The installer is yast, so there's not much the GNOME team can do there. Maybe the solution is to change the default in X, which would be in the hands of the X team?

Stefan?

So we now want to use

<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">0</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">0</merge>

in /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/11-x11-synaptics.fdi as default? What's the default in a KDE4, xfce, ... Xsession? Check with 'synclient -l' ...

Apparently KDE4 doesn't enable TapButtons by default, so let's disable it in a consistent way.

fixed in X11:XOrg and submitted to openSUSE:Factory.

Why dropping a feature lasting since ages?
Just because in GNOME environment someone decided this should be disabled by default?
@Richard: who wanted this?
@Stefan: as long as you are involved in X you've rejected these "enhancement requests", why now this turn?

see bugs #561163 #561157

@Hans-Peter
As I posted in bug #551686 and reiterated here, I feel that openSUSE should try and provide a consistent GUI experience for the user. 

In this case, as both KDE4 and Gnome disable TapButtons by default, and KDE4 and Gnome have equal status as WM's in openSUSE 11.2, it seems anomalous that the 11.2 installation routine breaks from the example and default set by both WM's and has TapButtons turned on throughout the installation process.

The current behaviour is causing confusion, when a user gets to use TapButtons throughout the install just to find it not working as they login for the first time.

So to answer your question, I wanted this, and am happy that it seems the teams involved all decided to set it one way or another.

You will always find users want to have tapping enabled and the other way round. Not matter what you're doing, it will always be wrong. At least now we have a consistent behaviour. The same applies to horizontal scrolling ...

Feel free to discuss on your favorite opensuse ML ...

I have two issues with this change:

1.  Touchpad tap is *enabled* by default on all KDE4.3.1 and 4.3.4 installs I've checked.  I cannot find a KDE4 install (from oS 11.2) on a laptop/netbook where this is *disabled* as Stefan said.

2.  There is no Configure Desktop > Mouse option in KDE4 to toggle this back on for users that prefer touchpad tap (Gnome does have this option).  Installing 3rd party apps such as Synaptics to control this is not an acceptable workaround.  

Touchpad tap is a common thing on other common OSes.  OSx has it.. Windows has it.  Users coming from those OSes expect it in my observation.  I don't care what the default is, but being able to switch it back on for users coming from OSX/Windows is rather important.

(In reply to comment #9)
> Touchpad tap is a common thing on other common OSes.  OSx has it.. Windows has
> it.  Users coming from those OSes expect it in my observation.  I don't care
> what the default is, but being able to switch it back on for users coming from
> OSX/Windows is rather important.

At least in GNOME, it's really easy to change the behavior: just open the mouse preferences and check a checkbox... This bug was really just about the default setting.

If the default is changed, does this carry over into KDE4?

(In reply to comment #9)
> I have two issues with this change:
> 
> 1.  Touchpad tap is *enabled* by default on all KDE4.3.1 and 4.3.4 installs
> I've checked.  I cannot find a KDE4 install (from oS 11.2) on a laptop/netbook
> where this is *disabled* as Stefan said.

What I said is that KDE does not enable it. I didn't say that it disables it.
Apparently it's happy with the X default. BTW, if changing the default in KDE
to enabled then we can forget about consistency again.

> 2.  There is no Configure Desktop > Mouse option in KDE4 to toggle this back 
> on for users that prefer touchpad tap (Gnome does have this option).  
> Installing 3rd party apps such as Synaptics to control this is not an 
> acceptable workaround.  

Well, there is at least synclient. ;-)

> Touchpad tap is a common thing on other common OSes.  OSx has it.. Windows has
> it.  Users coming from those OSes expect it in my observation.  I don't care
> what the default is, but being able to switch it back on for users coming from
> OSX/Windows is rather important.

How should I know? I never use any of those OSes. This begs the question why GNOME believes it's a good idea to have it disabled by default.

(In reply to comment #11)
> If the default is changed, does this carry over into KDE4?

Apparently yes, unless KDE4 changes it back to enabled.

So, if touchpad tap is disabled in X, and KDE uses whatever X is set to... where does this leave KDE4 users who want touchpad tap enabled.  As far as I can see, there is no visible option to turn it back on. (new Bugzilla time?)

I suggest to open a new bug against KDE to enable tapping in KDE4 or provide a tool, with which you can easily do this. In the discussion on opensuse-factory there were mentioned several tools.

"You can use Synaptiks or kcm_touchpad (I had the best luck with the former)
from kde4:community repository - or Touchfreeze from Packman repository."

Anything from the community repo only works IF you have internet access.  That leaves users standing with no simple way to enable touchpad tap in KDE4 (just to keep consistent with Gnome which in this case is inconsistent with all other OSes I've used on laptops)

Is that a new bug against KDE in Novel bugzilla or the upstream KDE bugzilla?

(In reply to comment #16)
> Is that a new bug against KDE in Novel bugzilla or the upstream KDE bugzilla?

Good question. But I think our KDE developers are going to tell you if they think
it's good idea to report this upstream. So I would try to report this in Novell bugzilla first.

hmm. i believe this has been a very bad decision :)

1. users expect tapping to work. i don't know about other operational systems, but as somebody noted, on other systems it works by default.

i expected it to work - i almost filed a bug that it's broken...

2. the argument that it should be changed because gnome has it disabled by default is not valid.
a) the purpose of the distribution for many people is to have software defaults changed in case developers hav no idea about usability ;)
b) suse changes lots and lots of defaults from the upstream - even in places like bash.

i understand and fully support the drive for consistency, it's just that i believe in this case reaching for a minor improvement (consistency) a major problem has been created - just look at all the users being confused...

additionally, this is a significant problem with the live cd, which was the first time i noticed tapping not working and considered filing a bug. i did not file one because i was SURE this glaring and simple bug would be with a patch shortly after the release.

so i would suggest reopening this issue and changing the default for the tapping to be enabled.

Not that it matters much to those that made this decision, but other Gnome centric distros have tap enabled (eg Ubuntu).  In other words, openSUSE is NOT consistent with other major Gnome based distros, and not consistent with Windows and OSX behavior.  It doesn't matter that it can be turned back on with some system setting... the core problem is that we've set a default that is exactly opposite to what is expected.

Aren't we back to my comment #15?

definitely not. while having it working in kde would be nice, having it _not_ working during the installation would be crappy.

additionally, the initial goal of the change, consistency, would be broken anyway, and we would be in a worse situation than we begun with.

FWIW, having tapping disabled is the upstream default in latest 
xf86-input-synaptics driver release 1.3.0. Anyway, some project manager should decide about the behaviour for installation, GNOME and KDE. If KDE/Gnome want to use different settings a consistent behaviour for installation and afterwards is simply not possible. I don't care much about the default in X, but I would like to avoid to change it back and forth all the time.

openSUSE/KDE4/Gnome has the ability to enable touch tap in the
config settings.  The enable/disable setting is there in a default openSUSE
install for at least Gnome and KDE4.  

The issue isn't that you can re-enable it, it's that it's disabled in the first
place.  

People coming to openSUSE from... say... Ubuntu... install and expect a similar
experience.  A default Gnome install from Ubuntu has touch tap enabled (or is
has on every default 10.04 install I've done lately)... the user then installs
openSUSE.. no touch tap, and they are either confused (as a new user) or
annoyed.  They expect touch tap to "just work"... not something they have to
configure.  I've had to explain countless times now to new-to-Linux users that
the OS isn't broken, and yes their touchpad works correctly in Linux, they just
need to enable it.

I don't care which we have since I know how to enable/disable it, but I do
expect a consistent experience compared to other equivalent distros and OSes...
and we're not providing that... I think that's the point here.  People don't
expect to have to enable what is standard functionality on other desktops/OSes
(just like they don't expect to have to configure something like a scroll wheel
on a  mouse).

We do a good job in general in providing a nice smooth user experience with
defaults etc, but this touch-tap thing is one that many users seem to trip over
(at least those I deal with when I provide support for openSUSE installs seem
to get trapped by this setting.).

The bug has been reopened, Coolo as project manager of openSUSE has to decide about that. What else do you expect from me?

@Stefan:  Nothing :-)  I think we're just trying to bring up the point that we'd like this revisited... not resolved right now, immediately, with a decision in 10 minutes.  Theres time between now and 11.4.  So... no worries.

(In reply to comment #23)
> The issue isn't that you can re-enable it, it's that it's disabled in the first
> place.  

FWIW, I disagree. You're talking about consistency with other OS, but did you check Fedora, for example? And what about consistency with upstream behavior?

I don't buy the "people coming from ubuntu" argument - if the upstream default of both GNOME and synaptics driver are off and KDE has no default at all I see no reason to argue against that. 

If ubuntu enables it, there might actually be people who are relieved they don't have to disable it in openSUSE.

That said, I have no touchpad, so I have to trust upstream there. I would go for no patch.

Thanks for taking a decision here, Coolo. Closing as WONTFIX now.

*** Bug 660264 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

well, this decision didn't seem to me to be good at all, so...

1) it might be worth on this bug even though it is closed, just to see how annoying it is;
2) https://features.opensuse.org/310811 is a request for 11.4 to reenable taping

I can't believe this. People who freely admit that they don't know the first thing about it (comment #27: "I have no touchpad") get to decide that the behaviour that used to be the default for openSUSE for years (tapping enabled) as well as the default for all flavours of Windows (XP, Vista, Win7, ...) is changed to "make it unusable for the average user".

What would you say if somebody disabled your left mouse button with the same reasoning, claiming you can always hit [Return] on the keyboard instead?

Adding insult to injury, NONE of the specialists involved here offers a workable solution for the average user. synclient - yes, but it's a hassle to start it at the appropriate place. Some KDE4 extension - well, not useful if you don't use KDE4.

So here is a workaround for those few users who haven't moved on to Kubuntu yet:

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-synaptics.conf (as root) and add one "Option" line:

Section "InputClass"
    ...
    Option "TapButton1" "1"
    ...
EndSection


-- Stefan Hundhammer <sh@exsuse.de>

> I can't believe this. People who freely admit that they don't know the first
> thing about it (comment #27: "I have no touchpad")

My guess is that Coolo is using a Lenovo Thinkpad, which only has a joystick instead of a touchpad. This is what I call unusable. ;-)

I did _NOT_ decide to change anything. I was asked for an oppinion and I gave mine. If you have a different one -> fine.

*** Bug 729488 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

{ man 4 synaptics; }

> Tapping is disabled by default for touchpads with one or more physical buttons.

Introduced: <URL: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-input-synaptics/commit/src/synaptics.c?id=102d1d6cfbc1cf3df3845b56ad1deb82a40d1cb8 >

This is a big patch that also introduces several other autodetect features that may be useful.  I do not think it is useful to disable TapButton1 because it is a widely used function even with devices equipped with physical buttons, but that is just my opinion (incidentally shared by several other customers who dared report this as a bug here and to Fedora) while the authors may have been distracted from reality with the idea of showing off how smart they now are ;-)  In other words, the current implementation suffers from logical perfection.

Anyway, { synclient TapButton1=1; } does the trick painlessly in no time.  The driver has a myriad of interesting options so there is a good chance you would want to configure it with synclient for your personal use anyway :-)

I suppose this bug is INVALID.

*** Bug 751100 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***