[kwlug-disc] Emulate trackpad click on keyboard

[Paul Nijjar]

On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 01:44:12AM -0400, Paul Nijjar wrote:
> This ought to be easy but my search-engine foo is weak, so I will
> shamelessly abuse your inboxes and ask my question on this list. 
> 
> The left trackpad button on my netbook (a Sony VPCM111AX) is dying. It is
> running Debian with the Spectrwm window manager. Double-tap to click
> is supposed to be enabled on the trackpad but it does not work.
> The device is reported as a PS/2 Synaptics Touchpad.
> 
> It is getting irritating to do without this left trackpad button,
> because I still use a mouse for some things (selecting text, clicking
> links in Firefox). Using an external mouse is sometimes possible but often
> inconvenient. Is there some way I can map a key (maybe Caps Lock) to
> behave like a left mouse button? If so how do I go about doing this?
> 
> I guess there are some solutions that will work for specific problems
> (such as numbered links plugins for Firefox) but I am looking for a
> more general solution if possible.
> 

I solved this, but not by using the keyboard. Instead I used the
following snippet in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptic-doubletap.conf
to enable tap-to-click for my trackpad: 

--------
Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "touchpad catchall"
        Driver "synaptics"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        # Left click: 1-finger tap
        Option "TapButton1" "1"
        # Middle click: 2-finger tap
        Option "TapButton2" "2"
        # Highlight with double 1-finger tap
        Option "TapAndDragGesture" "1"

# http://daksaitay.blogspot.ca/2014/04/enable-tap-to-click-feature-in-debian-7.html
# Good list: synclient -l

# This option is recommend on all Linux systems using evdev, but cannot be
# enabled by default. See the following link for details:
# http://who-t.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-ignore-configuration-errors.html
       MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
EndSection
----------

I do not need to map the right-mouse button yet. Middle click to paste was getting 
to be a real pain, however, so I am glad I was able to remap that.

-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org