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Accepted
AliN
Asked: 2013-03-05 17:06:59 +0800 CST

Enable horizontal scrolling in Ubuntu

  • 772

There is no option in Mouse & Touchpad Settings to enable horizontal scrolling in Ubuntu 13.04+ (Raring/Saucy/Trusty) (GNOME 3.8+):

Mouse & Touchpad Settings

No horizontal scrolling even by enabling two finger scroll or content sticks to fingers.

How is it possible?

gnome

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    There’s a way through dconf Editor; so:

    1. open dconf Editor through the Dash;
    2. go to org > gnome > settings-daemon > peripherals > touchpad;
    3. check horiz-scroll-enabled, as you see in the screenshot.

    Enable horizontal scrolling

    Edit: Dconf Editor was pre-installed on 13.04, where I first faced the problem; but on 13.10 and 14.04 it’s easier to use gsettings, see Samuel Cavazos’s answer.

    • 65

  2. Alternative way: run this in your command line

    synclient HorizTwoFingerScroll=1
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  3. Or just run

    gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad horiz-scroll-enabled "true"

    in a terminal

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  4. Configure your Linux key binding to make Shift+Mouse wheel send an horizontal scroll event:

    • Install xbindkeys xautomation

    • Edit ~/.xbindkeysrc.scm and write:

      ; bind shift + vertical scroll to horizontal scroll events
(xbindkey '(shift "b:4") "xte 'mouseclick 6'")
(xbindkey '(shift "b:5") "xte 'mouseclick 7'")

    Run xbindkeys.

    Also, for Firefox 17+, open about:config and set:

    • general.autoScroll = true
    • mousewheel.with_shift.action = 1
    • Optionally, configure scroll speed: mousewheel.with_shift.delta_multiplier_x = 300

    Source: https://coderwall.com/p/xnez3g/horizontal-scroll-with-mouse-under-linux

    I got both working. Although for xbindkeys, some apps stick with their own behavior, for instance Firefox.

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  5. On the MATE desktop variant, I found the following dconf path to work:

    /org/mate/desktop/peripherals/touchpad/horizontal-two-finger-scrolling

    If you do not already have the dconf-editor, you will want to run sudo apt install dconf-editor

    Start dconf-editor and then search for "horizontal-two" and that should be specific enough to find it:

    Screenshot of changing /org/mate/desktop/peripherals/touchpad/horizontal-two-finger-scrolling setting

    I'm using a laptop with a Synaptics touchpad running Ubuntu (MATE) 18.04.

    Yonn Trimoreau says that on Cinnamon, the following dconf path should work:

    /org/cinnamon/settings-daemon/peripherals/touchpad/horizontal-scrolling

    You would install the same dconf-editor, but search for "horizontal-scrolling" and then set it to on.

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