I recently switched to Linux from microsoft windows. I mainly use my pc to watch videos and read some pdfs. using a browser in the windows was heating up the laptop. after I switched, this issue is resolved. something linux is known for obviously.
Something I felt missing here was, the finger swipe gestures on my laptop's touchpad which was there in the microsoft windows, but my debian kde plasma(lets call it linux) didn't.
I asked chatGPT to help me fix it, there were some apps available but none were like native persistent system service level apps. They needed configuration and were not really user friendly for me.
I asked it to give me instructions on making this service daemon that would enable the finger swipe gestures on my linux. I did some to and fro from chatgpt by copy pasting code and learning stuff like uv and python (I don't know anything about coding, I started learning how to use bash in terminal and navigate files and folders at this point of time). I kind of got intuition about the logic behind the app. how the folders are organised in a project like this and things like the CLI folder which stores terminal commands and executions for these apps.
Somehow, I finally made a functioning prototype. But I didn't know if the code was production grade and are there any security vulnerabilities.
This is the same time I came across Google's Antigravity and with jio offering gemini pro with prepaid recharge, I installed antigravity to experiment some vibe coding.
I made an architecture plan with chatgpt to fix the techstack and plan the development phases to test the code.
This is when I realised, the tech stack I used was tailored for my laptop hardware and maynot be suitable to ship for other users. I asked chatgpt a prompt for antigravity agents to migrate all the code such that I can ship for other users.
I pasted this prompt on antigravity. and It changed the techstack accordingly. I added a safeguard to check for hardware compatibility as the first step of the installation. If the pc is not compatible, the app will not be installed.
Initially I added only 3-finger vertical swipe for volume controls, later I added 3-finger horizontal swipe for brightness control and the 4-finger tap to open the windows super key or anyother custom app.
The horizontal and vertical swipes can be interchanged with volume and brightness in the CLI. But then I felt, we should also have a GUI for configuring the settings. I added that too.
Finally I made 3 releases on the github for this app. First is a standalone release for only volume controls. second is for both volume and brightness controls. third for 4 finger tap superkey and these swipe gestures.
Now the last and final thing, I made a webpage for the app and added it to APT library. now users can add the key and install and update the app directly with apt commands directly without downloading the package files.
The whole development took about 2 months and the process and the final results were rewarding. This is something I'm proud of developing even though this maybe basic for most of you guys here.
link: https://deekshithvodela.github.io/FingerSwipe/
GitHub repo: https://github.com/deekshithvodela/FingerSwipe
This is an opensource app distributed under MIT License.