Walker dmenu touchscreen support

[AdiY00]

Should probably move this upstream but basically in the few times I ever use my laptop in "tablet mode" (folded 360 degrees) it's pretty much unusable since the dmenu doesn't register touch input (I can open it by tapping the Omarchy icon on the top left but that's pretty much it). The normal walker app launcher works great with touch though.

Obviously Omarchy is extremely keyboard focused and I love that, but it would be nice to have some usability in tablet mode.

Hyprland in general doesn't focus much on touchscreen gestures. the new trackpad gestures are great so if they ever do the same with touchscreen gestures it would actually be a really good "tablet" OS too.

What do you guys think? is it even needed?

For now I'm probably just going to add an app launcher button to waybar when I'm in tablet mode.

[ingmaniac]

In my opinion you should consider this as a bug. I faced the same issue. If you use the pen anyway because of signing some document or something else, you want to proceed your productive work with the pen.
I would really appreciate this feature.

[steel-wing]

I definitely feel like this is needed. As someone who likes to be able to work entirely in tablet mode (like for note taking and things like that) having the walker menu work well with touch input is a must.

[mariob88]

Is there any new about this?

[RowdyRagamuffin]

You could use hyprgrass (https://github.com/horriblename/hyprgrass). This will give some functionality. There are some suggestions on the github in relation to other touschscreen tools.

[OliverZhangBuild]

Hyprgrass seems to be outdated or incompatible with hyperland .56 / omarchy 4.

lisgd doesn't work either.

[OliverZhangBuild]

Native Multi-Touch Gestures Daemon for Omarchy / Hyprland 0.55+ (Tablet & 2-in-1 Devices)

Context & Motivation

On touchscreen tablets (such as the Minisforum V3, Surface Pro, ThinkPad X12, and ROG Flow Z13), Wayland treats touchscreen inputs as direct touch/click events rather than touchpad gestures. Consequently, native compositor gestures like multi-finger workspace switching and window management do not work directly on the screen.

This guide provides a lightweight, resilient Python daemon that translates hardware touchscreen events into Hyprland 0.55+ Lua dispatchers, complete with systemd user-level autostart and permission persistence.

---

Technical Architecture & Lessons Learned

1. Centroid-Based Event Parsing via EV_SYN:

   Tablet touchscreen controllers (e.g. Goodix, FocalTech, I2C-HID) often omit standard BTN_TOUCH release events. Tracking multi-touch slot coordinate centroids across SYN_REPORT frames guarantees accurate multi-finger swipe detection.

2. Hyprland 0.55+ Lua Dispatcher Compatibility:
   In Hyprland 0.55+ (Quattro / Lua engine), hyprctl dispatch evaluates the input inside return hl.dispatch(...). Commands must be passed as complete Lua function strings (e.g., hl.dsp.focus({ workspace = "r+1" })), not decomposed shell strings.

3. Session Socket & Environment Injection:
   Background daemons must dynamically resolve HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE and XDG_RUNTIME_DIR from /run/user/<UID>/hypr/ to communicate reliably with Hyprland's IPC socket.

4. Resilient Autostart & Permission Persistence:
   Device nodes under /dev/input/event* reset their permissions on every reboot. A persistent udev rule combined with a systemd --user unit (Restart=always) ensures the daemon survives cold boots, kernel driver delays, and sleep/wake cycles.

---

1. Installation & Script Setup

Create the touch gesture script:

cat << 'EOF' > ~/.config/hypr/touch_gestures.py#!/usr/bin/env python3import osimport sysimport timeimport subprocessfrom evdev import InputDevice, list_devices, ecodes​THRESHOLD = 40​def find_real_touch_device():    """Scan and match the physical touchscreen panel."""    for path in list_devices():        try:            dev = InputDevice(path)            caps = dev.capabilities(verbose=False)            if ecodes.EV_ABS in caps:                abs_codes = [code for code, _ in caps[ecodes.EV_ABS]]                if ecodes.ABS_MT_POSITION_X in abs_codes:                    if "touchpad" not in dev.name.lower():                        return path, dev.name        except Exception:            continue    # Fallback to any multi-touch device    for path in list_devices():        try:            dev = InputDevice(path)            caps = dev.capabilities(verbose=False)            if ecodes.EV_ABS in caps:                abs_codes = [code for code, _ in caps[ecodes.EV_ABS]]                if ecodes.ABS_MT_POSITION_X in abs_codes:                    return path, dev.name        except Exception:            continue    return None, None​def send_hypr_cmd(cmd):    """Inject Hyprland signature and dispatch Lua commands."""    env = os.environ.copy()    uid = "1000"    for u in ["1000", "1001", str(os.getuid())]:        if os.path.exists(f"/run/user/{u}/hypr"):            uid = u            break    env['XDG_RUNTIME_DIR'] = f"/run/user/{uid}"    hypr_dir = f"/run/user/{uid}/hypr/"    if os.path.exists(hypr_dir):        sigs = os.listdir(hypr_dir)        if sigs:            env['HYPRLAND_INSTANCE_SIGNATURE'] = sigs[0]                if 'WAYLAND_DISPLAY' not in env:        env['WAYLAND_DISPLAY'] = 'wayland-1'            subprocess.run(['hyprctl', 'dispatch', cmd], env=env, stdout=subprocess.DEVNULL, stderr=subprocess.DEVNULL)​def main():    # Cold-boot defense: retry until kernel initializes the touchscreen    device_path, device_name = None, None    for _ in range(15):        device_path, device_name = find_real_touch_device()        if device_path:            break        time.sleep(1)​    if not device_path:        sys.exit(1)​    try:        dev = InputDevice(device_path)    except Exception:        sys.exit(1)        slots = {}    current_slot = 0    max_fingers = 0    start_x, start_y = 0, 0    last_x, last_y = 0, 0    touch_active = False        for event in dev.read_loop():        if event.type == ecodes.EV_ABS:            if event.code == ecodes.ABS_MT_SLOT:                current_slot = event.value            elif event.code == ecodes.ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID:                if event.value == -1:                    slots.pop(current_slot, None)                else:                    slots[current_slot] = {'x': 0, 'y': 0}            elif event.code == ecodes.ABS_MT_POSITION_X:                if current_slot in slots:                    slots[current_slot]['x'] = event.value            elif event.code == ecodes.ABS_MT_POSITION_Y:                if current_slot in slots:                    slots[current_slot]['y'] = event.value            elif event.type == ecodes.EV_SYN:            if event.code == ecodes.SYN_REPORT:                active_count = len(slots)                if active_count > 0:                    xs = [s['x'] for s in slots.values()]                    ys = [s['y'] for s in slots.values()]                    cx = sum(xs) / active_count                    cy = sum(ys) / active_count                        if not touch_active:                        touch_active = True                        max_fingers = active_count                        start_x, start_y = cx, cy                        last_x, last_y = cx, cy                    else:                        max_fingers = max(max_fingers, active_count)                        last_x, last_y = cx, cy                else:                    if touch_active:                        dx = last_x - start_x                        dy = last_y - start_y                        dist = (dx2 + dy2)*0.5                            if dist > THRESHOLD:                            abs_dx = abs(dx)                            abs_dy = abs(dy)                                # 🖐️ 5 Fingers -> Close active window                            if max_fingers == 5:                                send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.window.close()')                                # ✋ 3 Fingers -> Window Focus & Layout Switch                            elif max_fingers == 3:                                if abs_dx > abs_dy:                                    if dx > 0:                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.focus({ direction = "l" })')                                    else:                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.focus({ direction = "r" })')                                else:                                    if dy > 0:                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.focus({ direction = "d" })')                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.layout("togglesplit")')                                    else:                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.focus({ direction = "u" })')                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.layout("swapsplit")')                                # 🖐️ 4 Fingers -> Workspace Switch & Window State                            elif max_fingers == 4:                                if abs_dx > abs_dy:                                    if dx > 0:                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.focus({ workspace = "r-1" })')                                    else:                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.focus({ workspace = "r+1" })')                                else:                                    if dy > 0:                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.window.fullscreen({ mode = 1 })')                                    else:                                        send_hypr_cmd('hl.dsp.window.float({ action = "toggle" })')                            touch_active = False                        max_fingers = 0​if name == 'main':    main()EOF​chmod +x ~/.config/hypr/touch_gestures.py

2. Persistent Udev Permissions & Systemd User Service

Ensure device read access across reboots and enable the user service:

# 1. Permanent udev access rule
​
sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-touchscreen.rules << 'EOF'
KERNEL=="event", SUBSYSTEM=="input", TAG+="uaccess", MODE="0666"
EOF
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger
​
# 2. Register systemd user unit
​
mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user/
cat << 'EOF' > ~/.config/systemd/user/touch-gestures.service
[Unit]
Description=Touchscreen Gestures Daemon
After=default.target
​
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /home/oz/.config/hypr/touch_gestures.py
Restart=always
RestartSec=2
​
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF
​
# 3. Enable and start
​
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now touch-gestures.service

3. Gesture Cheat Sheet

Gesture	Action	Hyprland Lua Command
4 Fingers Swipe Left / Right	Switch to Next / Previous Workspace	hl.dsp.focus({ workspace = "r+1" / "r-1" })
4 Fingers Swipe Down	Fullscreen / Restore Window	hl.dsp.window.fullscreen({ mode = 1 })
4 Fingers Swipe Up	Toggle Floating / Tiling	hl.dsp.window.float({ action = "toggle" })
3 Fingers Swipe Left / Right	Move Focus Left / Right	hl.dsp.focus({ direction = "l" / "r" })
3 Fingers Swipe Down / Up	Move Focus Down / Up & Dwindle Split	hl.dsp.layout("togglesplit" / "swapsplit")
5 Fingers Pinch / Tap	Close Active Window	hl.dsp.window.close()