Is it possible to disable and enable my trackpad with a keyboard shortcut?

Question

When I'm typing in LibreOffice I keep accidentally bumping the trackpad. Is there a way I can temporarily disable the trackpad with a keyboard shortcut while I'm typing? (I understand there is an option to disable the mouse when typing but when I nudge the trackpad it gets back on anyway.)

The question title concerns your trackpad but the actual question is about the launchpad. Please clarify if you need trackpad help. — Sean, Feb 17 '14 at 14:40
@DK Bose. Your edits have changed the question such to the extent that it may not be the OP intent. — Sean, Feb 17 '14 at 17:46
@DKBose Yes it is meaningless, hence my first comment to the OP. — Sean, Feb 17 '14 at 17:50
I remember seeing `disable touchpad while typing` in settings(v12.04); how good is it anyway? — जलजनक, Feb 17 '14 at 18:00
I mean the thing on laptops you control the mouse with, sorry. — rajlego, Feb 17 '14 at 20:20

DK Bose · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-19T03:57:56.170

Here is how to turn the touchpad off and on.

Run xinput from your terminal. When I do so, for my laptop, I see this:

$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ PixArt USB Optical Mouse                  id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ PS/2 Mouse                                id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint                  id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_1.3M                    id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=14   [slave  keyboard (3)]
$

The trackpad here is AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint with a device id of 12. You'll need to figure out what is what on your system.

To disable this device within this particular current session, I'll run:

xinput --disable 12

To enable it, I'll run:

xinput --enable 12

But if I want to have code I can safely use even after a reboot I would use the device name itself.

So, one can use:

xinput --disable 'AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint'

and

xinput --enable 'AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint'

The single quotes are important!

How you actually make these keyboard shortcuts depends on the desktop environment you are using and what keys are free on your system for the purpose. You need to make sure they won't be needed for other purposes.

Does `Dell WMI hotkeys` mean keys that operate in conjunction with `Func` key? — जलजनक, Feb 17 '14 at 18:03
Thanks, I'm using Ubuntu and I have all the function keys like f2 f3 free. How would I then map it? — rajlego, Feb 17 '14 at 22:56

Is it possible to disable and enable my trackpad with a keyboard shortcut?

1 Answers1