KWin Gestures

Custom touchpad gestures for Plasma 6.

X11 is currently not supported.

kwingestures.mp4

peterfajdiga/kwin4_effect_geometry_change was used for tile animations.

Features

• Gestures: hold, pinch, swipe
• Actions: run command, send keystrokes (full control over when keys are pressed and released), invoke global shortcut
• Override/block built-in Plasma gestures
• Application-specific gestures
• Trigger actions before fingers are lifted for a more responsive feel
• Repeating actions with support for changing the direction mid-gesture
• Fast and slow gestures

Installation

NixOS (flakes)

flake.nix:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";

    kwin-gestures = {
      url = "github:taj-ny/kwin-gestures";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };
}

{ inputs, pkgs, ... }:

{
  environment.systemPackages = [
    inputs.kwin-gestures.packages.${pkgs.system}.default
  ];
}

Building from source

Dependencies

• CMake
• Extra CMake Modules
• Plasma 6
• Qt 6
• KF6
• KWin development packages

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git extra-cmake-modules qt6-tools kwin yaml-cpp

Debian-based (KDE Neon, Kubuntu, Ubuntu)

sudo apt install git cmake g++ extra-cmake-modules qt6-tools-dev kwin-wayland kwin-dev libkf6configwidgets-dev gettext libkf6kcmutils-dev libyaml-cpp-dev libxkbcommon-dev

Fedora 40, 41

sudo dnf install git cmake extra-cmake-modules gcc-g++ qt6-qtbase-devel kwin-devel kf6-ki18n-devel kf6-kguiaddons-devel kf6-kcmutils-devel kf6-kconfigwidgets-devel qt6-qtbase kf6-kguiaddons kf6-ki18n wayland-devel yaml-cpp yaml-cpp-devel libepoxy-devel

openSUSE

sudo zypper in git cmake-full gcc-c++ kf6-extra-cmake-modules kguiaddons-devel kconfigwidgets-devel ki18n-devel kcmutils-devel "cmake(KF6I18n)" "cmake(KF6KCMUtils)" "cmake(KF6WindowSystem)" "cmake(Qt6Core)" "cmake(Qt6DBus)" "cmake(Qt6Quick)" "cmake(Qt6Widgets)" libepoxy-devel kwin6-devel yaml-cpp-devel libxkbcommon-devel

Building

git clone https://github.com/taj-ny/kwin-gestures
cd kwin-gestures
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
make
sudo make install

Remove the build directory when rebuilding the effect.

Usage

Note

If the effect stops working after a system upgrade, you will need to rebuild it.

1. Install the plugin.
2. Open the Desktop Effects page in System Settings.
3. Enable the Gestures effect in the Tools category.

See docs/configuration.md for instructions on how to configure this plugin.

Gesture recognition issues

Before reporting any issues related to gesture recognition, run libinput debug-events as root and ensure the gesture is recognized properly. If it's not, there's nothing I can do.

Depending on the touchpad, 3 or 4-finger pinch gestures may sometimes be incorrectly interpreted as swipe gestures due to the touchpad only being able to track 2 fingers. As a workaround, move only 2 fingers in opposite directions. See https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/1.25.0/gestures.html#gestures-on-two-finger-touchpads for more information.

Credits

• KWin - Gesture recognition code (parts of it), sending keystrokes