First, we need a means to call rapidly the shell command from the emacs world (and still being able to see what command is used):

(defun run-shl (&rest cmd)
  "A simpler command to run-shell-command with multiple params"
  (shell-command-to-string (apply #'concatenate 'string cmd)))

Now evaluate this snippet of code. Place yourself behind the last parenthesis and execute the keybinding C-x C-e. This loads your emacs lisp into the current session.

Then we call the script to toggle on/off the touchpad: Here is the code:

(defun toggle-touchpad-manual (status)
  "Activate/Deactivate the touchpad depending on the status parameter (0/1)."
  (run-shl "toggle-touchpad-manual.sh " status))

Note

I do not detail the full path to the shell script because my PATH is correctly setuped. If this does not work for you, either:

• fix your PATH
• or gives the full path of such script.

Now we can call this from any emacs buffer and see that it's working.

First, we must reactivate the touchpad (recall that I'm in emacs). My stumpwm binding is C-t T for me.

(toggle-touchpad-manual "0")

Then C-x C-e to evaluate. When trying to scroll with the touchpad, nothing happens, the touchpad is disabled, cool!

(toggle-touchpad-manual "1")

Then C-x C-e to evaluate. The touchpad is enabled, way cool!

A hook is basically a list of functions to apply at a certain moment in the life cycle of the mode you are using. This is a mode mechanism that permits emacs user to extend the standard behaviour.

It is often used for example to load a mode depending on the extension of a file or grouping mode together. All lispy mode likes to load paredit (to ease the manipulation of s-expression).

Here is a hook for the clojure-mode (the naming convention is name-of-the-mode followed by a -hook). In this example, I added a function jack-in-once to the clojure-mode.

This will trigger the call of such a function every time a clojure-mode is launched.

(add-hook 'clojure-mode-hook 'jack-in-once)

The export html is a org-mode functionality.

By searching the org-mode hooks, I found org-export-html-final-hook which can be used for what I want.

So here is the elisp snippet:

(add-hook 'org-export-html-final-hook
          (lambda () (toggle-touchpad-manual "1")))

Again evaluate it for it to be active for your current session.

Note Here I tell org-mode to call the the function (lambda) each time an html export is about to finish.

As a result, now when exporting the org-mode into html and opening the browser my touchpad is enabled.

Thus, my setup is consistent again with the rest of the system.