[HOWTO] Automatically disable touchpad when external mouse connected

[cobra11]

After restart or suspend or hibernate script dont work, it only works again if i put in terminal halevt -c ~/.halevt.xml. I have ubuntu 10.10 i put in Startup programs this command but like i said doesnt work,any ideas how to fix it?

[Navalio]

killer script dude! it works a heck of a lot easier than the SMHcofing hullabaloo.

I just cant get it to shut off when my mouse is plugged in. Since deafient seems to have an identical touch pad to me that' doesn't seem to be the problem.

I think it might be at

halevt -i >>~/connectedDevices.txt

cause I get

New Device: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_15d9_a4d_noserial
New Device: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_15d9_a4d_noserial_if0
New Device: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_15d9_a4d_noserial_if0_logicaldev_input
Device removed: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_15d9_a4d_noserial_if0_logicaldev_input
Device removed: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_15d9_a4d_noserial_if0
Device removed: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_15d9_a4d_noserial
Got signal 2

As you can see none of them have "seemingly random numbers" Which should I use?

I had exactly the same absence of the serial numbers, but i pasted almost all string without _if0, so "/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/usb_device_15d9_a4d_noserial".

And just wanted to add, that before making "toggling" testing the login/logout should be done (at least in mine maverick box ).

To the author: After reboot, if the external mouse inserted, the script not working, then i should done re-inserting of the pointer, as i understood, the script is only catching events of the insertion, but not the initial state. But anyway thanks, because for me on rather old laptop with buggy touchpad it made life easier.

[cobra11]

I get it work from boot with: /bin/sh -c 'DISPLAY=:0 halevt -c ~/.halevt.xml' in Startup programs.
I create script which works when mouse is pluged in:

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/touchpad

#! /bin/sh
DEVICE_ID=`xinput -list | grep -i mouse | grep id= | sed 's/.*id=\([0-9]*\).*/\1/' `
if xinput -list | grep -i mouse | grep id=$DEVICE_ID > /dev/null
then
echo "je notr"
/bin/sh -c `DISPLAY=:0 gconftool-2 --set "/desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad_enabled" --type boolean "false"`
else
echo "ni notr"
/bin/sh -c `DISPLAY=:0 gconftool-2 --set "/desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad_enabled" --type boolean "true"`
fi

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/touchpad

And than i add in startup programs /etc/init.d/touchpad that gets work from reboot now from suspend,hibernate i add:
sudo gedit /etc/pm/sleep.d/99-touchpad.sh

#!/bin/bash
case "$1" in
thaw|resume)
/etc/init.d/touchpad 2>/dev/null
;;
*)
;;
esac
exit $?

sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/99-touchpad.sh

Now everything seems to work but i have to add in toggleTouchpad after # The argument was 'on', so turn the touchpad on
/bin/sh -c `DISPLAY=:0 gconftool-2 --set "/desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad_enabled" --type boolean "true"`
and after # The argument was 'off', so turn the touchpad off
/bin/sh -c `DISPLAY=:0 gconftool-2 --set "/desktop/gnome/peripherals/touchpad/touchpad_enabled" --type boolean "false"`

If anybody know better solution pleasse post it, because this script turn off in gconf-editor not in xinput soo xinput than doesnt work.

[monoxide.tryst]

I get :
toggleTouchpad: command not found

I have copy and pasted everything in the guide twice now

Any ideas???

[brennydoogles]

I get :
toggleTouchpad: command not found

I have copy and pasted everything in the guide twice now

Any ideas???

It sounds like either toggleTouchpad is not in your path, or possibly named slightly differently. In terminal try

echo $PATH

and make sure that the directory you have placed toggleTouchpad in shows up. If you're not sure, post the results here and we'll take a look for you.

[WarrenSH]

Working fine on my Compaq Presario V5101US & running Ubuntu 10.10 32bit

[dpschramm]

I had some problems with the script in Karmic (9.10).

It appears that I might be running an older version of xinput (1.4.2) that does not support --set-prop, so instead I have to use the (now deprecated) --set-int-prop command.

I have also modified line 24 to change the way AWK is used - the previous version always assumed that there would be a fixed number of spaces in the device name.

# toggleTouchpad by Brendon Dugan
# Toggles a touchpad on or off depending on it's current state or CLI argument
#
# To configure, run the command 'xinput list' in terminal and identify your touch pad.
# Using the output of the above command, change the touchpadString variable to a substring
# of your touchpad's description that is unique to that device.
#
# To run, simply type 'toggleTouchpad' to toggle your touchpad on or off, or
# 'toggleTouchpad on' to explicitly turn your touchpad on, or
# 'toggleTouchpad off' to explicitly turn it off.
#
# Enjoy!


# A function for logging
safemk () {
if [ ! -d $1 ]; 
  then mkdir $1; 
  chmod +rw $1; 
fi
}
logdir=/home/$USER/.toggleTouchpad
touchpadString="TouchPad"
touchpadID=$(xinput list | grep $touchpadString | awk -F '"' '{print $3}' | awk -F " " '{print $1}' | awk -F "=" '{print $2}')
touchpadEnabled=$(xinput list-props $touchpadID | grep "Device Enabled" | awk -F ":" '{print $2}')
sleeptime=1

# Create the logging directory
safemk $logdir
touch $logdir/errorLog.txt

# Check for arguments on the command line
if test $# -eq 1
then
	# Change the argument to lowercase
	arg1=$(echo $1 | tr [:upper:] [:lower:])
	cliArg=1
else
	# There is no argument.
	cliArg=0
fi

if [ $cliArg -eq 1 ]
then
	# If there's an argument, check to see whether it is on, off, or junk
	if [ $arg1 = 'on' ]
	then
		# The argument was 'on', so turn the touchpad on
		xinput --set-int-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 8 1
		if [ $(xinput list-props $touchpadID | grep "Device Enabled" | awk -F ":" '{print $2}') -eq 0 ]
		then
			echo "Something went wrong\n" >> $logdir/errorLog.txt
		fi
	elif [ $arg1 = 'off' ]
	then
		# Sleep for a short time to fix a bug that re-enabled the touchpad immediately after disabling it
		sleep $sleeptime
		# The argument was 'off', so turn the touchpad off 
		xinput --set-int-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 8 0
		if [ $(xinput list-props $touchpadID | grep "Device Enabled" | awk -F ":" '{print $2}') -eq 1 ]
		then
			echo "Something went wrong, perhaps \$sleeptime needs to be greater than $sleeptime ?\n" >> $logdir/errorLog.txt
		fi
	else
		# The argument was junk, so log the error and go on 
		echo "Invalid argument \""$arg1"\" was supplied\n" >> $logdir/errorLog.txt
	fi
else
	# There was no argument, so just toggle the touchpad to the opposite
	# of the state it has now.
	if [ $touchpadEnabled -eq 1 ]
	then
		xinput --set-int-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 8 0
	else
		xinput --set-int-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 8 1
	fi
fi

I would be glad to hear your thoughts.

Cheers.

[JWFoxJr]

I had to do the same thing with the awk statement on line 24. Mine wound up being:

touchpadID=$(xinput list | grep $touchpadString | awk -F " " '{print $7}' | awk -F "=" '{print $2}')

Thanks for a great script!

Joe

[faifas]

Ubuntu 10.10

sudo nano /etc/init.d/touchpad 

I ended up with this script:

touchpadID=$(xinput list | grep TouchPad | awk -F "=" '{print $2}' | awk -F " " '{print $1}')
touchpadEnabled=$(xinput list-props $touchpadID | grep "Device Enabled" | awk -F ":" '{print $2}')
mouseId=$(xinput list | grep Mouse | awk -F "=" '{print $2}' | awk -F " " '{print $1}')
mouseEnabled=$(xinput list-props $mouseId | grep "Device Enabled" | awk -F ":" '{print $2}')

if [ $mouseEnabled -eq 1 ]
then
        xinput --set-int-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 8 0
else
        xinput --set-int-prop $touchpadID "Device Enabled" 8 1
fi 

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/touchpad
update-rc.d touchpad defaults 

Enjoy!

[cantru]

Hi Faifas

I tried your script and I got the following response.

cantru@mobile-UL50VT:~$ sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/touchpad
cantru@mobile-UL50VT:~$ update-rc.d touchpad defaults
update-rc.d: warning: /etc/init.d/touchpad missing LSB information
update-rc.d: see <http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts>
System start/stop links for /etc/init.d/touchpad already exist.
Died at /usr/sbin/update-rc.d line 57.

Any advice

Thanks.