libinput Documentation

libinput

libinput is a library that handles input devices for display servers and other applications that need to directly deal with input devices.

It provides device detection, device handling, input device event processing and abstraction so minimize the amount of custom input code the user of libinput need to provide the common set of functionality that users expect. Input event processing includes scaling touch coordinates, generating pointer events from touchpads, pointer acceleration, etc.

libinput originates from weston, the Wayland reference compositor.

Architecture

libinput is not used directly by applications, rather it is used by the xf86-input-libinput X.Org driver or wayland compositors. The typical software stack for a system running Wayland is:

Where the Wayland compositor may be Weston, mutter, KWin, etc. Note that Wayland encourages the use of toolkits, so the Wayland client (your application) does not usually talk directly to the compositor but rather employs a toolkit (e.g. GTK) to do so.

The simplified software stack for a system running X.Org is:

Again, on a modern system the application does not usually talk directly to the X server using Xlib but rather employs a toolkit to do so.

Source code

The source code of libinput can be found at: http://cgit.freedesktop.org/wayland/libinput

For a list of current and past releases visit: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/libinput/

Reporting Bugs

Bugs can be filed in the libinput component of Wayland: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Wayland&component=libinput

Where possible, please provide an evemu recording of the input device and/or the event sequence in question.

See Reporting bugs for more info.

Documentation

Developer API documentation: http://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/modules.html

High-level documentation about libinput's features: http://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/pages.html

Examples of how to use libinput are the debugging tools in the libinput repository. Developers are encouraged to look at those tools for a real-world (yet simple) example on how to use libinput.

• A commandline debugging tool: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/wayland/libinput/tree/tools/event-debug.c
• A GTK application that draws cursor/touch/tablet positions: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/wayland/libinput/tree/tools/event-gui.c

libinput provides a pkg-config file. Usually a program will use the PKG_CHECK_MODULES autoconf macro. Otherwise, the most rudimentary way to compile and link a program against libinput is:

gcc -o myprogram myprogram.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs libinput`

For further information on using pkgconfig see the pkg-config documentation.

License

libinput is licensed under the MIT license.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: [...]

See the COPYING file for the full license information.