SpectreX360 hacks

A python3 (not yet daemon) script to enhance user experience on HP Spectre x360 (skylake) under Ubuntu 16.10.

Features

• "stance" detection
  • detect if if lid is rotated to tablet mode ("tablet stance")
  • detect if an external display is connected ("docked stance")
  • otherwise assume "laptop stance"
• react to stance change:
  • disable trackpad in tablet mode
  • change text scaling and "menu" scaling of Unity
  • start/stop onboard (on-screen-keyboard)
  • start/stop ScreenToolsSysIndicator

Dependencies

• Python 3
• pydbus (install through pip)
• python-gi (GLib bindings)
• inotifyx (with python 3 compat patches)

The script uses:

• ScreenToolsSysIndicator
• xrandr, xinput
• dconf
• Onboard (the default on-screen-keyboard in Ubuntu Unity)

NOTES

Python D-Bus

https://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-python/doc/tutorial.html#receiving-signals https://github.com/LEW21/pydbus/blob/master/README.rst

nice summary about understanding dbus-monitor output and DBus messages: http://askubuntu.com/a/38796

TODO

• move more stuff to Config (font scaling values, etc...)
• demonize with python-daemon
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/473620/how-do-you-create-a-daemon-in-python
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13106221/how-do-i-set-up-a-daemon-with-python-daemon
• do not switch if already in that mode
• install to ~/.confing/autostart/desktop_file.desktop (would be nicer to read XDG CONFIG DIRS)
  • sys wide default is /usr/share/gnome/autostart/
• vbtn event file could be read binary, and figure out what data means what (insetad of reading syslog...)