Script to toggle wsconsctl touchpad

[shep]

The new touchpad configuration tools make it difficult for a user to disable to touchpad. The soon to be phased out synclient(1) tools made it easy for a user to disable the touchpad while the new wsconsctl commands need to be run as root.

My HP Stream 14 ergonomics would benefit from an easy way to disable the touchpad and fortunately, the F5 key is not dedicated to a special function.

The following enables me to toggle the touchpad on/off with F5.

1. /etc/doas.conf entry

permit nopass :wheel as root cmd /sbin/wsconsctl mouse.tp.disable

2. Keybind F5 to run this script:

#!/bin/sh
# Determine touchpad state
TP_STATE=`doas wsconsctl 2>/dev/null | grep mouse.tp.disable | cut -d "=" -f 2`
if [[ $TP_STATE -eq 0 ]] ; then
  `doas wsconsctl mouse.tp.disable=1 1>/dev/null`
else
  `doas wsconsctl mouse.tp.disable=0 1>/dev/null`
fi

Any scripts tweak comments appreciated.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

The script has a /bin/sh shebang but the [[ test construct is undefined in POSIX.

I would use $(...) instead of backticks and also awk instead of grep & cut so:

#!/bin/sh

tp_state=$(doas wsconsctl 2>/dev/null | awk -F'=' '/mouse.tp.disable/{print $2}')

if [ "$tp_state" -eq 0 ] ; then
   doas wsconsctl mouse.tp.disable=1 1>/dev/null
else
   doas wsconsctl mouse.tp.disable=0 1>/dev/null
fi

Not sure why you've used backticks around the then & else commands but perhaps I've missed something there.

[shep]

I was hoping for a more elegant implementation of tp_state. When developing the script, I ran each command individually to step through it. The stderr outputs were more warnings than frank errors but still had to filtered out. Cutting down the pipes with awk is more elegant - I need to learn more about awk/sed and posix compliance.

Thanks

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I don't have an OpenBSD system handy to test but I think you could omit the search in awk by specifying the wsconsctl variable:

tp_state=$(doas wsconsctl mouse.tp.disable 2>/dev/null | awk -F'=' '{print $2}')

But I can't think of a better way to grab the current touchpad state.

[shep]

Tested your changes on OpenBSD current. Worked fine.

I'm have a similar script that uses yad --scale (zenity --scale, xdialog --gauge) to adjust sndio audio volume. The awk stanza also worked in that script. That script also uses back tic's which I'll clean up and post later.

Thanks

[shep]

My /etc/doas.conf needed full cmd paths in the script.

#!/bin/sh
# Determine Touchpad state
tp_state=$(doas /sbin/wsconsctl 2>/dev/null | awk -F'=' '/mouse.tp.disable/{print $2}')
# Flip Touchpad state
if [ "$tp_state" -eq 0 ] ; then
   doas /sbin/wsconsctl mouse.tp.disable=1 1>/dev/null
else
   doas /sbin/wsconsctl mouse.tp.disable=0 1>/dev/null
fi

[Head_on_a_Stick]

You've used the if [ "$tp_state" -eq 0 ] ; then line from my example but kept the TP_STATE variable name in the # Determine Touchpad state section.

Sorry, that's my fault. I prefer to use lower case with custom variable names to avoid confusion or conflict with system variables, which are usually upper case.