Touch & Input

Reached from Settings → System → Touch & Input. Groups every setting that affects how the screen reads finger input — calibration, debug visualization, jitter filtering, scroll feel, and long-press behavior.

Touch Calibration

Recalibrate if taps register in the wrong location:

Tap Touch Calibration
Tap each crosshair target as it appears on screen (3 points, 7 taps each)
Test that taps land correctly in the verify area
Tap Accept to save (or Retry to redo)

The row description shows “Calibrated” or “Not calibrated” status. Always available — you can recalibrate even on screens that auto-detect as already correct. For the full menu of force-calibration options (env var, config file, CLI) and per-platform paths, see the Touch Calibration Guide.

Show Touch Points

Toggles a debug overlay that draws a ripple at every touch point. Useful when taps feel offset or buttons aren’t responding where you expect — turn it on, tap around, and see exactly where the system thinks your finger is. Turn off when done.

Takes effect immediately — no restart required.

Persistent equivalent: HELIX_DEBUG_TOUCH=1 in helixscreen.env. The Settings toggle and the env var read the same flag.

Touch Jitter Filter

A dead zone in pixels that suppresses tiny coordinate noise from the touch controller. Range 0–30, default 5 — which works for most panels.

Symptom	Suggested value
Stationary taps register as swipes (common on Goodix GT9xx capacitive controllers)	15–25
Default — works on most panels	5
Disable the filter entirely (ultra-precise touch)	0

Requires a restart to take effect. HelixScreen offers a restart prompt automatically after you change the slider.

Scroll Engage Distance

Pixels of finger travel before a press becomes a scroll instead of a click. Range 1–20, default 10.

Symptom	Suggested value
Scrolls fire a click on whatever was under your finger when you meant to scroll	5
Default — sweet spot for most panels	10
Taps feel twitchy, micro-wobbles start scrolls	15

Requires a restart to take effect.

Long Press Time

How long you need to hold your finger down before a press counts as a long-press. Range 300–1500 ms, default 500 (about half a second).

A long-press is the gesture behind several actions — entering home-screen Edit Mode, deleting a file card, opening macro edit mode, and others. If those trigger when you’re just resting your finger on the glass (common on a tablet lying flat), raise this value. A setting around 800–1000 makes accidental long-presses much rarer without making deliberate ones feel sluggish.

Takes effect immediately — no restart required.

Allow Home Screen Editing

Toggles whether a long-press on the home grid enters Edit Mode (the drag-and-drop layout editor). On by default.

If Edit Mode triggers by accident — typically a finger resting on a tablet lying flat — turn this off and long-pressing the home grid will do nothing. You can turn it back on when you want to rearrange, resize, add, or remove widgets.

Takes effect immediately — no restart required.

Want to fine-tune the hold time instead of disabling Edit Mode entirely? Raise the Long Press Time slider above — a longer threshold makes accidental entry harder while keeping the feature available.

Scroll Guard

Some capacitive controllers fire a phantom “clicked” event when you lift your finger after scrolling. Enable Scroll Guard to ignore taps for ~80 ms after a scroll ends.

FlashForge AD5M and AD5X enable this automatically via their hardware presets — leave it on. Most Raspberry Pi setups don’t need it.

Requires a restart to take effect.

Still seeing phantom clicks with the guard enabled? Some controllers need a longer cooldown. Tune scroll_guard_cooldown_ms in settings.json — see the TROUBLESHOOTING guide § Accidental Button Presses After Scrolling.

Back to Settings | System Settings | Touch Calibration Guide