I want to easily enable/disable laptop touchpad.
I know that could be done by short-keys, but at some point I had the impression that custom shortcuts do not work very well in Freya (Settings-Keyboard-Shortcuts-Custom). That was in beta I think. Now it seems they work ok, just that you need to log out and back in.
An alternative solution to shortcuts would be to create .desktop files with the same commands. Then, they can be put in usr/share/applications and accessed like other Applications with Super-Space etc.
So, what commands to use?
Do
xinput list
and note the id= for Touchpad.
Let's say that is 15.
The command to disable touchpad is:
xinput set-prop 15 "Device Enabled" 0
to enable:
xinput set-prop 15 "Device Enabled" 1
(Replace 15 with the output of "xinput list". Then, these two commands can be added to Settings-Keyboard-Shortcuts-Custom and used with shortcuts.)
So, to create the .desktop files
(I have Gedit as text editor here):
sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/disable_touchpad.desktop
With the lines:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Disable touchpad
Comment=Set your touchpad preferences
Exec= xinput set-prop 15 "Device Enabled" 0
Icon=/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/256x256/status/touchpad-disabled.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Settings;HardwareSettings;X-GNOME-Settings-Panel;System;
Also:
sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/enable_touchpad.desktop
With the lines:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Enable touchpad
Comment=Set your mouse and touchpad preferences
Exec= xinput set-prop 15 "Device Enabled" 1
Icon=/usr/share/icons/HighContrast/256x256/devices/input-touchpad.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Settings;HardwareSettings;X-GNOME-Settings-Panel;System;
Now, just use the Super-Space launcher and type the first letters of 'touchpad', 'enable' or 'disable'.
