As much as I have problems with Apple's software lately, the touchpad is one of these things that Apple just does better on their laptops by default compared to all other brands.
Is there a point to those giant touchpads? How do people tell where left and right click are without looking down? Personally I think the death of real mouse buttons is the worst laptop UX change in the last 20 years, even beating out chiclet keyboards.
> How do people tell where left and right click are without looking down?
Commonly on large touchpads, left click is a one-finger tap, while right click is a two-finger tap, either of them taking place anywhere on the surface.
My impression is that dedicated click regions are going out of fashion.
That seems awful. The more force you have to use with your pointing finger the less accurate your position is. I can't imagine trying to aim and shoot with the same finger.
As with many things, this is something that feels weird for the first few days but is a complete non-issue once you got used to it. Just like typing on a keyboard without buttons when the first smartphones came out.
I can't imagine getting used to the force of a click feeling different depending on where my finger is. Clicking straight down in the middle vs clicking your finger sideways when it's near the far edge, etc. When I bought my last laptop I just gave up and 3D-printed buttons to put on the bottom of the pad.
Well in MacBooks there isn't actually any downward travel, it's just a solid block, there's only haptic feedback to indicate a click has been registered.
I don't see how that's relevant. No matter what the necessary force to actuate the click, it's a larger strain the further off perpendicular your finger is. That means it's different every time depending on where you're clicking.
I just tried several dozen clicks and not one of them moved the cursor at all through the press down/release cycle. Perhaps Apple is running algorithms to correct for this but it is a complete non-issue. You should try it and see how it feels!
Eaiser dragging and gestures I guess. But I think a lot of it is aesthetics. Apple keeps the same aspect ratio pad and then increases the size so it always fills the space between the keyboard and the edge of the laptop. So as screen size increases so does the trackpad. It does look better than when they didn't do this for example the old 17" MBP which IIRC had the same trackpad as the 13" at the time.
I disable tap-to-click on my devices because every manufacturer seems to have this problem.
For me that's no inconvenience - I click from the bottom of the touchpad, so I'd be performing an actual click anyway. I guess some people tap near the top?
I have tap to click as well, and no issues with quick swipes. As long as the swipe is an actual swipe, and not a tap (i.e. you actually swipe whilst touching the pad) it should be fine. I imagine you're only briefly touching the pad rather than swiping on it - either that, or your trackpad has a defect.
That's the crux with Apple, for me at least. Hardware is excellent and I love it, but the software is so bad that it makes it really hard to justify purchasing the hardware. At least on the computers I can chose what OS I run, no such luck on other devices from them.
I've never used Windows on a Apple laptop before, but the experience of using Apple touchpad with Linux/Gnome (with a little bit of tweaking) is definitely a better experience than using Linux/Gnome on for example a Surface Pro 8 touchpad. The size matter, but also the material and hardware implementation. There is a clear difference in just the hardware, not just software.
> better experience than using Linux/Gnome on for example a Surface Pro 8 touchpad
Sure, when you compare the absolute best with one of the worst, there will be a clear difference. Still, note that you made the point yourself about tweaking - which is done in software.
> There is a clear difference in just the hardware, not just software.
I heavily miss the smaller trackpads like on the 2015 era MacBook Pros. I have large hands and on the new supersized trackpads, the fleshy party of my hands under the thumbs constantly trigger random mouse movements when I'm typing.
I have the opposite problem. I acquired a Surface Pro 8 together with the keyboard. It does "disable touch-pad while typing" automatically and by default, and I haven't found a way of disabling it in Windows 11. On gnome I can disable that functionality easily, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware thing in the keyboard/touchpad, but on Windows 11 there doesn't seem to be any way of disabling it, built in or 3rd party.
Makes it kind of difficult to play certain strategy games and using 3d/animation software when you want to be able to pan with the keyboard at the same time as you're selecting/moving the mouse around.
My problem with Gnome (on Ubuntu 22.04 at least) is I can't set it to disable the touchpad if an external mouse is plunged in. WHY?! There seem to be some Gnome extensions for that but they never worked for me most likely since I'm on Wayland. Such a basic setting should be available by default, or at least through a cfg file.
I guess such a setting is not necessary because my workflow is different than the ones the Gnome devs want me to have. I must be holding it wrong. /s
You mean `gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events disabled-on-external-mouse` doesn't work for you? Seems like it's just missing Wayland support if so, file a issue if you haven't already.
You might not want to complain about customizability in gnome if you have ever used Windows before, they are on two whole different levels. That `gsettings` even is available is a godsend compared to Windows and macOS.
>You might not want to complain about customizability in gnome if you have ever used Windows before
Funny that you mention this, but as a long time Windows and Linux user, I find Windows far more configurable (for what I need) out of the box than what vanilla Gnome offers, especially via what the GUI offers in the settings menu. I'm more of an KDE/XFCE man myself due to the available configuration options out of the box and no need for hacky extensions.
And if more configurations are needed on Windows, there's always a free easy to use GUI app (like the one featured in this topic) that can be downloaded and it's nearly guaranteed to work despite its age, because unlike Gnome/Linux, Microsoft don't change the APIs/ABIs every six months and break existing apps/extensions. And that's without going into the "this works on X11 but not on Wayland" rabbithole.
So you see my good sir, having experienced both sides, I will complain as I see fit about the things that annoy me.
But thank you for your suggestion, I'll give it a try.
> And if more configurations are needed on Windows, there's always a free easy to use GUI app (like the one featured in this topic) that can be downloaded and it's nearly guaranteed to work despite its age,
Ah, that's great to hear. I'm very happy about this.
Could you maybe assist me in finding the configuration/a free GUI utility for doing what I mentioned in my previous comment? I've been looking for weeks without being able to find anything that can do what I want. Namely, I want to be able to type on the keyboard at the same time as I can move the cursor and click on the touchpad.
Don't know what's up on your machine but I just tried it on my Lenovo laptop with Win11 and it definitely works. I can type on the keyboard while moving the mouse with the touchpad and clicking it too. Maybe it's a specific Surface 8 touchpad hardware limitation.
Have you tried tinkering with the touchpad sensitivity setting? Mine is set to medium.
If you go back and read the comment you first replied to, you'll realize it is not a hardware limitation as it works in gnome...
> haven't found a way of disabling it in Windows 11. On gnome I can disable that functionality easily, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware thing in the keyboard/touchpad
The article you linked seems to be about Windows 10, not 11. And even so, no dice following it's advice neither.
Yeah but maybe the Windows drivers for Surface touchpads mess with that setting or touchpad behavior in ways they don't on non-Microsoft touchpads. Knowing Microsoft I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. I would just stay clear form most Surface devices as they're Microsoft's attempt of copying the worst parts from Apple without any of the good ones.
>The article you linked seems to be about Windows 10, not 11.
Yeah but the touchpad settings dialogue is the same in both, I assumed you'd be tech savvy enough to not get hung up on this difference. Hit the windows key, start typing "touchpad" and as you do, "Touchpad settings" should be highlighted, hit enter, go to Taps, and play with the sensitivity setting.
>And even so, no dice following it's advice neither.
I mean I don't know what to tell you. I know that "it works on my machine" is the most cliché meme in the tech world, and not a helpful answer, but I only have one machine to test on and since it works out of the box on this one whiteout me having to dick with it to get it to work, I can't really reproduce your issue. Have you tried asking on subreddit for microsfot or surface devices?
> there's always a free easy to use GUI app (like the one featured in this topic) that can be downloaded and it's nearly guaranteed to work despite its age
im not saying this tool contains malware, im saying, if it's a system function, the system should allow you to configure it. and no, i dont see missing widgets in open source settings panels as the problem since you could easily compile a better settings panel for yourself
There are a million other ways you can get malware, including via Gnome extensions. Do you think all the Linux tutorials online that involve the user cURL-ing or wget-ing something and running it as sudo are 100% safe? Then you should not use a PC or an internet connected devices if that's your threat model and do poweruser things without understating fully the risk of what you're doing with sudo/admin privs.
Regarding malware on windows apps, that might have been the case during the days of Windows XP but chances of niche Windows apps infecting you is infinitely small these days as windows anti malware is excelent at protection and malware actors have bigger fish to fry like email phishing or targeting mainstream apps that get millions of clicks like VLC or OBS form scummy Google-Ads , not some niche apps that disable the touchpad and get 5 downloads a year.
And yes I agree and that's my issue here. Basic settings like turning off the touchpad when an external mouse is plugged in should be a OS provided setting, not be poweruser setting/feature needing workarounds and external downloads with sudo/admin that open attack surfaces on your OS.
>i dont see missing widgets in open source settings panels as the problem since you could easily compile a better settings panel for yourself
The thing is, I don't want to compile anything for my OS. I used to, as a tinkerer/student, but now as a grumpy grown-up with responsibilities, I have work to do and my free time is precious and want to use it for other hobbies.
The OS for me is a tool, not a tinkering hobby project, and needs to do what I need it to do the easy way not the hard way, and I'm willing to pay for it if paid solutions exist.
I'm sorry if my POV clashes with the FOSS philosophy.
not sure how that clashes with anything...
and wasnt arguing for blindly following tutorials in the first place so i'll just skip over that (albeit very valid) point...
> Basic settings [...] should not be poweruser setting/feature needing workarounds and external downloads
yes.
> windows anti malware is excelent at protection
it can only be as good as its heuristics. generally speaking: antivirus is snake oil. i think instead of wasting more and more processing on detecting malware the user downloaded, users should be taught to use their machines properly. you dont expect a child to drive a car, and yet even more complex footguns seem fair game. and a child could easily do alot of (financial) damage with a computer.
> I don't want to compile anything for my OS.
that's fair. i wrote "you could". i mostly meant the capability. the actual work could be and usually is delegated to trustworthy users. (read "trustworthy" either from your pov or of the dev of the original application, if that person already is... uh... malwaring you, all this is moot of course. (also assuming a "good" dev who checks pull requests))
Happens to me once in a while on the Macbook. It doesn't happen as often as it used to with Linux laptops a decade ago, but it still happens every few weeks.
I'm still not sure if I prefer large touchpads or smaller ones because of this. You run out of space more easily with a smaller one, but there's fewer accidents. (And more places to rest your thumbs.)
Occasionally I've seen it move the cursor, but overall, it's a great experience.
I remember years ago I used to always disable the touchpad on my laptops, but I've been all Apple since around 2012 so hadn't thought about that until I saw this article.
This seems to have always been a setting that existed for a long time in Linux desktops (or at least cinnamon), I've had this enabled before, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not when you want to use mousepad and keyboard at same time for some game (but then plugging in a USB mouse is better anyway)
Despite being disabled in BIOS the touchpad in my T440 still works, it just doesn't move the mouse cursor. And no amount of tweaking in Synaptic drivers allowed me to disable "side actions".
Thankfully I don't use it much nowadays, but there could be people with borked touchpads too.
I hate that trackpad with a passion. My X240 had the same one.
Those machines don't have dedicated mouse buttons for the trackpoint and use the trackpad instead. For some reason the mouse clicks became unreliable every so often, registering presses on the wrong side or straight up moving my mouse cursor to the edge of the screen - even if it was disabled in the BIOS.
The issue was persistent across operating systems, so I returned the machine and got an X250 with dedicated buttons.
I absolutely hate the T440 touchpad. Lenovo had the almost perfect design for that time with the T430: just make it bigger and out of glass, with physical buttons on the top. But no, "let's f** everything up", said some shitty designer.
I always have this problem. Not sure if I want the mouse pad to be totally deactivated while typing. I don't mind the pointer moving (might be a valid input anyway), but the clicking should be disabled so that the typing doesn't accidentally appear on an unintended area of the screen.
I've used about four five different macbooks and some of them def had this issue. The worst ones were the first jumbopad ones, they would constantly pick up my palms or sides of my hands. It quickly ruins your day when you're coding. I tried all recommended tweaks to settings, nothing worked.
My current one, a 2023 14 inch pro, does have a jumbopad but they must have done something because I'm not experiencing it on this one.
