Add continuous three-finger drag gesture for text selection on Wayland#384
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philipbalinov wants to merge 6 commits intobulletmark:masterfrom
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Add continuous three-finger drag gesture for text selection on Wayland#384philipbalinov wants to merge 6 commits intobulletmark:masterfrom
philipbalinov wants to merge 6 commits intobulletmark:masterfrom
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Adds a new DRAG gesture handler and _drag internal command that simulate a held mouse button while tracking finger movement via a persistent uinput virtual device. This enables three-finger drag-to-select text and drag-and-drop on both Wayland and Xorg. Key implementation details: - COMMAND_drag creates a uinput device at startup (not per-gesture) so Wayland's compositor has time to discover it before the first event - DRAG gesture handler intercepts GESTURE_SWIPE events (since libinput has no GESTURE_DRAG type) when a drag config matches the finger count - Handles gesture cancellation mid-drag to ensure BTN_LEFT is released - Requires python3-evdev and user in the 'input' group Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
When a delay is specified (e.g. `_drag 500`), BTN_LEFT is held for that many milliseconds after fingers are lifted. A new three-finger gesture within the window cancels the timer and resumes dragging seamlessly, allowing the user to reposition fingers at the touchpad edge without losing the selection. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Return cls from add_internal_command decorator so isinstance(cmd, COMMAND_drag) works correctly instead of type().__name__ string check - Add threading.Lock to COMMAND_drag to guard shared state accessed from both the main thread and the release timer thread - Initialize self._ecodes = None explicitly before the try block - Wrap bad delay arg in try/except ValueError with a clear warning - Make evdev an optional dependency ([project.optional-dependencies] uinput) so users of the xdotool backend don't need it - Initialize _cmd = None as a class-level attribute, removing the hasattr() guard in cancel() - Comment out the drag gesture in the default conf; users opt in via their personal ~/.config/libinput-gestures.conf Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Any BEGIN event during the lift-and-continue window that is not a matching three-finger drag will now immediately release BTN_LEFT rather than waiting for the timer to expire. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
…setup End the release grace period immediately when a POINTER_MOTION event is seen, so moving a single finger after lifting three does not continue text selection for the duration of the delay. Also document the modprobe / modules-load.d steps needed to ensure /dev/uinput exists before applying the udev rule. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Summary
DRAGgesture handler and_draginternal command that simulate a held mouse button while tracking finger movement via a persistentuinputvirtual deviceMotivation
Three-finger drag for text selection has been broken on GNOME Wayland because the compositor intercepts swipe gestures before any userspace tool can act on them continuously. This has been a frustrating limitation for many users — personally, a pet peeve for over 10 years.
The approach here works around it entirely via
uinput, injectingBTN_LEFT+REL_X/REL_Yevents from a virtual device that the compositor treats like a real mouse.Configuration
Enable by adding to
libinput-gestures.conf:Requires
python3-evdevand the user in theinputgroup:Test plan
BTN_LEFTcleanly🤖 Generated with Claude Code