One of my biggest gripes while using Piper has always been the lack of automatic profile switching on profile switch. I wanted to implement a band-aid to try and solve this issue, but have been having too many issues to sink more time into this:
Method 1:
Using a while loop that triggers every couple seconds that gets the active window id and fetches its name for a function that checks it against various regexs.
Problem? Well, it is rather laggy. I find my mouse stuttering every once in a while, even when using an if statement to only run code when the IDs don't match.
Method 2:
Using xdotool search . behave %@ focus ... to add event listeners to windows.
This method was WAY better in terms of performance, but doesn't apply it to windows created after script launch, which is an issue since the script would launch at session startup.
It's about time I came to the collective hive-mind for ideas, or even a complete solution that someone may have.
Here is my neofetch for system info, since I know that can impact your answers.
I don't have a ready-to-run solution for you, but I see you already dug quite into that rabbit hole. Google-fu turned up this and this - maybe those are good starting points to have.
The results have made me realize that the bash way of doing this is just not worth attempting, and a Python script is much more simple. At the end of the day, I ended up using this GIST with a custom handler function:
class MouseProfile(Enum):
DEFAULT = 0
BLOONS = 1
GAMING_COMMON = 2
CALL_OF_DUTY = 3
REALM_GRINDER = 4
def handle_change(new_state: dict):
"""
Using `libratbag`, switch the profile of the mouse based on the active window title.
"""
# Get the title of the active window
title: str = new_state['title']
profile: MouseProfile = MouseProfile.DEFAULT
match title:
case "BloonsTD6":
profile = MouseProfile.BLOONS
case "Realm Grinder":
profile = MouseProfile.REALM_GRINDER
case _:
if title:
if search(r"^Call of Duty.*", title):
profile = MouseProfile.CALL_OF_DUTY
elif search(r"^Deep Rock Galactic.*", title):
profile = MouseProfile.GAMING_COMMON
# Send the ratbag command to switch the profile
run(["ratbagctl", "Logitech", "profile", "active", "set", str(profile.value)], stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
I have been tinkering with my script some more and figured I would post an update:
As I have been experimenting with the script, I have noticed some weird window dragging issues. I have learned that, if you switch a profile, your mouse is temporarily interrupted, even when switching to the same profile. So, I have added a variable that stores the profile to ensure that you only switch when actually needed.
from enum import Enum
from re import search
from subprocess import run, PIPE
# Code from the GIST
...
class MouseProfile(Enum):
DEFAULT = 0
BLOONS = 1
GAMING_COMMON = 2
CALL_OF_DUTY = 3
REALM_GRINDER = 4
current_profile: MouseProfile = MouseProfile.DEFAULT
def handle_change(new_state: dict):
"""
Using `libratbag`, switch the profile of the mouse
based on the active window title.
"""
global current_profile
# Get the title of the active window
title: str = new_state['title']
profile: MouseProfile = MouseProfile.DEFAULT
match title:
case "BloonsTD6":
profile = MouseProfile.BLOONS
case "Realm Grinder":
profile = MouseProfile.REALM_GRINDER
case _:
if title:
if search(r"^Call of Duty.*", title):
profile = MouseProfile.CALL_OF_DUTY
elif search(r"^Deep Rock Galactic.*", title):
profile = MouseProfile.GAMING_COMMON
# Send the ratbag command to switch the profile
if profile != current_profile:
run([
"ratbagctl", "Logitech", "profile", "active", "set", str(profile.value)
], stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
current_profile = profile
if __name__ == '__main__':
# Get the current mouse profile and set it as the current profile
result = run(
["ratbagctl", "Logitech", "profile", "active", "get"],
stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE
)
current_profile = MouseProfile(int(result.stdout)) if result.returncode == 0 else MouseProfile.DEFAULT
# Listen for _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW changes
root.change_attributes(event_mask=X.PropertyChangeMask)
# Prime last_seen with whatever window was active when we started this
get_window_name(get_active_window()[0])
handle_change(last_seen)
while True:
handle_xevent(display.next_event())