Feature request: Allow a gesture to trigger multiple _internal commands (diagonal workspace navigation)

[gschaffner]

Description

It seems that the way commands are executed doesn't allow for full shell syntax. For example, a configuration with gesture swipe right_up 3 notify-send "hi" && notify-send "hello" will cause an error when the gesture is triggered:

Invalid number of options.
Command '['notify-send', 'hi', '&&', 'notify-send', 'hello']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

However, this is not unfixable. Examples of this sort can be made to behave as intended with bash -c "$command". For example, configuration gesture swipe right_up 3 bash -c "notify-send "hi" && notify-send "hello"" will cause the intended behavior of two separate notifications being sent.

However, this bash -c "$command" method doesn't allow one to trigger multiple _internal commands with a single gesture. For example, a configuration like gesture swipe right_up 3 _internal --col=2 ws_down && _internal --row=3 ws_up would be a useful extension to the usual 4 orthogonal gestures. However, it causes an error when launching libinput-gestures:

usage: _internal [-h] [-w] [--row ROW] [--col COL] {ws_up,ws_down}
_internal: error: unrecognized arguments: && _internal ws_down

If you have Super_L+Control_L+{Up,Down,Left,Right} bound to switch workspaces, a potential workaround for this example is gesture swipe right_up 3 xte 'keydown Super_L' 'keydown Control_L' 'key Down' 'key Left' 'keyup Super_L' 'keyup Control_L'. (xte is in package xautomation.) Another workaround would be to call an external script that works with wmctrl -d and -s.

Would you be open to a small PR that adds new _internal commands for diagonal workspace navigation? And possibly also ws_right and ws_left commands, allowing for more easily-read configs?

Version Info

$ libinput-gestures -l
libinput-gestures: session KDE+x11 on Linux-4.19.69-1-MANJARO-x86_64-with-arch-Manjaro-Linux, python 3.7.4, libinput 1.14.1
/usr/bin/libinput-gestures: hash 34ab6c1e45b5673bf2b143a6321c81c4
Gestures configured in ~/.config/libinput-gestures.conf:
swipe up         3 _internal --col=2 ws_up
swipe down       3 _internal --col=2 ws_down
swipe left       3 _internal --row=3 ws_up
swipe right      3 _internal --row=3 ws_down
swipe up         4 xdotool key XF86AudioPlay
swipe down       4 xdotool key XF86AudioPlay
swipe left       4 xdotool key XF86AudioNext
swipe right      4 xdotool key XF86AudioPrev
swipe_threshold 400
timeout 1.0
libinput-gestures: device /dev/input/event11: SYNA7DB5:00 06CB:7DB7 Touchpad

[bulletmark]

The second last paragraph in the configuration section discusses this and shows you the easy way to do what you want, i.e. put everything you want to do in a shell script (with appropriate shebang).

[gschaffner]

Thanks for the quick response!

I also thought an an external script would be one good way to accomplish this behavior. Since it's a closely related task to _internal ws_up and ws_down though, do you think that a PR to add this feature directly to libinput-gestures _internal is reasonable?

[bulletmark]

The _internal command exists really just to provide a default for switching workspaces in a DE and Wayland/Xorg independent manner, i.e. it works for GNOME, KDE out of the box.

I see that the shell script issue is not the real point of your problem here. You are suggesting to augment the _internal command with some more sub-commands, e.g. ws_right_up etc, in particular to use with the "extended swipe" gestures. E.g in a 2x2 desktop you could swipe right_down to go immediately from top-left quadrant to bottom-right. I can see the merit in that although it has no use in GNOME which I use and probably only is useful in KDE where you could just as well write your own script.

I will think about this as a suggested enhancement.

[bulletmark]

I've add this feature with commit bc69ac9a02d11d9996b939660237bb3ec0525608. See the updated libinput-gestures.conf file for how to configure it.