Touchpad "disable while typing" not working with kinto

[sahfd4eiugf]

Currently running popOS 22_04 on a Thinkpad T14

As title implies, while typing (and having kinto running in background), the touchpad is always active.

The "disable while typing" feature was working perfectly before that.

I tried to turn off/ turn on the function in popOS control panel and also in Gnome Tweaks, but to no avail

[RedBearAK]

@rbreaves @joshgoebel

I wonder if this has something to do with the way xkeysnail/keyszer "grabs" the keyboard device. The process that is supposed to monitor the keyboard for activity and disable the touchpad while typing may end up not having any idea that the keyboard is being used, if it doesn't recognize the virtual evdev keyboard device as a keyboard.

There are probably multiple possible ways to mitigate the problem, but someone will need to first understand how the "disable while typing" feature detects and monitors the keyboard.

@sahfd4eiugf

This is just a stopgap idea, short of using a hardware function key to disable the touchpad while typing. I have a fairly cheap Acer laptop with a plastic case that tends to flex a lot and lets my palm activate the touchpad while typing. I was able to solve the issue by just raising my palms up with some thin silicone palm rests I found on Amazon. I'm not going to post a link but you should be able to find the product if you search for "GRIFITI Large Slim Palm Pads".

I never found anything else quite like them. They are only a few millimeters thick, but kind of a hard silicone material, not as soft as a rubber/neoprene mouse pad. Sticky on the bottom, with thin fabric on top. Washable, re-usable, re-positionable. They're perfect to help with the sharp bottom edge of the case of aluminum MacBooks, but you can easily pull them off and stick the sticky sides together for transport, so you don't damage the MacBook screen when you close it. With other laptops like my Acer there's enough clearance that you can just leave them on.

They are just thick enough that when you mount them on either side of the touchpad it should keep your palm from touching or clicking the touchpad anymore.

I've had a set of these that I've used for about a year and have washed both sides (the "sticky" smooth silicone side and the fabric side) with some soap and water several times, and it's still working fine. Stays where you put it and the fabric hasn't started separating from the top yet.

There are some other palm rest products, but they were all either super thick or just thin adhesive fabrics or decals that won't accomplish the same purpose of raising the palm just far enough away from the touchpad surface to stop the accidental activations.

They look like this:

[joshgoebel]

This is well documented/requested in my repo: joshgoebel/keyszer#42

This "magic" only works for paired devices... like your real touchpad and real keyboard - that are known to be part of the same laptop hardware. Now with some effort you can make your virtual input device precisely mirror a real keyboard (the one that matters) - such that it once again appears to be part of the pair - if you do this just right, then afaik this feature starts to work again.

I'm open to added this functionality to keyszer via masquerade_as, but it's not something I plan to get to anytime soon.

You can hack it into the config file though even without official support, you just have to setup a new virtual keyboard that carefully matches your original.