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Stage 15 — Edge Workspace Gestures

What it is. This stage adds opt-in one-finger side-edge gestures for cycling through 0xin workspaces on a touch-first device.

Phase gate. On the FP5 reference profile, an inward swipe from the left edge selects the previous workspace and an inward swipe from the right edge selects the next.

Ownership and thresholds

A touch must begin within 28 logical pixels of an output’s left or right edge. Once captured, it belongs to the compositor for the full touch sequence:

  • dragging at least 70 logical pixels rightward from the left edge selects the previous workspace;
  • dragging at least 70 logical pixels leftward from the right edge selects the next workspace;
  • lifting before the threshold performs no action.

The narrow start region is the important policy boundary. Horizontal scrolling, carousels, and Firefox gestures that begin elsewhere continue through native Wayland touch unchanged. The keyboard handle is checked first, so its bottom gesture remains available independently.

While the virtual keyboard is visible, the side-edge strips stop at its top edge. The keyboard owns its entire surface, including edge-column keys such as Tab, Backspace, P, and Return; workspace swipes remain available in the application area above it.

Workspace behavior

The gesture calls the same workspace-switching function as keyboard bindings. It therefore preserves per-workspace layout and focus, updates scene visibility, and follows the existing multi-output swap rule. The nine workspaces form a ring: previous from workspace 1 selects workspace 9, while next from workspace 9 selects workspace 1.

Configuration

Stage 16 expresses the opt-in behavior as mappings to shared actions:

gesture = edge-left-in, workspaceprev
gesture = edge-right-in, workspacenext

The FP5 reference profile enables it. Desktop configurations default to no gesture mappings, keeping the full touchscreen surface available to applications. Desktop users can invoke the same actions from keys:

bind = MOD, bracketleft, workspaceprev
bind = MOD, bracketright, workspacenext

Earlier mobile testing demonstrated native application gestures but did not include compositor workspace gestures; Stage 12 explicitly deferred that policy. Stage 15 is the first implementation of edge workspace switching.