wacom-utility 0.1.4

GTK4 Wacom utility with Wayland pad daemon

Wacom Utility (GTK4 + Wayland)

Modernized Wacom utility with:

• GTK4 GUI (wacom-utility)
• Wayland backend via evdev + ydotool (wacom-wayland-pad-daemon)
• X11 fallback for xsetwacom where available

Current Architecture

• Frontend: wacom-utility
  • Device list, pad layout, mapping UI
  • Writes Wayland mappings to ~/.wacom_utility_wayland.json
• Backend daemon: wacom-wayland-pad-daemon
  • Reads pad events from evdev
  • Executes mapped actions through ydotool
  • Supports strip scrolling (EV_ABS) with threshold/smoothing/multiplier

Dependencies

Common

• Python 3.10+
• python3-gi / GTK4 runtime
• python3-cairo
• python3-evdev

Wayland (sway/wlroots path)

• ydotool
• ydotoold running in user session
• swaymsg (for output mapping in GUI)

X11

• xsetwacom (wacom-tools)

Run

PyPI-style user install:

python3 -m pip install --user .

This installs console entry points to:

• ~/.local/bin/wacom-utility
• ~/.local/bin/wacom-wayland-pad-daemon

The Python package and bundled UI/images/XML are installed under the user site-packages directory, typically:

• ~/.local/lib/python3.x/site-packages/wacom_utility

That is the standard Python packaging layout. A normal pip install --user does not install package data to ~/.local/share.

Run after user install:

wacom-utility

Quick environment check:

wacom-utility --check

Source checkout without installation:

PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m wacom_utility.wacom_utility

Wayland Mapping Flow

1. Open GUI and configure pad buttons (Pad/Edit or Mapping tab).
2. Settings are stored in:
   • ~/.wacom_utility_wayland.json
3. Start daemon:

wacom-wayland-pad-daemon

Source checkout without installation:

PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m wacom_utility.wayland_pad_daemon

Strip scroll tuning

~/.wacom_utility_wayland.json supports:

{
  "strip_scroll": {
    "enabled": true,
    "threshold": 150,
    "multiplier": 3,
    "smoothing": 0.4
  }
}

Future enhancement note:

• The current Wayland touch strip behavior applies pressure-based acceleration by default for scroll actions.
• If finer control is needed later, add dedicated left/right touch strip tuning controls in the GUI for pressure threshold and multiplier instead of relying only on the shared strip_scroll defaults.

systemd --user (Auto-start daemon)

For PyPI-style user installs, the repo user unit targets:

• %h/.local/bin/wacom-wayland-pad-daemon
• /usr/bin/ydotoold --socket-path=%t/.ydotool_socket --socket-perm=0660

Service files included:

• %h/.local/bin/wacom-wayland-pad-daemon
• systemd/user/wacom-wayland-pad-daemon.service
• systemd/user/ydotoold.service

Both the repo user unit and the RPM unit are rendered from the shared template:

• systemd/wacom-wayland-pad-daemon.service.in
• systemd/ydotoold.service.in

User install flow:

python3 -m pip install --user .
mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cp systemd/user/wacom-wayland-pad-daemon.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
cp systemd/user/ydotoold.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now ydotoold.service wacom-wayland-pad-daemon.service

For RPM installs, the packaged user unit targets the system wrapper:

• /usr/bin/wacom-wayland-pad-daemon
• /usr/bin/ydotoold --socket-path=%t/.ydotool_socket --socket-perm=0660

RPM install:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now ydotoold.service wacom-wayland-pad-daemon.service

Source checkout:

Do not use the bundled user unit directly from a source checkout unless you have already installed the package to ~/.local/bin. Otherwise run the daemon directly from the repo:

PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m wacom_utility.wayland_pad_daemon

Check status/logs:

systemctl --user status wacom-wayland-pad-daemon.service
journalctl --user -u ydotoold.service -f
journalctl --user -u wacom-wayland-pad-daemon.service -f

Disable:

systemctl --user disable --now wacom-wayland-pad-daemon.service ydotoold.service