omniGlass: touchpad gestures library

(DISCLAIMER) This is W.I.P; examples available at src/tests/

STATUS (v0.2.1)

• Applications can now request the coordinates of contact points directly to perform their own gesture detection (exported via omniglass_get_raw_report())
• Touchpads are now autodetected if the specific device chosen on the config file was not found.
• Available on the AUR.

mpv-omniglas-v0_2.mp4

davajones_espanto_touch.mp4

mpv-omniglass is the first piece of software to link to libomniglass.

licensing

as of this writing, this software is licensed under GPLv3.

Get OmniGlass (for arch linux users)

• 1: install from the AUR as instructed on their wiki.
• 2: make your user has read-access to the touchpad's device file.
• 2: that's it. Your computer now has OmniGlass!

Build from source

• 1: go to project folder, open a shell.
• 2: open templates/config.lua on a text editor, add your touchpad (path: "/dev/input/by-id/somethingsomething") there (make sure your user has read access to the touchpad file!).
• 3: with superuser permissions, run the command line: source utils.sh && cmgen && rebuild && reinstall && debug edge_swipe_multi.
• 4: That's it. You now have omniGlass installed and descriptive text will appear on the shell if you drag your finger accross the borders of the touchpad.

Detailed instructions (if quick start failed)

You're gonna need cmake, GCC, a lua interpreter compatible with 5.1 and your run-of-the-mill linux distro (usually includes everything else needed).

• 1: open "templates/config.lua" on a text editor. plug into it a path to the touchpad's device file.
  • you do have a touchpad, right? is it working? did you plug it in?
  • your path will look like /dev/input/by-id/0934:a26c touchpad or /dev/input/by-path/goofyahhchipset0318:platform-serio-1-event-mouse
  • you can also choose the raw event files at /dev/input instead. running evtest as sudo will tell you which device file number relates to which device, as in: 6: touchpad-renesi. beware: files on this folder switch numbers often.
• 2: make sure your user has permission to access the touchpad device file, otherwise the program will fail unless you have root access
• 3: Inside the project's root folder, call source utils.sh to load the functions into your unix shell, then:
  • use cmgen to run cmake with the project's defaults
  • use rebuild to recompile sources... presuming it's a makefile.
  • use debug <binary> to run an executable. <binary> must be replaced by one of:
    • edge_swipe - an example that detects motion at the lower 10% of the touchpad by default (edge width can be changed in coonfig file)
    • swipetap - an example that detects left/right swipel
    • init - this executable just runs platform init. it fails if the system cannot connect to your touchpad.
  • use reinstall to install omniGlass as a shared library. This enables omniGlass gestures on applications that support it.

example: swipetap.c (shows how to use the API)

#include "../omniglass.h"
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

void on_slide(double value) {
    if (value < 0)
        printf("moved left\t\t%g\n", value);
    else if (value > 0)
        printf("moved right\t\t%g\n",value);
    fflush(stdout);
}

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
        
    struct omniglass *handle;
    if (omniglass_init(&handle) != OMNIGLASS_RESULT_SUCCESS)
        fprintf(stderr,"could not initialize omniglass.\n");
    omniglass_listen_gesture_slide(handle,&on_slide);
    fflush(stdout);
    printf("starting event loop\n");
    while (true) {
        omniglass_step(handle);
    }
    
    return 0;
}

WINDOWS PORTING

A windows port is not available (and there is no demand for it) at the moment.

To those willing to start a windows port of omniglass, i suggest you start from platform_linux.c, replacing all the evdev stuff with libhid equivalents.

What is this thing?

summing up: A library for touchpad gestures and a mouse/keyboard/joypad emulator that uses these gestures.

long version: Omni-Glass is a touchpad gesture detection engine for linux desktops. It provides two things:

• Omni-glass engine: An evdev-based gesture detector with simple API hooks for gestures (as in: "begin two-finger swipe, two-finger swipe left 10 millimiters, end finger swipe...") that can be mapped to media player volume control, file browser file picking, terminal tab selection, web browser tab switching ala-mobile-firefox, etc. It emulates a wide variety of non-pointer devices out of input from your touchpad.
• Zero-button PIE: A programmable input emulator on top of the gesture detector that provides a fallback. The emulator allows two-step absolute tap for keyboard shortcuts, an absolute-touch cursor for mouse-heavy games (two-finger press is mouse1) and other customizable mappings from touch to keyboard, joypad, mouse, D-bus, socket IPC and more.

We are not touchégg.

The purpose of Omni-Glass is to implement arbitrary gestures for each application, instead of just doing desktop-wide actions like switch window & expand desktop. We do plan on providing a PIE, mainly for videogames, but applications with source code available can (and should) properly map touch gestures to actions due to how contextual any given gesture could be.