Ubuntu patch unconditionally breaks three-finger tap

[Max Bowsher]

The Ubuntu gnome-settings-daemon package contains a patch disable_three_touch_tap.patch which unconditionally disables three-finger tap.

This is annoying. I want to tap with three fingers to paste.

There's a comment mentioning some kind of gestures, but whatever they are, nothing seems to happen on my system.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: gnome-settings-daemon 3.4.2-0ubuntu14
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Oct 30 23:26:28 2012
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: gnome-settings-daemon
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Everaldo Canuto (ecanuto)]

I just take last few hours to figure out that the problem was on g-s-d, when try to fill a bug report just found this one.

Searching on Google we can see that lots of people try to create a workaround using scripts just to set synaptics option "TapButton3" to "2". Just try to search on Google for "ubuntu synclient TapButton3=2" and you guys can see how much trouble this patch is causing.

Tested here and after remove this patch everthing just start to works perfect.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, the context of this change is in https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2012-February/003694.html

"The issue is that when three tap is performed on a touchpad, a middle button click may be emitted.
...
disabling three-touch tap to click by default is the best option. Users who want the functionality are still free to enable it themselves using the xinput utility
...
The Unity action on a three-touch tap would be to show the resize ("love") handles."

[Everaldo Canuto (ecanuto)]

Thank you for the link, it explains why it is disabled but it is not true that we can enable it using xinput or xorg.conf because every time gnome-settings-daemon starts it disable three-touch again. Also, when system came back from suspend it also disable again three-touch.

So, I understand the problem but like all other distros and also GNOME by default, leave three-touch enabled is a better option.

If we really want to have it correctly implemented then we must create another gsettings entry to control this behavior so we can use it to enable or disable this behavior. Also, a much better option is to have an option on gnome-control-center to control this setting.

In any case, until we have it properly implemented (I can implement it if you agree) I think that is better to disable this patch.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> So, I understand the problem but like all other distros and also GNOME by default, leave three-touch enabled is a better option.

Other distros don't have gestures like unity has

> If we really want to have it correctly implemented then we must create another gsettings entry to control this behavior so we can > use it to enable or disable this behavior. Also, a much better option is to have an option on gnome-control-center to control this
> setting.
> In any case, until we have it properly implemented (I can implement it if you agree)

You are welcome to work on a patch for that, we will be happy to review it

> I think that is better to disable this patch.

Not sure how you went to this conclusion but:
- we got only 1 report so far with 2 users declaring to be annoyed by the issue
- there are other ways to do a middle click
- there is no other way to do gestures
- gestures are important in the default ubuntu desktop

the normal conclusion there is "we should keep the patch enabled", what you suggest is to trade an annoyance for broken gestures on the default environment of the distribution, that's not really something we want to do

[Everaldo Canuto (ecanuto)]

Well, so, it just break Unity. I supposed that we can't remove it then :(

I will work on a patch so we can have it for 13.04.

Just one last thing, when you say "there are other ways to do a middle click", it is not true, I understand that we need it for Unity but all other way to enable it is just workarounds that don't works with suspend or if you open gnome-control-center.