Here comes the SmackPad

micampe — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 01:54:00 -0700

You probably have seen the SmackBook video where a guy smacks his laptop to switch workspace. Too bad that only works on Macs right? Not really, my ThinkPad has a device similar to the Apple Motion Sensor and it runs Linux, so it ought to be flexible and easy to tweak.

Well, I’m happy to announce that you can smack your laptop too!

Requirements:

A ThinkPad with the IBM Active Protection System
The hdaps kernel module (if sudo modprobe hdaps fails, you’re not qualified)
The wnck Python module, provided by gnome-python (if python -c "import wnck" fails, you’re not qualified either)
An EWMH compliant window manager (most modern WMs are)
The smack.py script

Run the script from a shell:

$ python smack.py

and smack your ThinkPad at will to change workspace back and forth.

Caveat: It’s not really reliable: sometimes it’ll switch in the wrong direction, especially if you try to rapdly switch more than once, but it’a toy, I don’t find it really useful.

You’re welcome to improve the detection algorithm. A basic setting is the SENS variable at the start of the script: the higher the less sensitive the script will be and the harder you’ll have to smack the laptop. Remember, ThinkPads are though, don’t risk hurting yourself with too high values.

Update: Francesco provided iSmack.py for iBooks and Powerbooks with the AMS driver.

Update 2: Andrew hacked a version that works with Compiz.

Update 3: Gervase Markham has an improved version with stabilization.

Michele Campeotto: Tag fun

Here comes the SmackPad