{"id":48964,"date":"2025-05-26T07:52:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T07:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=48964"},"modified":"2025-05-26T07:52:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T07:52:53","slug":"touchegg-touch-gesture-begin-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/touchegg-touch-gesture-begin-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Touchegg 2.0.18 Adds Actions Support on Gesture Begin & End"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Touch\u00e9gg, the popular Linux multi-touch gesture recognizer, released new 2.0.18 version on Sunday!<\/p>\n

The new release of this free open-source application, added ability to execute actions both when the touch gesture starts and ends.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"touchpad<\/a><\/p>\n

Touch\u00e9gg is a Linux app that supports all hardware supported by libinput<\/code>, though it only works on classic X11\/Xorg session (no Wayland support). And, it’s default in Linux Mint since 21.2.<\/p>\n

It runs silently in background. When you perform touchpad or touchscreen gestures, e.g., swipe or pinch, it transforms them into pre-defined actions and executes correspondingly.<\/p>\n

The app supports swipe<\/b>, pinch<\/b>, and tap<\/b> gestures with 2, 3, 4, 5 fingers (some excluded as they have system built-in actions) in both global or per-app basis. And, it can transform them to window resize, tile window, workspace switch, mouse click, keyboard shortcut, and execute command actions.<\/p>\n

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Touch\u00e9 – the graphical Touch\u00e9gg configuration tool<\/p><\/div>\n

Previously, it supports keyboard shortcut, mouse click and run a command actions that execute on either “gesture begin” or “gesture end”. Now, the actions have new choice to execute on gesture begin-and-end<\/b>.<\/p>\n

For mouse click action, it presses down the mouse button when gesture starts, and releases it when gesture ends.<\/p>\n

In the case for running a command action, an environment variable is set TOUCHEGG_GESTURE_ON<\/code>, allowing the executed script to take different actions at the beginning and the end of the gesture.<\/p>\n

And, as you see in the screenshot above, the graphical Touch\u00e9 configuration tool is updated with the new “Gesture begin and end” option when you choose to simulate one of the 3 actions mentioned above.<\/p>\n

How to Install Touch\u00e9gg 2.0.18<\/h3>\n

NOTE: as mentioned, Touch\u00e9gg does NOT work on Wayland session that’s default in Ubuntu since 22.04.<\/b><\/p>\n

The application offers .rpm<\/code> and .deb<\/code> packages as well as source tarball, which are available to download at the Github releases page:<\/p>\n

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Touch\u00e9gg Source (under Assets)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For Ubuntu (20.04, 22.04, 24.04 and 24.10) and Linux Mint, just open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run commands below one by one to install it from the official PPA<\/a>:<\/p>\n

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:touchegg\/stable\r\n\r\nsudo apt update\r\n\r\nsudo apt install touchegg<\/pre>\n
After installed the application, run the command below to make sure it’s running properly in the backgound:<\/p>\n
systemctl status touchegg.service<\/pre>\n
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Then, either copy \/usr\/share\/touchegg\/touchegg.conf<\/code> file into local ~\/.config\/touchegg<\/code> (create if not exist) directory and edit to configure the gestures.<\/p>\n
Or, install Touch\u00e9 flatpak package<\/a> to configure via a graphical interface:<\/p>\n