Bug 513779 - Many programs do not support pen tablet inputs
Summary: Many programs do not support pen tablet inputs
Status: REPORTED
Alias: None
Product: kwin
Classification: Plasma
Component: wayland-generic (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.5.4
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR major
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KWin default assignee
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-12-24 11:45 UTC by Julien Kaspar
Modified: 2025-12-24 11:45 UTC (History)
0 users

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Description Julien Kaspar 2025-12-24 11:45:59 UTC
SUMMARY
I was considering to make this into specific reports for each application, but maybe there is a more general way to fix this.

I am using a pen tablet as my primary mouse input device. The problem is that pen inputs seem to be handled in a special way and lack support in many cases (even on KDE itself in various places).
This is a primary reason that prevents me to fully switch over to Wayland.
Apps like Kwrite, Strawberry and AnyType are always completely unresponsive to pen inputs. There's always a good chance that apps I install will not support pen tablets. 

The responsibility seems to be on the apps to fix this themselves. But since none of them need to use the pen tablet specific features (pen tilt, rotation and pressure), could it be possible to make them interpret the pen inputs as mouse inputs by default? 
Pen specific functionality could be opt-in, which could make pen tablet support possible out of the box.
But this is coming from someone who has no idea how it is actually working under the hood.

If I could work around this issue by rebinding the pen inputs per-application, I would. I'd rebind them to regular left, middle and right mouse buttons and keep them on regular pen button assignment on art software where it is needed.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Use a pen tablet in Kwrite 

OBSERVED RESULT
No pen inputs are used by the program

EXPECTED RESULT
Pen pressure and side buttons should always be interpreted as left, middle and right mouse buttons by default.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Fedora Linux 43
KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.21.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1
Kernel Version: 6.17.12-300.fc43.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7840U w/ Radeon  780M Graphics
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (30.6 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon 780M Graphics
Manufacturer: Framework
Product Name: Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen 7040Series)
System Version: A7

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION