On Plasma Wayland, touchscreen touch events (wl_touch) and mouse pointer events (wl_pointer) are tracked independently. Touching the screen does not move the mouse pointer, which remains at its last position. This causes usability issues in applications that rely on pointer position for hover state detection.
When using a touchscreen, the mouse cursor stays where it was last moved by an actual mouse, rather than following the finger on screen. This is particularly problematic in Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, etc.). Many websites implement dropdown menus that open on hover and close when the pointer leaves the area. When I:
- Taps to open a dropdown
- Touch-scrolls inside the dropdown
The browser still sees the pointer at its old position (outside the dropdown), interprets this as “pointer left the dropdown”, and closes it immediately. This makes hover-dependent UI elements effectively unusable with a touchscreen.
On X11 (and on MS Windows), the pointer follows the finger by default, so this issue does not occur.
The mouse pointer should follow the finger position when using the touchscreen, so that hover state remains consistent with the touch point. This may be available as an opt-in option, similar to the existing “Sync cursor with mouse pointer” setting for tablets.
See also: 505663 ,which implemented cursor sync for drawing tablets. The same functionality would be equally valuable for touchscreens.