Shortcomings and regressions in Plasma 6 wayland for artists using and configuring graphic tablets

While cutting edge testing distribution such as Fedora are going Wayland only and the proponents of such move say that this push is required to shake things out. I would like to highlight some of the things which are not there yet on the graphic tablet configuration front on plasma wayland. Although the basic support for the tablet is provided through libinput and those who are content with the default will have no issues, those who rely on configuring the tablet will have hard time on wayland.

I was told that fedora making this move will help us get up to speed and it will pressurize developers to fix broken and non implemented things in plasma wayland soon. But sadly I do not see this happening in the graphic tablet configuration side of things. Hope this post gets the attention from the developers and they pay some attention towards the needs of us less lucky people who do not know to code it ourselves.

I am not sure if these deficiencies will be fixed in plasma 6 release as most of them are marked as wish list or extra things. Thus making the transition from plasma 5 to plasma 6 a regression for people depending on these things. If you compare the current graphic tablet configuration section on X11 to that of plasma wayland you will understand what I am saying.

Graphic tablet support bugs

  • No way to map a portion of the tablet are to the screen - Some people have large tablet and sometime they want to map a portion of the tablet to the monitor - bug report - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=457703. Moreover the UI for mapping tablet area and its buttons is slightly inferior to the UI of the same functionality in X11 KCM. - Bug report - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477750
  • No way to create multiple profile of the tablet configuration, so that artist can choose different configuration like shortcuts , pen pressure etc for different workflow like inking a comic or doing vector art - Bug report - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477671
  • No way to fine tune pressure curve of the tablet, various people draw with varying pressure some people draw with heavy hand some use light touch, configuring pressure curve helps artist to get nice lines. - bug report - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=457705
  • Often graphic tablets have a touch strip or ring but on plasma wayland there is no way to assign shortcut to touch rings - bug report - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477752
  • Related to the above some tablets allow users to switch the modes of the touch ring for example you can click a button and change the mode from one set of shortcuts like scrolling to another set of shortcut like changing hue or zooming in and out. but this is not available in plasma wayland - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477787
  • Creative applications often have use of single modifier shortcuts, artists map this to their pen buttons for example holding ctrl to colour pick while painting but this is not possible on plasma wayland - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=461259
  • There is no way to calibrate a display tablet so that there is no wierd offset - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=476982 this is in the works and there is an open MR by an awesome KDE contributor but it will probably be in 6.1
  • There is no way to switch between absolute and relative mode of the graphic tablet - bug report - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477898
  • There is no way to assign mouse click presses to pen button as shortcuts, For example you want to change the default and assign a different button on a pen to do middle mouse click to pan the canvas in krita it won’t accept middle mouse click as a shortcut- https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=457636
  • The pointer for the graphic tablet is a cross in plasma wayland, it doesn’t even change to resize handle cursor or any other things depending on the context. So if you want to resize a window with your pen it will be troublesome to use this pointer. - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=477570 I am not sure how this was gone unnoticed until now.

I hope some kind volunteer developer notices these shortcomings which were possible earlier on X11 and are not possible on plasma Wayland and help us artists types who rely on these features to use and enjoy wayland like it is intended without worry. Some of these things were possible on X11 for a decade and yet wayland takes us back to square 1.

XenBad,

Have you tried Open Tablet Driver (if your tablet is supported)? I use it on Wayland and it works perfectly for me, but I’m not an artist and I only use it to play osu!.

dingdongitsabear,

I have no direct experience with any pen related issues but kudos for taking the time to open all them reports. sooner or later, someone is going to tackle those issues. let’s hope it’s soon.

there’s a lot of things that need to be re-implemented in wayland and it currently sucks for a lot of people; but forcing change by pushing wayland onto the users is the only way forward, way too many people are comfortable with status quo.

raghukamath,

there’s a lot of things that need to be re-implemented in wayland and it currently sucks for a lot of people; but forcing change by pushing wayland onto the users is the only way forward, way too many people are comfortable with status quo.

People will make the switch is there is no issue. See how pipewire switch happened. I am not adamant about maintaining the status quo. By forcing people you are just punishing them for no fault of theirs. It is not like they are sticking to X11 because they are X11 fanatics. Give these people working alternative and they will switch in a blink of an eye.

It is always easy to say these things when you and your work is not affected. Tomorrow these people will switch to something else and say your computer is not bootable or for some reason you are not able to do your work due to that change will you say yes make the change I am happy?

dingdongitsabear,

I’m not calling you a reactionary, just seen way too many people maintaining “this is fine” for issues that are anything but.

pipewire sucked a lot for the longest time, at least for several setups I know. but it got better and more dependable by getting forced onto users. if it had waited to be 100%, it wouldn’t ever be in production.

this is a “build the plane while flying it” situation, if the stress on the vanguard is not for you, then step back for a while and try again in a couple of months, you have options.

raghukamath,

Yeah that is exactly what I am doing. I am on debian now. I do not have high hopes that these will be fixed any time soon. There is the issue of colour management too. But I can only hope that when debian ditches X11 these are solved. Otherwise windows it is for me and others who need these things.

That said it is not good to build a plane while it is flying you crash and endanger others. And it is perfectly reasonable to make people aware what kind of plane they are boarding. Mainly when so many people suggest fedora for artists and general people while it is not for them.

penquin, (edited )

Is this only Fedora or is it Linux in general ditching Wayland on plasma? Also, will people be able to reinstall xorg and will it work fine? Wayland is not usable for me and I use plasma. This would be a big blow for me if I can’t use xorg. I use emdeavourOS. Are we good there?

raghukamath,

For now it is just fedora ditching xorg, you are safe on Arch based and debian based distros.

penquin,

Phew, thank you. I was getting stressed out for a bit there. lol

hellvolution,
@hellvolution@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Do. Not. Use. Wayland!

zephr_c,

Fedora has always been where Red Hat goes to force the adoption of not quite finished software. If you are not okay with that, you shouldn’t be using Fedora. This is not the first time they’ve done it, and it won’t be the last.

raghukamath,

I understand that and henceforth I won’t be suggesting any artist to use fedora. meanwhile it would be nice to get attention to these bugs.

zephr_c,

Fair.

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