Bug 441717 - Feature Request: Touchpad enable Tap-to-Click by default
Summary: Feature Request: Touchpad enable Tap-to-Click by default
Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM
Alias: None
Product: neon
Classification: KDE Neon
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Other Other
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Neon Bugs
URL:
Keywords: usability
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2021-08-29 19:37 UTC by BOF
Modified: 2022-05-12 17:09 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
nate: Usability-


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Description BOF 2021-08-29 19:37:54 UTC
I suggest that the default setting for 'Tap-to-Click' on the touchpad in KDE neon is set to ON by default.

As far as I was able to test past and current OSs, this setting is on by default. It would also make it easier for new users who test KDE neon. When I first tested KDE neon I thought my touchpad was not recognised correctly or that it would miss some functionality.

I have tested this on KDE neon 5.22.4 that was ran as a live system from a USB stick - not sure if there is any difference for that.

I posted this feature request here because of https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=135593 - If this is not the right place, please let me know!

I also have no idea if this request is put in the correct category. Feel free to change them!
Comment 1 Duncan 2021-10-07 17:59:27 UTC
*Extremely* bad usability not to have the only pointing device available, a buttonless touchpad in my case, not enabled with tap-to-click by default.

Twice now, while testing whether a bug exists with a clean/blank user config (empty home dir), I've ended up without a working pointer and had to keyboard-navigate to the touchpad kcm, then tab/arrow/space/enter/alt-A-apply to enable the touchpad and tap-to-click, after which I have at least /basic/ pointer functionality to do the rest of basic config before I can test whatever bug I was testing.

I can only imagine that a normal new-to-plasma user would simply assume it's all broken and without a working pointer or knowledge of how to get out of plasma without one, may have to actually restart the computer and never *ever* try *that* again, meaning never trying plasma again, in ordered to avoid the breakage!

(Meanwhile, I'm confirming the bug, and given the invitation, moving it to systemsettings.  After that I'll try to switch the component to touchpad, but it's still giving me neon comonents and not switching to systemsettings components, until I save the systemsettings change.)
Comment 2 Duncan 2021-10-07 18:05:47 UTC
(Successfully changed the component, and since I'm on live-git where it still occurs, set master.  Also adding usability flag.  With any luck that'll help get it the needed attention.)
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2021-10-29 04:49:13 UTC
Not something we can do in KDE as this is a default setting of the Libinput driver. It's up to distros to override it, not us.

Speaking personally, I don't like tap-to-click at all and much prefer physically clicking. I know the developer of the Libinput driver feels similarly. So it's not a universally-agreed-upon thing that tap-to-click is better. :)
Comment 4 Duncan 2021-10-29 06:39:36 UTC
If it's a distro thing that means Neon was correct after all, as that's the kde-level distro.

And it's still *extremely* bad usability to have the only available pointing device, a buttonless touchpad, now we know *deliberately* left broken.
Comment 5 Duncan 2021-10-29 06:51:12 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #3)
> Speaking personally, I don't like tap-to-click at all and much prefer
> physically clicking.

Arguably true when there's a device with a physical clicker.  But there's not, when the only available pointing device has no physical buttons.

> I know the developer of the Libinput driver feels
> similarly. So it's not a universally-agreed-upon thing that tap-to-click is
> better. :)

In what way is disabling clicking on the only pointing device available better than having it actually work?  If people don't like it and it's on, it's easy enough to turn off.

But if people are left with an unclickable pointing device because the only one available is disable by default, it's horribly difficult to turn on, all but impossible if you don't already know where to navigate and you're left to trial-and-error -- without a working clicker!
Comment 6 Nate Graham 2021-10-29 14:42:57 UTC
(In reply to Duncan from comment #5)
> In what way is disabling clicking on the only pointing device available
> better than having it actually work?  If people don't like it and it's on,
> it's easy enough to turn off.
> 
> But if people are left with an unclickable pointing device because the only
> one available is disable by default, it's horribly difficult to turn on, all
> but impossible if you don't already know where to navigate and you're left
> to trial-and-error -- without a working clicker!
I think you may be confused. For buttonless touchpads, you generally press down on the pad to click. There will be an audible button press sound, because the whole touchpad is one big button. You don't have to tap to click.

If press-to-click doesn't work with your buttonless touchpad, it is quite broken.
Comment 7 Duncan 2021-10-29 20:47:25 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #6)
> I think you may be confused. For buttonless touchpads, you generally press
> down on the pad to click. There will be an audible button press sound,
> because the whole touchpad is one big button. You don't have to tap to click.
> 
> If press-to-click doesn't work with your buttonless touchpad, it is quite
> broken.

Logitech t650 wireless rechargeable touchpad.  It was introduced when Windows 8 gesture support was the new big thing (Wikipedia says in 2012) and is long discontinued tho it's still available from private resellers at jacked up prices ($300 new, $100 used, IIRC I paid ~$50 new back then, but it's still in demand with some due to its relative robustness and "natural pointing" usage pattern that can help reduce repetitive motion disorder) from Amazon.  The face is just a bare pad, tho it did have one physical button, designed to be the context-click aka right-click button, as the bottom-right foot-pad.  But it was /designed/ with tap-to-click for the primary button and (without remapping the bottom-right-foot-button secondary-to-primary) has no other alternative for that.  (And FWIW, the foot-button is now long gone as well, but two-finger-tap was always easier for me anyway so that never bothered me.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Logitech_products#Touchpads

https://www.amazon.com/LOG910003057-Logitech-Wireless-Rechargeable-Touchpad/dp/B0093H4WT6

So it may well be "quite broken" by your definition, but it works and has helped keep repetitive-motion-disorder at bay for me, and it needs tap-to-click because there never was a physical primary button at all and the physical secondary's long gone.

Now personally it'd be easier for me (as a gentooer building my own packages anyway, just drop the patch in the appropriate auto-apply dir) to find and hack-patch the boolean default, but we already know there's at least the original bug filer who needed the functionality as well, and surely there are others.  I think it's worth it, particularly when it could be as easy as a default value flip (tho a bit harder if logic to enable it only when a touchpad is the only available pointing device is added), and the penalty for getting it wrong is a practically unusable system due to lack of ability to click.
Comment 8 Nate Graham 2021-10-29 21:36:28 UTC
What an interesting piece of hardware. I would recommend that you submit an issue report to Libinput (the touchpad driver project) at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/-/issues/ asking for tap-to-click to be enabled by default automatically for this device. This strikes me as reasonable because the hardware was designed to be used in that way.
Comment 9 Nate Graham 2022-05-10 15:30:57 UTC
Neon Devs said no in https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436077#c6. Read there for the explanation.
Comment 10 Adrián López Galera 2022-05-12 17:03:14 UTC
I request the same (I did not see this bug report): https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=451872

For me, the actual setting is a bad design decision. In fact, I consider it a 15-minute bug from user expectation.

Regards.
Comment 11 Nate Graham 2022-05-12 17:09:52 UTC
See Bug 429665.