OSX - disabling system-wide touch gestures

Question

I need to programmatically disable/suppress system-wide touch gestures on Mac OS. I'm referring to gestures such as the 4-finger swipe between spaces, etc.

I've looked to EventTap but that doesn't appear to be an option (despite previous reports here - perhaps it's changed under 10.8)

I've also tried numerous ways of changing the the system preferences programatically. For example, I've tried using IOConnectSetCFProperties on the service having located it using IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperties.

I've also delved into the trackpad preference pane to see how they do it, and I tried to reproduce it (ignore any create/release inconsistencies, this is just test code):

    NSInteger zero = 0;
    CFNumberRef numberWith0 = CFNumberCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, kCFNumberNSIntegerType, &zero);

    CFMutableDictionaryRef propertyDict = CFDictionaryCreateMutable(kCFAllocatorDefault, 0,
                                                                    &kCFTypeDictionaryKeyCallBacks,
                                                                    &kCFTypeDictionaryValueCallBacks);

    CFDictionarySetValue(propertyDict, @"TrackpadFourFingerHorizSwipeGesture", numberWith0);

    io_connect_t connect = getEVSHandle(); // Found in the MachineSettings framework

    if (!connect)
    {
        NSLog(@"Unable to get EVS handle");
    }

    kern_return_t status = IOConnectSetCFProperties(connect, propertyDict);

    if (status != KERN_SUCCESS)
    {
        NSLog(@"Unable to get set IO properties");
    }

    CFRelease(propertyDict);
    CFPreferencesSetValue(CFSTR("com.apple.trackpad.fourFingerHorizSwipeGesture"), _numberWith0, kCFPreferencesAnyApplication, kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, kCFPreferencesCurrentHost);

    CFPreferencesSetValue(CFSTR("TrackpadFourFingerHorizSwipeGesture"), _numberWith0, CFSTR("com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad"), kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, kCFPreferencesCurrentHost);

    CFPreferencesSynchronize(kCFPreferencesAnyApplication, kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, kCFPreferencesCurrentHost);

    status = BSKernelPreferenceChanged(CFSTR("com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad"));

In this case it appears to work, there are no errors and the option becomes disabled in the system preference pane, however the four finger gesture continues to work. I suspect that logging out then in will have an effect, but I haven't tried because that's not good enough in any case.

It's worth noting that the Pref Pane itself also calls BSKernelPreferenceChanged, but I don't know which framework that might be in order to link to it. Perhaps that's the key to the problem...

UPDATE: Actually I've now found it and linked it to. Adding that call made no difference, although it returns 1 which may indicate an error. I've added the call to the code above.

Finally I tried this from the terminal:

defaults write -globalDomain com.apple.trackpad.fourFingerHorizSwipeGesture 0
defaults write  com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadFourFingerHorizSwipeGesture 0

That doesn't have an immediate effect either.

I don't believe that this isn't possible, there must be a way...

MAS compatibility is not required.

Answer 1

I'm also trying to do this.

Event taps does not work, neither does having a view that is first responder.

From Apple docs:

However, there are certain system-wide gestures, such as a four-finger swipe. for which the system implementation takes precedence over any gesture handling an application performs.

The only way i've been able to stop the system wide gestures is using CGDisplayCapture. This gives my application exclusive access to all events... but also a fullscreen drawing context.

Perhaps it's possible to see what calls are made to the quartz event services when entering this mode

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/graphicsimaging/Conceptual/QuartzDisplayServicesConceptual/Articles/DisplayCapture.html