No way to change touchpad two-finger tap behaviour

[Aditya Bhargava]

There is no way to change the behaviour for a two-finger tap on a touchpad. The default is right-click; I would like to change it to middle-click (for e.g. opening links in new tabs).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: elementary OS 0.2
Package: elementary-desktop 1.295-0~369~precise1 [origin: LP-PPA-elementary-os-daily]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-39.62-generic 3.2.39
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-39-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.1+elementary3~precise1
Architecture: amd64
CrashDB: elementary_meta
Date: Tue Apr 2 15:05:48 2013
InstallationMedia: elementary OS 0.2 "Luna" - Beta 1 amd64 (20121114)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: elementary-meta
SuspiciousXErrors:

ThirdParty: True
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Jodie Robinson (jodiematthewrobinson)]

If you press the left and right mouse buttons at the same time it does a middle click.

It would be nice to have an option.

[Aditya Bhargava (rightaditya)]

Thanks Jodie, I didn't know that. I would still prefer a tap, though, as I find it a bit of a pain to try and time the two button presses correctly. Taps are easier, and since the right mouse button already provides right-button functionality, the next priority should be middle-click, rather than duplicating the right-click.

[Sergiu Terman (terman-sergiu)]

I found a work around for this problem. Though it appears odd, it works.
You can set input device(in this case touchpad) using "xinput". Here are the steps:
1) `xinput --list`` will view all the devices on your machine
2) `xinput list-props "Device Name"` (in my case was ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad), will view all the input properties of the device
3) Now in the displayed list you need to focus on "Synaptics Tap Action 0 0 0 0 1 2 3" (Not sure for what are used firs 4 digits but) the last 3 digits are what you need. The 5th is one tap, 6th double tap, 7th - triple tap. Now you have to set 5th digit to 1 (if you want on single tap to trigger left-click), 6th digit set to 2 (if you want on double tap to trigger middle-click), and 7th digit set to 3 (if you want on triple tap to trigger right-click). If you will set the the variables to 0, then nothing will happen on action.
4) to set this variables you have to use the following command :
`xinput --set-prop --type=int --format=8 "Device Name" "Property Name" 0 0 0 0 1 2 3`
(my case `xinput --set-prop --type=int --format=8 "ETPS/2 Elantech Touchpad" "Synaptics Tap Action" 0 0 0 0 1 2 3`).
Consult man page for xinput for more details http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lucid/man1/xinput.1.html

Now the problem remains that you have to execute this command every time you log on your OS. To solve this you can write a script and add it to autostart rutine.
Thank you, I hope it helped.

[Timo Reimerdes (timorei)]

I personally use this (elantech touchpad in asus ux32vd - with the raring backport kernel in luna - works with the 3.12 as well)

$ sudo touch /usr/local/bin/tapbuttons.sh
$ sudo scratch-text-editor /usr/local/bin/tapbuttons.sh

#!/bin/sh
# 1 finger = left-click, 3 = middle-click , 2 = right-click
export DISPLAY=":0"
synclient TapButton1=1 TapButton2=3 TapButton3=2

$ sudo chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/tapbuttons.sh

Add to startup applications via switchboard

///----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you should ever encounter problems of your settings getting lost during mid-session (hasn't happened for me in a looong time) - create a cron to re-apply this:

$ sudo touch /etc/cron.d/tapbuttons
$ sudo scratch-text-editor /etc/cron.d/tapbuttons

# /etc/cron.d/tapbuttons
# Reloading touchpad & keyboard settings
*/5 * * * * your_user_name /usr/local/bin/tapbuttons.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
# End of cron job