Bug 513670

Summary:	introduce shortcut which blocks keyboard and mouse to prevent unwanted input
Product:	[Plasma] kwin	Reporter:	m.wege
Component:	input	Assignee:	KWin default assignee <kwin-bugs-null>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	duha.bugs, kdedev, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	6.5.4
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	CachyOS
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description m.wege 2025-12-21 19:05:09 UTC

Since a few months, I have a cat, which likes to disrupt me watching movies and interrupts video sconferences on my laptop (no external screen, keyboard or mouse) by walking on the keyboard, touchpad and "pressing" things. I would love to have a 3 key-short-cut, which turns off all input from the keyboard and/or touchpad after pressing this combination until this short-cut is pressed again (thus it should still be able to receive input from at least these keys if they are pressed at the same time).

In the forum someone suggested the shortcut to be Metha-Shift-Paws (which is very unfortunately that the later key does not exist) ;-)

If this is implemented, I am sure KDE / Plasma is closer to world domination ;-)

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2025-12-22 20:59:59 UTC

This is a pretty hilarious use case.

If we implemented such a thing, it would need to be off by default (or have no shortcut by default), to prevent people from triggering it by accident and locking *themselves* out of their computers! That's probably what the cats are trying to get us to do.

Comment 2 m.wege 2025-12-22 22:43:18 UTC

I agree. It is hilarious. I also assume, I am not alone. I agree, it should be off by default, but somehow discoverable.

Comment 3 TraceyC 2026-01-05 16:55:42 UTC

Doing a brief internet search, I found other valid use-cases different people have had for this kind of shortcut

- Cleaning the keyboard / mouse
- Preventing unwanted input when a keyboard is in a backpack during transit
- Preventing unwanted chatter from a keyboard with misfiring keys

I'll set this to confirmed so the developers can consider it