How to adjust Acer Travelmate touchpad in Xenialpup?(Solved)

[greengeek]

Ok, that's good info.

Your xorg output tells us the size of your touchpad:

[ 17.202] (--) synaptics: Synaptics Mouse: x-axis range 0 - 2772
[ 17.202] (--) synaptics: Synaptics Mouse: y-axis range 0 - 1452

This means that xorg sees your pad as being 2772 "pixels" wide and 1452 "pixels" high

Pixel 0 is at top left

If you look at the values output from synclient it shows:

BottomEdge = 1374

I'm pretty sure this means that it has allocated 1452-1374 pixels = 78 pixels for your clickpad buttons. This may not be enough, and might explain why you are seeing the mouse jump around while you are clicking.

Improving the behaviour of your touchpad might be as simple as modifying this value (or another one which I will mention in a minute).

But first lets try a test:

Slowly slide your finger upwards from the bottom of your touchpad. At what point do you see the mouse cursor start moving? Do you see a "dead area" at the bottom of the pad where sliding your finger upwards doesn't affect the mouse?

Now let me mention another value - the synclient output mentions:

AreaBottomEdge = 0

When this setting is "0" it means that it is not in use. If we change this figure to something meaningful like 1000 it should set the bottom of your active area on your touchpad to pixel "1000". This is higher than the current "BottomEdge" of 1374 and should move the sensitive mousing area further up away from the clickpad buttons.

You can give this a try by entering the following command:

Code: Select all

synclient AreaBottomEdge=1000

Then after doing that - rerun the finger test we first did where you slowly move your finger upwards from the bottom edge of the pad. You should now find that there is a noticeable "dead" area at the bottom, where you cannot move the mouse.

In order to restore your original setting simply enter the following command:

Code: Select all

synclient AreaBottomEdge=0

(there is no need to restart X or restart the window manager or anything - commands issued direct to synclient in this manner take effect immediately)


It is important to remember that there are lots of synclient settings that interact with each other. If the suggestions above do not help your problem then we can start looking at other synclient values affecting the sensitivity and location of the different areas of the touchpad and button areas.

[number77]

Very interesting. That does give me a dead area, a bit too much.
synclient AreaBottomEdge=1100 seems about right.
If I click LH mouse in the dead area it will place the cursor anywhere on a page of text but if I want to drag the cursor, I must drag it on the top active area but also click LH mouse in active area

[greengeek]

Thats good news. At least it gives you a method to try different settings.

As far as I am aware the change to the synclient settings will not survive a reboot unless it is added into one of the .conf files you listed in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d directory.

But in any case - the next question is - is changing AreaBottomEdge the best way to de-sensitise the overactive mouse area or would changing one/two of the other synclient settings have a more suitable effect?

Once you have worked out which specific settings give the desired effect then there might also be a way to achieve something similar using flsynclient - and that should survive reboots.

On my system the top left corner of the flsynclient gui shows the following adjustable parameters:

Top
Bottom
Left
Right

...and has calibrate buttons next to each.

As far as I can tell this is a crude method to adjust some of the synclient parameters, but i find it misleading and the method of calibration a little confusing as it is hard to specify an accurate dimension by stabbing with a fat finger. Going direct to the synclient parameters, or else manually altering the required values in the /root/.flsynclient file is my preference.

[number77]

I am working on it greengeek but there are alot of parameters to try. I am trying to get the clickpad working in the dead section at the bottom of the touchpad.

[greengeek]

Ahh, ok - I thought the clickpad part at the bottom was already working.

Can you explain the symptoms again? I don't want to put you crook and suggest anything that is different to what you are looking for.

Before making too many changes we need to be clear about the current symptom and exactly what functions you want, eg:

- Is leftclick working ok at the bottom left of the touchpad?

- Is rightclick working ok at bottom right? (I have seen some threads where leftclick worked but rightclick did not work until certain parameters were set)

- Do you want tap-to-click set on or off in the mousing area?

- Do you want two or three mouse buttons along the bottom edge of the touchpad? (i am pretty sure your xorg output said your pad actually has 3 buttons)

- Do you want finger scroll capability?

- Is the mousing area set for a pleasant level of sensitivity?

- Are the button area sizes set correctly or do they seem too small or too big?

I might be misunderstanding the problem so any info you can post to highlight what is misbehaving will help me locate relevant threads.

[number77]

Left click works at the bottom and the top of the touchpad
Right click is two finger and also works all the way up the touchpad.
Tap to click in the mousing area would be nice.
Two mouse buttons enough.
By finger scroll do you mean the ability to drag a left click to highlight some text. If so yes.
Mousing area sensitivity is fine.
The whole touchpad seems to click, so area is very big.

My main problem with the setup is the mouse click area is also the mouse movement area so unless my finger remains dead still by the time I click on something the mouse has moved away.

Your idea of( synclient AreaBottomEdge=1200) worked, in this bottom area the mouse did not work but unfortunately neither did the mouse click buttons.

[greengeek]

Left click works at the bottom and the top of the touchpad.

From your answer it seems there is more going on than I first realised - so i need to clarify some things to make sure i understand fully:

In an earlier post you said:

Its an Elantec and yes it is a modern one with no mouse buttons visible. They do seem to click at the bottom of the touch pad though,.

Does this mean that there was an audible click? Some clickpads look like smooth touchpads but have buttons under the thin surface - and they do have a true mechanical click. Do you think yours is one of these? Or is the surface hard and smooth and the "click" is just a "tap-to-click" function at that specific area?

I need to disable the bottom quarter of the touchpad so that the mouse keys which are behind the touchpad are not affected by it.

More or less the same question here - do you think there are actually mechanical buttons behind the touchpad membrane?
cheers!

[number77]

There is definitely an audible click over all of the touchpad. It looks completely smooth but must have something under the surface.
I was mistaken earlier, it doesn't matter where on the touchpad I click a mouse button, it clicks audibly all over the surface.

[greengeek]

Do you have a usb mouse available? I am keen to suggest some synclient commands to try but there is a likelihood some of them will switch off some touchpad/clickpad functions and I don't want that to happen unless we have a way to back out and return to original settings.

If you have an alternative mouse we can do more experimentation.

EDIT : Before doing any further experimentation I would like to confirm something - when you make a synclient change (such as lifting the AreaBottomEdge) does that setting revert to its original value after you reboot?

[number77]

Yes I have a usb mouse and synclient does revert on reboot.

[greengeek]

Thats good to know - at least we can try a bunch of stuff and the system will revert to normal after reboot. Could you perform the following initial tests and report the results?

First, swap across into a clean desktop (no open windows) and try the following:

1) Position the mouse pointer in the middle of an empty desktop, then tap one finger in the centerpoint of the touchpad. (See pic 1 below)
- what do you hear? (click sound?)
- what do you see? (any menu or other visual response?)

2) Position the mouse pointer in the middle of an empty desktop, then tap two fingers in the centerpoint of the touchpad. (See pic 2 below)
- what do you hear? (click sound?)
- what do you see? (any menu or other visual response?)

3) Position the mouse pointer in the middle of an empty desktop, then tap three fingers in the centerpoint of the touchpad. (See pic 3 below)
- what do you hear? (click sound?)
- what do you see? (any menu or other visual response?)

[number77]

One finger
Tap nothing, push, click also nothing.
Two finger
Tap menu, push click and menu.
Three finger
Tap nothing, push click and nothing.

[greengeek]

Two finger
Tap menu, push click and menu.

Can you clarify the difference between "Tap" and "push"? Do you mean that the behaviour is different depending how hard, or how long your fingers are in contact with the surface?

[number77]

Two finger
Tap menu, push click and menu.

Can you clarify the difference between "Tap" and "push"? Do you mean that the behaviour is different depending how hard, or how long your fingers are in contact with the surface?

No the effect is the same, either a light tap or a determined push that clicks the mouse button.

[greengeek]

So just to clarify - what happens when you put the mouse cursor in the middle of an empty desktop and tap with two fingers? Does the puppy menu pop up?

[number77]

Yes, two finger tap brings up menu.

[greengeek]

Righto, i think i understand a bit better now.

I was assuming that your pad was set up with areas reserved at the bottom of the pad for the left and right clicks - activated by a single finger tap.

However, in reality it seems that your touchpad driver is set to use the entire mousing area for tapping - no reserved area at the bottom.

This means that your rightclick is any two-finger tap anywhere on the mousing area (probably). And leftclick should be any single-finger tap anywhere on the pad.

So maybe the approach we need is to use synclient commands reducing mouse sensitivity, rather than commands addressing button areas.

I need to have another think about this. I need to get your preferred pad behaviour clear in my mind before i suggest what to change.

[number77]

Greengeek is this a help or a hindrance:
Fatdog64 720 works the touchpad almost perfectly.
It uses libinput as the driver and its touchpad-gui.conf is:

DO NOT EDIT! Used by touchpad settings app.
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput"
Driver "libinput"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "AccelSpeed" "-0.20"
Option "DisableWhileTyping" "false"
Option "HorizontalScrolling" "false"
Option "LeftHanded" "false"
Option "MiddleEmulation" "false"
Option "NaturalScrolling" "false"
Option "ScrollMethod" "none"
Option "Tapping" "false"
Option "TappingDragLock" "true"
Option "TappingDrag" "true"
Option "ClickMethod" "buttonareas"
EndSection

[greengeek]

is this a help or a hindrance:
Fatdog64 720 works the touchpad almost perfectly.
It uses libinput as the driver and its touchpad-gui.conf is:...

I don't think we have much chance of getting Xenial to operate the same way as Fatdog in this case. They probably use different kernels as well as different configuration methods. Could you post the output on both Xenial and FD of the following command:

Code: Select all

uname -r

..and on FD could you post the output of:

Code: Select all

synclient -l

Also - your conf file output says:

DO NOT EDIT! Used by touchpad settings app.

This indicates that FD has a "touchpad settings" app. Do you know what that app is?

- Were you aware that your Xenial touchpad is set up to recognise multitouch? (eg using the two-finger tap to indicate a right click).

- Does FD behave in that manner? (or is it just looking for single finger actions?)

- Is that multitouch behaviour what you are wanting, or do you want two separate leftclick and rightclick button areas defined at the bottom of the touchpad so that you can select left and right clicks with a single finger tap?

- How are your FD buttons set up? (Are you able to tap-to-click anywhere on the touchpad or just at the bottom of the pad?)

[number77]

Xenial64 says 4.9.58
FD says 4.14.12
On fatdog you have to go in to control panel, select desktop then adjust touchpad. I can't find any app name.
Fatdog has no synclient.
FD does not respond to taps anywhere.
Mouse clicks are on the bottom dead area and respond only to one finger.