Any hopes of getting Windows 10's three finger(task switching) gesture implemented in Plasma 6?

Brainstorm
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https://imgur.com/a/W3b7ya6

This is the Windows 10 three finger ALT+TAB gesture in action.

What we actually do is, swipe left/right with three fingers on the touchpad to invoke the task switcher menu.

Once it’s up, we can navigate in any direction(up/down/left/right/diagonal) to the application window of our choosing, without having to even lift our fingers from the touchpad. It’s all just one continuous drag gesture. And to select an app, we simply stop touching. It’s that good

I know KDE plasma has three finger virtual desktop switching gestures, but they’re very unintuitive and I don’t want to use virtual desktops, since they’re just not as seamless.

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For 6.0, most likely not. In a later release, certainly possible but not plan for it exists

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I see. Hope it’s implemented soon, this is probably the only thing from Windows that’s keeping me there.

Tried to use Fusuma, Touchegg and whatnot, but none of them seem to have any recognition for a single, continuous drag gesture that moves in different directions… And KDE Plasma seems to be laser focused on virtual desktop gestures, which is kind of weird

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You’re welcome to use my script: https://github.com/nclarius/shell-scripts/tree/main/alt-tab It doesn’t work the same as on Windows though, and you’ll need a third party gesture tool to use it (I use libinput-gestures).

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Thanks, I’ve already tried using this script. Came across it when I was trying out Fusuma.

It’s just not good enough. And I’d rather live without it, than having to use this one, since it’s significantly more tedious than basic ALT+TAB.

KDE just has god awful touchpad gestures, and I’m sick of it

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@nicolasfella @nclarius

How can I help with that? what repos should I look into? and would somethink like just implementing the windows 3 finger gesture be accepted or will it require to be something fully customizable?

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The repository is kwin src · master · Plasma / KWin · GitLab. The gestures are implemented in the code for the efffect they trigger, for virtual desktop switching for example in src/virtualdesktops.cpp · master · Plasma / KWin · GitLab, the ones for the overview effect in src/plugins/overview/overvieweffect.cpp · master · Plasma / KWin · GitLab. The alt-tab window switcher effect lives in src/tabbox · master · Plasma / KWin · GitLab.

Something that just works will surely be accepted, the other gestures are currently not configurable either. On the long term we want to make touchpad gestures configurable so the user can decide for themself which gestures they would like to have which effect, but this would be done independently.

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Hope other KDE devs look into this. Best possibility: they manage absolutely steal Windows 10’s 3 finger task switching gesture

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Should we consider to activate Plasma 6’s virtual desktop gestures with 4 fingers instead of 3, so that there’s still space later on to implement “within a given virtual desktop” gestures for 3 fingers?

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I filed Bug 478177 to allow for a later implementation of this sort of feature without having to reassign all the gestures that people have already gotten used to in Plasma 6.

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Is plasma 6 going to disable the four fingers left/right gesture? because on plasma 5 they are the same as three fingers left/right. I like the suggestions you mentioned, another argument for the four finger VD switch is that both windows and mac use it to do the same thing.

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It’s better in my opinion to leave three fingers gestures to manipulate the desktops (switch, overview and etc), and bind four-finger gestures to window switching and/or activities.

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Here’s an upvote for user configurable gestures. Giving the user the ability to select the gesture acceleration/speed/sensitivity would be a great option. This is one of the few places the other wayland linux distro’s really shine compared to Plasma. Plasma doesn’t feel anywhere near 1:1. I was really hoping 6.0 would have something.

Also, yes, please keep the 3 finger gestures.

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Just wanted to post to keep this idea alive. It’s the ability to do what is in the OP’s video link in Gnome Wayland (via extension) which is keeping me off KDE and on Wayland right now. This, and other touchpad gesture options and customizations, is the barrier to me coming back to KDE which, as an ongoing contributor to the project, makes me sad…