I would love to be able to use KDE because it has many features I need and like how it looks.
I come from Pop’s version of Gnome and need to switch soon because it is no longer supported.
It had built in accessibility features that are exactly what i need:
Click support by hovering the cursor over what needs to be clicked and showing a circle that suggested how much time is left before the automatic click happens.
I tried to find something similar on KDE but to no avail.
There is something like kmousetool, but I dont understand how to make it work, and I think not might not work on Wayland?
Anyway I implore you to create an accessibility setting that works just like what i described, and bake it into the system by default. Even setting up the installation without the click assist is causing me pretty bad pain.
depending on your distro you likely already have access to the package that offers these features.
on kubuntu (which is ubuntu based) the package gnome-control-center can be installed from the package manager, which has the accessibility feature built in according to this github page
it will bring with it a bunch of other packages you likely don’t need for running a plasma desktop, but plasma can run gnome applications just fine if you install them.
Thank you, I did not know that, I can try to experiment if it works.
For now, when I tried to install it on a live KDE cachyosiso to test, first it had problems with installing, and when installed, the function simply did not work.
So I want to strongly reiterate:
If i did not know this and could not easily find this information , this is not accessibility.
If it has problems with being installed, it is not accessibility.
I beg you, please, KDE developers, include it by default.
Some people need this to be able to use the computer at all.
I need it to be able to use the computer safely, without severe pain and fatigue. I need it to be able to go through am installation with a graphic installer without pain.
And having to install such a basic function after installation will also cause me literal pain, because I have to do it without it!
I tried again, this time on Debian stable with KDE.
Installed the gnome control center. Told it that we are in a gnomesession, otherwise the program does not open. It opened.
And then it did nothing. When the hover click option was toggled, the hover click did not work.
So it seems that the accessibility option simply does not work, even with this “workaround”
Again, this accessibility option should be included in the DE.
And then it did nothing. When the hover click option was toggled, the hover click did not work.
I assume the actual functionality is part of GNOMEs window manager (I think it’s called “mutter”). If that is the case, you could try Tutorials/Using Other Window Managers with Plasma - KDE UserBase Wiki to run that… But that only works when using X and may cause problems with KDE features (like other accessibility options).
I wonder: may it be a better solution for you to have additional mouse buttons on other devices like unused keys on the keyboard or a footswitch?
Thank you for your suggestions.
Unfortunately while using other assistive technology might work for others, this would not work for my particular usecase. The hover click assist is what I need.
It seems that all the distros I was trying to use are on Wayland. I don’t believe I am tech savvy enough to mess with it and try to force them to work on x11, and while I was planning to learn more about window managers, currently it is all dark magic to me. I am an average user, not a power user.
Because of this I might be forced to stick to gnome for now, I am of course glad that this is an option that exists for me.
I am well aware perfect accessibility does not exist, of course, and I am very thankful for all the work that has already been done.
But still, those accessibility features are something that I believe is worth attention for KDE as well.
before giving up, when you reboot and the login window appears there should be a toggle on the screen that will let you switch between wayland and X11.
clicking on that is all you need to do for an X11 session and then you can try the tools again and see if they behave under X11.
if no option is not there, it’s a simple matter to install X11 support so that it will appear.
It refers to a tool called mousetweaks, which seems to be the predecessor to however gnome is doing this now. I don’t think it works on wayland, but as skyfishgoo said, you can start plasma in X11 as well. Might be worth a try.
To start it on each log-in you need either an autostart script, or better: a systemd user unit. See this for an example. Note that you only need to copy it to /etc/systemd/user if you want to use it from multiple accounts. Otherwise $HOME/.config/systemd/user/ is a better choice.
As a follow up, with some help, I tried to test things out on the x11 session.
We had a cachyos system installed on the machine, with KDE. We installed the gnome apps, it worked partially at first, as in, the cursor changed color and performed the automatic click but the hover circle that normally appears under gnome did not appear
After a reboot, that function stopped working completely.
On the same system, we installed the full gnome DE, the function just worked as intended.
Kmousetool seems to work on KDE on a x11 session, as in, the clicks happen, but it does not have any indicator whatsoever about when the click will happen such as the color changing or the circle I mentioned before. It makes it very difficult to use.
During installation, cachyos installer asked if we want to install the mousetweaks, but after that, I did not see any way to get a hover click function anywhere. (When using a KDE session)
So even if it was somewhere, it was not apparent and therefore
it all still is another argument for my initial point:
It would be very good if KDE baked in a suite of similar functions into the environment by default, and it should work under whatever window manager is the default one during installation.
i’ve had similar issues. instead of switching systems, try using autokey for custom scripts to automate function or check for any KDE updates that might address accessibiliy features
I made a feature request through the bug tracker, and got a notification about this merge request as a response:
so do i understand correctly that it seems that the feature is in the works, but not implemented yet?
Does anyone know if is there a way to install it before it is in the official branch? Or is the only option to wait? I am not exactly familiar with how this works
This has been announced now for Plasma 6.8. The official release should be 14th October - exactly when it comes to your distro depends on how they do their KDE releases.
It is already available in KDE Linux, though the distro as a whole is still in alpha state and comes with caveats.
If you want to try it out though, you might want to get the KDE Linux ISO and try it out in the live USB environment.