Shortcuts to enable/disable a touchpad in GNOME3 on Wayland

Question

I'm trying to add custom shortcuts to enable/disable a touchpad on my laptop. I have GNOME 3 on Wayland. Using a suggestion from https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/571537/138312, I managed to do it using a terminal. However, if I put exactly the same commands into shortcuts (using a GUI, the only way I know), they don't work. Does anyone know the solution for this, or any other way around to have shortcuts for a touchpad?

Some details, if needed: Lenovo Thinkpad T450s, Debian 9, Gnome 3.22.2

Answer 1

I know it's been 9 months, but here's a solution that I just set up and that works for me:

1. Create a shell script in location of your choice. For instance touch /home/$USER/toggle_touchpad.sh

2. Make it executable chmod +x /home/$USER/toggle_touchpad.sh

3. Paste following inside of it:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

if [ $(gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events) == "'enabled'" ]; then
    echo "Switching off"
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events disabled
else
    echo "Switching on"
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events enabled
fi

This will check if send-events is set to on or off at the moment and apply the opposite.

4. Now go to "Keyboard Shortcuts" and create a custom shortcut

• Name: Toggle touchpad (but up to you)

• Command: /home/$USER/toggle_touchpad.sh (or your script location from step 1)

• Shortcut: Ctrl+Super+T (or whatever works for you)

Now pressing Ctrl+Super+T will toggle Touch pad on and off.

Answer 2

Thanks, @Kasami for your super helpful answer here. I made a small change to include a desktop notification:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

IDFILE=~/tmp/touchpad_notification_id
[[ -f $IDFILE ]] && ID="-r $(<$IDFILE)" || ID=""

if [ $(gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events) == "'en
    echo "Switching off"
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events disabled
    notify-send -pe $ID -a Touchpad "Touchpad disabled" > $IDFILE
else
    echo "Switching on"
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events enabled
    notify-send -pe $ID -a Touchpad "Touchpad enabled" > $IDFILE
fi

The arguments (for those unfamiliar with notify-send):

• -p - print the numeric id of the new notification
• -e - transient notification - don't persist in unread notifications
• -r - replace the previous notification if it exists (used in $ID)
• -a - app name

The rest of the shell stuff just stores the notification ID in a temp file so the notification can be replaced the next time. This is useful if you press the shortcut key a few times and want to actually see it "toggle", vs the notifications being displayed one after the other only after they time out or you dismiss them.