Advanced Multi Touch Gesture Recognizer for Ubuntu: Touchégg

It was Apple who "invented" the idea (after they bought the company that really invented it) of Multi touch Gesture Recognizing feature first. Although it was first came out with the iPhone's touchscreen based, but later they integrated it to the Trackpads of their Laptops or Ultrabooks such as Mac Book Air which received a lot of positive feedback from users.

Anyhow, the Multi Touch gestures can be implemented on Trackpads or any similar devices by using main two methods.

1. Embedding it into the BIOS of the Trackpad: This I think is the best methods since we don't have to install any software to enabled the multi-gestures thus it's software/platform independent, somewhat (since the BIOS coded software should be familiar with the OS when it comes to resizing, zooming, etc. But there's is a standard for Multi-gestures thus Max OSX, Ubuntu 10.10 and after and MS Windows fully support it by default) + these hardware integrated devices tend to performs better than the software based ones.

2. Using a dedicated software: This is the only hope for us with a never Trackpads/touchscreens that support this feature but want more control over its functions, etc.

Anyhow if you use Ubuntu Linux and looking for a utility which enables you to do all those nerdy gesture stuff with more advanced features..., then Touchégg is something that's worth looking into.

Main features...

*. Manually add/define a huge list touch-gesture related functions such as: Maximizing, minimizing, show the desktop, horizontal/vertical scrolling, launch the execute a command window, close a window, hove a window, resize a window, etc.

*. Supports up to 5 fingers!. So nothing is wasted :D.

*. Tap and Pinch support. 

*. Works with a lot of window managers such as Compiz, KWin, Metacity, etc.

*. Manually change the "Tap & Hold" time sensitivity.

That's basically about it when it comes to features. 

Touchégg is actually a "portion" of a bigger project called egg Window manager (that supports multi-questers by default). You can install Touchégg in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 10.10 and 10.04 by first downloading the ".deb" packages from this download page.

But no matter what Ubuntu version that you use, you gotta install two separate files that include both the command-line core files + the GUI window. For instance, if you use 11.04 Natty, then

1. Get the command-line, "engine" from here first.

2. After the installation (just double click on the downloaded file and follow the on screen details), download the GUI from here and install it too.

After you've installed the both of the packages press "Alt" + "F2" keys on your keyboard and put the below command into the window and then you should be greeted with the configuration window by using which you can setup the multi-touch gestures for both the Trackpad or the touch-sensitive screen, etc with ease in Ubuntu!.

touchegg-gui

But remember, as said before, some older trackpads do not support the multi gesture recognition thus (as with my case) even if you install this, you won't be able to use the functions.

So in short, this application is only for those of you geeks, who already have a multi-gesture supported device but just lacks a dedicated software (one that gives you better control over actually, since Ubuntu does support it by default as far as I know) to do that for you under Ubuntu (or GNU/Linux in general)!.