals
• Thresholds: actions and/or gestures will not trigger unless it is reached (based on time/distance just like intervals)
• Compatible with tools that operate at evdev level (Input Actions operates at compositor level, so it will process events after those tools)
• Selective input event blocking
  • Blocks built-in Plasma gestures if a custom one is activated
• Powerful condition system with many variables and operators
  • End conditions: determine whether a gesture is ended or cancelled
• And more

Installation

NixOS (flakes)

flake.nix:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";

    inputactions = {
      url = "github:taj-ny/InputActions";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };
}

{ inputs, pkgs, ... }:

{
  environment.systemPackages = [
    inputs.inputactions.packages.${pkgs.system}.inputactions-kwin
  ];
}

Building from source

Dependencies

• CMake
• Extra CMake Modules
• Plasma 6
• Qt 6
• KF6
• KWin development packages

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git extra-cmake-modules qt6-tools kwin yaml-cpp libevdev

Debian-based (KDE Neon, Kubuntu, Ubuntu)

sudo apt install git cmake g++ extra-cmake-modules qt6-tools-dev kwin-wayland kwin-dev libkf6configwidgets-dev gettext libkf6kcmutils-dev libyaml-cpp-dev libxkbcommon-dev pkg-config libevdev-dev

Fedora 40, 41

sudo dnf install git cmake extra-cmake-modules gcc-g++ qt6-qtbase-devel kwin-devel kf6-ki18n-devel kf6-kguiaddons-devel kf6-kcmutils-devel kf6-kconfigwidgets-devel qt6-qtbase kf6-kguiaddons kf6-ki18n wayland-devel yaml-cpp yaml-cpp-devel libepoxy-devel libevdev libevdev-devel

openSUSE

sudo zypper in git cmake-full gcc-c++ kf6-extra-cmake-modules kf6-kguiaddons-devel kf6-kconfigwidgets-devel kf6-ki18n-devel kf6-kcmutils-devel "cmake(KF6I18n)" "cmake(KF6KCMUtils)" "cmake(KF6WindowSystem)" "cmake(Qt6Core)" "cmake(Qt6DBus)" "cmake(Qt6Quick)" "cmake(Qt6Widgets)" libepoxy-devel kwin6-devel yaml-cpp-devel libxkbcommon-devel libevdev-devel

Building

git clone https://github.com/taj-ny/InputActions
cd InputActions
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
make
sudo make install

Remove the build directory when rebuilding the effect.

Additional setup (optional)

To gain access to extra touchpad features, create a file at /etc/udev/rules.d/71-touchpad.rules with the following content:

ENV{ID_INPUT_TOUCHPAD}=="1", TAG+="uaccess"

This will give all programs read and write access to all touchpads.

Usage

Note

If the plugin stops working after a system update, you will need to rebuild it. Choose cleanBuild when rebuilding the AUR package.

1. Install the plugin.
2. Open the Desktop Effects page in System Settings.
3. Enable the Input Actions effect in the Tools category.

Documentation

Credits

• Strokognition, wstroke, easystroke - Stroke gestures
• KWin - Gesture handling code (heavily extended and modified)