Libinput as the open-source input handling library used by the modern Linux desktop both by Wayland compositors and the X.Org Server now has support for three-finger dragging.
Red Hat’s leading Linux input expert Peter Hutterer announced today that three-finger dragging support has been merged ahead of the libinput 1.28 release coming in the near future.
Peter explained in the blog post about this feature that allows dragging via a three-finger swipe on the touchpad:
“This is a long-requested feature that allows users to drag by using a 3-finger swipe on the touchpad. Instead of the normal swipe gesture you simply get a button down, pointer motion, button up sequence. Without having to tap or physically click and hold a button, so you might be able to see the appeal right there.
Now, as with any interaction that relies on the mere handful of fingers that are on our average user’s hand, we are starting to have usage overlaps. Since the only difference between a swipe gesture and a 3-finger drag is in the intention of the user (and we can’t detect that yet, stay tuned), 3-finger swipes are disabled when 3-finger dragging is enabled. Otherwise it does fit in quite nicely with the rest of the features we have though.”
The code was merged to libinput Git last week via this merge and in turn closed a five year old bug report requesting this support.