Remapping Synaptics Touchpad

[Peter Hutterer]

On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 07:23:36PM +0100, Harald Braumann wrote:
> I've got an IBM Thinkpad with a clit mouse and a Synaptics touchpad. I
> currently only use the clit mouse for the pointer and I would like the
> touchpad to send arbitrary events. For instance, instead of pointer
> move events, it should send scroll events. 1/2/3 finger taps should
> send key codes that could be bound to actions by the WM or any other
> programme that supports keyboard shortcuts. 
> 
> Is it possible to somehow remap the touchpad events in the input layer
> or would I need a daemon, that grabs the touchpad and then injects
> the mapped events? If so, does anyone know about such a daemon?

You can set the touchpad up to be scrolling only by letting the evdev driver
handle it and then set the scroll wheel emulation button to 0. The
tapping->key remapping isn't present and would likely be a bit more
complicated than just sending keycodes. we do parts of that in the wacom
driver and it ain't pretty, I don't want to see the same in the synaptics
driver. a client that simply grabs the touchpad only for the buttons and
re-injects events using XTEST would suffice, I don't know of any though.

Cheers,
  Peter