i3 three finger workspace swipe on Ubuntu  

I travel a lot and try to carry as little stuff as possible. However, having a second screen is a productivity booster when programming, so i'm carrying a small no-name 15" screen with me. 

I was looking for a way to get the productivity boost of a second screen without the extra bulk. I first thought of getting a foot pedal to switch i3 workspaces "without thinking".

However, after discussing with a friend that's on a mac, I realised that a good first step would be to set up touchpad swipe gestures for workspace swiping.

Here's how I got it working on Ubuntu 20.04:

Add yourself to the "input" group 

sudo gpasswd -a $USER input

Reboot your computer (required)

Then install the gesture detection script

sudo apt-get install wmctrl xdotool libinput-tools
git clone https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures.git
cd libinput-gestures
sudo make install

Configure the swipe gestures : 

printf "gesture swipe left 3 i3-msg workspace prev\ngesture swipe right 3  i3-msg workspace next\n" > ~/.config/libinput-gestures.conf

Start the script 

libinput-gestures-setup autostart start

Try swiping left / right on your touchpad with tree fingers, it should switch workspaces. 

For mode details, see the script documentation here (not my own) : https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures