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Disclaimer: my cube-mate wrote it, but I would have paid for it anyway. Alex, dude, you need a link to the website in your prefs panel.

Check out Side Track. It lets you assign multiple click corners and scroll zones to your trackpad. Almost as good as a real 2 button trackpad.

Or maybe's it's because Apple's QA people know that best way to have software designed to be easy to use is to not encourage them to use right-click kludges.

This is true, but they could still include a scrolling wheel to the mouse (place it to the middle of the button, for example). Scrolling using scroll bars is always a real PITA once you've got used to the wheel.

Another problem are laptops. Since switching to Mac at June 2003, for a long time I was really struggling with the internal mouse of my PowerBook; It was not so much about the buttons (I use context-menus, but I'm perfectly fine with ctrl-click), but rather the lack of scolling areas on trackpad edges, and especially the insane mac-style cursor acceleration curve. Then I finally found this godsent little piece of software, which unleashes the full potential of Synaptics trackpads used by Apple.

It is just really unfortunate that it is by no means supported by Apple; I really hope they'd not forget the power users.

You really should check out Sidetrack as it fully customizes the trackpad.

Almost a year ago now I was talking to a couple of Apple Employees (Powerbook and Powermac Product Managers and a Higher Education Representative) and not surprisingly this very issue came up. They were all throughly impressed by SideTrack and its usefullness in scrolling both vertically and horizontally and right-clicking. I tried to convince them that the powerbook trackpad button could have multiple sensors under the single button so that your average computer user would never need to know but that your tinkering geek would be able to set it up so that it could be a left/right(/middle?) button just by pressing different parts of it. Come to think of it, I'm not sure it doesn't have multiple sensors, but they might be hardwired in parallel so that they cannot be detected individually.

Though, I don't notice the lack of a button, with the control key doing the honors.

gah.. forgot to linkify..

http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/

alt-tab between windows in same program on os x is alt-tilde (no shift button - i don't know the name of the ` character).

you can highlight a line of work with triple-click anywhere in the line. not always convenient, but it does work.

scroll section on a track pad is here.

there is a lot of stufff out there, it just takes time to find it all. keep asking questions, and you will get some surprising answers.

By all means, get: SideTrack
It is a driver for the trackpad which allows it to do all sorts of cool things (scroll wheel, tapping corners, etc). I have been using it for months and could not be without it.

Uhuh.

Actually it's a synaptics touchpad hardware/driver feature. The touchpad normally emulates a PS2 mouse; however, there is a 'raw' mode that you can put the hardware into that basically returns the position of the user's finger on the pad. This allows you to do a lot of different things in software such as simulate a scroll wheel when the user tracks up and down the right edge, horizontally scroll when the user tracks on the bottom edge, perform browsing back/forward actions on the top edge, simulate extra mouse buttons with corner taps, etc.

A really really good implementation of a raw-mode synaptics driver is available for MacOS as SideTrack. It used to be free while it was in beta. Now it is $15 and a heck of a good deal. It fixes the powerbooks' problem of lacking a right mousebutton and scroll wheel while giving all sorts of extra enhancements that really make that one button mouse a lot more usable.

I use a piece of software on my powerbook called SideTrack. I've got touchpad-tap as my left mouse button, and the physical button as the right mouse button. Takes an hour or two to get used to it, but makes the touchpad a lot more tollerable to us multi-mouse-button fans!

I refuse to believe that you, as a serious PC user, shelled out the cash for a Powerbook and:

1) Didn't think to hold down the power button for five seconds instead of removing the battery. You'll be very disappointed if you try to buy a new laptop without ACPI these days, because I don't believe anyone makes them. No hard power switches on any platform.

2) Haven't heard of Sidetrack.

3) Aren't aware that the resale value of your Powerbook is still going to be very high compared to its PC competitors when you decide you want something new, and you'd get more value out of selling it on eBay then scavenging it for parts.

If you're being genuine, call Apple. If it's been less than a year, you're covered. If you have Applecare and it's been less than three years, you're still covered.

With all the random crashes, I'd bet you have a faulty power supply. You can't expect a company's products to be flawless 100% of the time, but you can expect it of their service.

While obviously not a total solution (what really is?) I use MenuMeters to show me major system info in real time. Here's a screen shot of my menubar showing how mine is set up.

From left: my various desktops, network i/o (outgoing in red, incoming in black), memory allocation, swap/paging, disk i/o (none at that moment), user (black) and kernel (gray) CPU graph, total CPU percentage, clock.

And although it's said that this particular rootkit can bypass it, I strongly recommend shelling out a few bucks for LittleSnitch so nothing can see the 'net without your permission. I assure you, wou *will* be amazed at how much software phones home.

Any time my computer "feels slow" I can expect at least one of those indicators to be pegged. I then investigate and can brutally murderize the offending process if I so choose.

"I think I'll be even more comfortable once I get a replacement mouse that had 2 buttons and a clickable wheel..."

You will be more comfortable, although the machines don't ship with two button mice, the OS supports them seamlessly.

In the meantime, you can turn your trackpad into a 3 button trackpad with a scrollwheel by getting sidetrack here.

"I really miss the Linux/Unix way of clicking with left button to drag to highlight...and just click middle button (wheel) to paste. I understand with will work on OSX too with a new mouse."

Sadly no, the Linux method of copy/paste won't work except in X11 applications, but OS X supports text drag and drop which can still be done entirely without moving your hand from the mouse, and is independant of the clipboard.

"Overall..I do like it. I think I'll really like it more when I can figure how to get the Gentoo for OSX portage kit put on...and start to run more native X applications on it."

It wasn't until I started using OS X as just another Unix with a fancy GUI that I really started to feel comfortable.

As a person coming from the linux world, you might want to install the GNU fileutils, which is the same ls/rm/mv/cp/ln/chmod/chown etc that Linux uses, then just alias to the GNU versions instead of the FreeBSD tools it comes with.

Some additions, corrections:
- Don't discount Safari as a browser - it's the best browser I've ever used. just turn on tabs (looks in preferences), and popup blocking, which for some reason I'll never understand are disabled by default.
- Third party utilities including Path Finder and Onyx will allow you to quit the Finder. there's really no reason to, though.
- You really don't need to reinstall when you first get the machine - just look through places like your Applications folder for things you don't want.
- And now, my "things no Mac should be without" category:
Quicksilver - the app/document launcher on steroids.
Adium - multi-protocol IM client
Desktop Manager - virtual desktops. Cooperates with expose and multiple monitors.
MenuMeters - CPU/bandwidth/HD Monitor and more, in the menubar.
SideTrack - replacement trackpad driver allows the sides to be used as scroll wheels.
Colloquy - modern IRC client

Some additions, corrections:
- Don't discount Safari as a browser - it's the best browser I've ever used. just turn on tabs (looks in preferences), and popup blocking, which for some reason I'll never understand are disabled by default.
- Third party utilities including Path Finder and Onyx will allow you to quit the Finder. there's really no reason to, though.
- You really don't need to reinstall when you first get the machine - just look through places like your Applications folder for things you don't want.
- And now, my "things no Mac should be without" category:
Quicksilver - the app/document launcher on steroids.
Adium - multi-protocol IM client
Desktop Manager - virtual desktops. Cooperates with expose and multiple monitors.
MenuMeters - CPU/bandwidth/HD Monitor and more, in the menubar.
SideTrack - replacement trackpad driver allows the sides to be used as scroll wheels.
Colloquy - modern IRC client

quobobo said To be fair, he's getting an iBook, not a Mac desktop. I use a Logitech 6-button mouse with my Powerbook whenever it's at a desk, but it's simply not an option on the road.

but what *is* an option is SideTrack.

i have that 6 button mouse built into my iBook thankyouverrymuch! (click, tap, +4 corner taps)

the only time i use the external mouse is when i'm using the 'book in bed, and using the track pad means contorting my arm (which hearts just thinking about it!)

To quobobo: what up? i haven't seen you around the 'net lately... shoot me an email!

These are all the free (as in beer) applications I use all the time:

WireTap: Save an audio file of any sound being played on the Mac by any other application.

DVDBackup: Great for backing up DVDs (while removing region coding, CSS encryption, and Macrovision encryption.) You'll still need Toast to burn the DVDs though.

PixelNhance: A must-have to tinker with the color/brightness/contrast etc. of your digital pictures.

Pixen: The best pixel-level editor on any platform.

MorphX: Morphs one image into another.

SnapNDrag: For screen captures (Grab is another basic screen capture utility that comes bundled with OSX).

Galerie: Puts your photos in a nice album-type gallery of web pages for being served by a web server.

LaTex Equation Editor and Tex Fog: The equation editors I use. Requires Tex/LaTex to be installed..

And if you are into LaTex, you'll also want CPlot: A parametric equation plotter.

CyberDuck: Open source S/FTP client. (Other FTP clients for OSX include osXigen, Transmit, Fetch, Fugu...).

Onyx: A must-have system utility.

MenuMeter: Another must-have system info utility. Excellent.

Books: A library software (book database).

Xnippets: A decent information organiser.

Carbon Copy Cloner: Backup software. (Donationware)

A few apps I have gladly paid money to use:

ChartSmith: Wonderfull for making all kinds of charts you have ever thought of (and some you haven't).

EvoCAM: Great app to record/play (or otherwise control) a Firewire/USB camera hooked to your Mac. Well worth the shareware price. (Also checkout their other offerings - ImageDV and VideoScope)

Intaglio: The 2D vector drawing/CAD program of my choice for simple CAD/ technical drawings.

Keynote: A (much better than) PowerPoint replacement from Apple. I use this all the time. (When it came out originally, I paid $$ for it; I heard Apple is bundling it with iLife now?)

Little Snitch: Keeps tabs on any stealth connections being made to/from your Mac, Shareware.

Intuem: Nice MIDI app with a clean interface. (GarageBand, one of Apple's iLife apps, is great for Audio/MIDI as well, but I find it limiting for my purpose because it does not do MIDI-out to my keyboard/synth.)

cheers- raga

• Mac Rumors - Good rumors website
• Mac Slash - Slashdot like mac news site
• Mac News Bytes - Good quick links to mac related articles
• Version Tracker - Software update website. Kind of like download.com for mac.
• Mac Update - Similar to versiontracker.com
• Mac OS X Hints - Good tips site for beginners and experienced people alike.
• Think Secret - Another good rumors site. Very accurate, most of the time.
• Emulation.net - Links to game emulation for mac

• Adium - Multi-protocol IM client
• Byte Controller - Good itunes hotkey/menu pager applet
• Camino - Nice mac based gecko browser.
• Colloquy - Webkit based IRC client. not too newbish.
• Cyberduck - SFTP/FTP client for os x
• Desktop Manager - Multi desktop app for os x
• Apple X11 Server - Apple's integrated X11 server. you'd want this for the next two items
• Fink - UNIX software for your mac
• Gimp.app - decent free photo editor
• Handbrake - DVD to mpeg4 ripper
• iTerm - Multi tabbed terminal
• Logorrhea - iChat log viewer/searcher/indexer
• Meteorologist - Weather applet for the menu bar
• Menu Meters - Menu applet for cpu usage, net usage, and more.
• Mplayer OS X - This app will play just about any media format in existance
• Poisoned - GiFT (Kazaa) and mldonkey based P2P mac client.
• Quicksilver - Very cool file/application/url/itunes/etc/etc/etc indexing program. It's like spotlight, only here TODAY and free!
• VLC - Another good video playing app. Nice to have a backup sometimes if mplayer doesn't play a file (which is very very rare).

Speaking of mice and since you are getting an iBook, I'd recommend highly trying out SideTrack, a replacement touchpad driver that adds TONS of useful features like a scroll area (horizonal and vertical) and up to 5 extra mouse buttons (center tap and 4 corners tap).

It also gives you several options of acceleration profiles; one of which is similar to PC trackpad accelerations if you are used to them.

Hi I use Macs and Windows machines all day, and I can safely say that the 1-button mouse is my biggest problem. Connecting a regular old 2 button scroll mouse goes a long way, but if you're used to a Windows trackpad with scroll functionality (i.e. run you finger against the right edge to scroll the active window) there's a little app you can use to get that back.

The other thing I miss every time I use a Mac is the standard windows two pane file navigation. To me nothing on the Mac even comes close. There must be something out there which is just as good, I just haven't bothered to look for it yet.

Try some software that makes link lights obsolete. Added benefits include not having to contort yourself into a position where you can see behind the operating computer and a fun little gross traffic logging feature.

p

Get Sidetrack for your powerbook. It turns the trackpad into something with six buttons and two scroll wheels, which is better than most mice :D.

Yeah, I can buy one, but I shouldn't have to for what I'm paying. And what about for my Powerbook? $3000 and no means to add a button to the touchpad = annoyed me.


I just installed SideTrack

Now the right edge of my pad is a vertical scroll section.
The top left corner activates expose's show all windows (F9)
The bottom left corner is a right click

Ditch the 1-button mouse already! Seriously. It's a cliched criticism, I know, but that makes it all the more inexcusable. Give us a damn scroll wheel, 2 or 3 button mouse.

Shut up SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!! SHUT UP!

WE ALL KNOW it's a %$@#! one button mouse. It's the oldest and most annoying complaint on Slashdot. Steve Jobs doesn't check here for design suggestions, so if you want a $@#! two-button mouse how about sending letters to him?

You can buy a two-button scroll wheel mouse, you know. For TWENTY DOLLARS. Or to add some functionality to your Powerbook trackpad, you could try sidetrack.

well since you are changing subjects from mice to trackpad, I'm quite happy with my 6 button trackpad on my iBook :)

as far as muscle memory/easy target acquisition, vs focus follows mouse goes, to each his own. i find infinitely tall menus 1000 times more productive than menus that are only 20 or 30 pixels tall. i also *personally* find that focus follows mouse to be quite antiproductive. however highlight to copy, mouse3 to paste makes up for quite a bit of my personal disadvantage - though not all of it.

In addition: would you trust APE Framework on your system if you only had this module installed? You can even look at the source or compile it yourself.

I hadn't ever heard of ctrl-enter auto-complete before, but it seems worthless considering Mozilla assumes http:// for any URL lacking a protocol and you rarely need www before a domain. CTRL-ENTER in Linux Mozilla opens links in new Tabs, Command-Enter in OSX Mozilla does the same thing, I don't have a Windows box.

I have been using middle-click set to command-click since to the days of Mac OS8, when Command-clicking a link in Netscape 4.5 would open it in a new window. If you haven't already got it, try out Side Track with your powerebook. It lets you set sections of your trackpad to do different things, like middle and left buttons or scrolling.

Then you'd really want to check this out. Not sure if it does ALL you want, but it certainly enhances the present mac laptop trackpads.

Enjoy !!

If this doesn't get resolved soon I'm going to have to take apart and retrofit one, and then somebody is going to feel my wrath.

You don't need to go that far, it can be addressed with software. I installed Sidetrack on my iBook

http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/

You get vertical and horizontal scroll wheel functionality by using the edges of the trackpad, and I configured it to do a right-click by tapping on the trackpad. All fully configurable and adjustable. I was initially concerned that the scrolling functionality would interfere with regular trackpad usage, but I've been using it for a couple of weeks now and it hasn't been a problem, although it can be a little over-sensitive to tapping on the trackpad for a right click.

What you might be looking for is something like SideTrack, which allows you to use the trackpad tap as a ctrl+click, or many other things. It also lets you use the side of the trackpad as a scroll wheel for both horizontal and vertical.

If you're that hard up for it, you buy yourself an external mouse or plug in the one that you already own or install SideTrack and stop complaining about stupid shit.

I don't install very often because I use a Mac running OSX. When i get a new machine though, here are my top ten:

1) Menu Meters -- I couldn't live without it
2) SQLGrinder -- great DB programming tool
3) SubEthaEdit -- great editor, supports collaborative development via Rendezvous
4) Little Snitch -- lets me know when a program tries to go out on the network on its own.
5) BBEdit -- the ultimate editor. How does anyone ever live without it?
6) Timbuktu -- great for managing all those Macs and PCs remotely.

for my 12" powerbook G4 HOWEVER since I found THIS I don't even bother anymore. The right side of the trackpad is vertical scroll. The bottom edge is horizontal scroll. I set a finger tap in the lower left corner to right mouse button click. I set expose up to "choose all apps" and "clear off desktop" with taps in the other corners. With practice, it's a lot faster than a mouse.

Apple laptops have ordinary Synaptic's touchpads. You just need a better driver. See here.

Voilá, scrolling areas and tap corners (==5 mouse buttons). Also a Windows-style acceleration mode, which IMO makes the whole touchpad much more useable.

You mean something like this?

One button mouse problem solved and more, look iup Side Track

linky linky

Agreed... I have a 1GHz TiBook (circa August 03) and I've found one thing: if you keep a CPU monitor up, and kill processes that are using more CPU power than you want them to use, Odds are you lap will be completely safe. (I highly recommend MenuMeters for CPU monitoring.)

If I had to guess, I would say 90% of the people who complain about short battery life and hot PB's probably have some process running that takes up a ton of CPU and therefore is heating up your book.

PowerBook users can use SideTrack to get a second mouse button and scroll wheels... I have it set so tapping the bottom left of the trackpad is right click, top corners are back and forward, right edge is the vertical scroll, and top edge is horizontal.

the single button touch pad

Ask, and thou shalt receive.

Hey! Despite your indefensible views on American party politics, it turns out you're actually a smart guy, otherwise. Here's a link to SideTrack: click.

Click me!

Every now and then it randomly stops working, but other than that this is good enough to be a final release, to be perfectly honest.

Yeah, the Mozilla port to Aqua was called Camino. It seems to have mostly died, although the project page just got updated... a little over a month ago. It's been nearly a year since 0.7 was released.

Camino was (is) better looking than most, but it was (is) still fairly clunky UI-wise. And when Safari was released, the Camino project quickly turned into a game of catch-up with Safari, what with the bookmarks menu, the Google search box, etc. Why wouldn't I just use Safari under these circumstances?

As for my running non-native apps, I have to say 99% of the time I'm a user, not a developer. I don't care what is and isn't "native"; at the end of the day, I just want programs with well designed, aesthetically pleasing interfaces. (I do not want to spend my workday in a sewer.) Almost all open source software I've tried fails miserably to meet this one requirement, and that's a showstopper.

Actually, Cocoa lends itself quite naturally to a MVC paradigm, so for most well-designed programs it should be relatively easy to maintain a native Aqua port (for some definitions of "well-designed," of course).

As for me switching to Gnome, that's out of the question. Whenever I've sat down to work in front of a Gnome desktop, I've felt like I might as well be in front of a Windows box--the taskbar, the menubars at the top of each window, the window widgets (at least in the default themes) in the exact same places. In short, not attuned to the way I work. And just plain not as pretty and polished as Aqua. No systemwide animations, no alpha channels on windows, no double-buffering. (Is all of this still true in Gnome 2.6?)

"Ah, but you're attuned to the Mac because that's what you're accustomed to!" you say. Guilty as charged. But it doesn't matter to me. I'm willing to change my work habits if I'm convinced I'll derive some benefit from doing so, but based on what I've seen so far from open source software, I'm highly skeptical of that claim. (Mostly because I place inordinate value on good user interfaces--that whole "not mucking about in a sewer" thing I mentioned earlier.)

You know, I just remembered there IS one excellent open source project I've encountered, and that is MenuMeters. Intuitive, well designed. Fantastic job, Mr. Alex Harper. Veering offtopic for a minute, I find it significant that Mr. Harper specifically distances himself from the political blather of the OSS movement, to wit: "... both 'free' as in beer and 'free' as in speech, for those who partition the world using that terminology (I am not one of them)." I don't know why it doesn't surprise me that someone with aesthetic sensibilities would disavow RMS's political philosophies, but it doesn't.

yours

we don't have to plug in an external device to get a second mouse button.

not like you truly care, but this is a GREAT piece of software. check out sidetrack -- my left mouse button is touch-pad tap, my right-mouse button is the physical button. took about 2 hours to get used to, but is a godsend for one-handed REAL mousing. :-)

If it really bothers you that much you can always download something like SideTrack and assign trackpad tap to left click and thumb button to right click. Not an ideal solution if you're hellbent on having a separate button, I'll admit, but certainly better than bitching endlessly on Slashdot.

Personally, I find that I don't really need to right-click that much in Mac OS X anyway. The interface is well-designed enough that almost all of what I need to do doesn't require a right click, and frankly, even if Apple offered a two button model, I'd still spring for the one button. I happen to think it's just plain more elegant. YMMV.

yours

don't be stupid.

remember: everyone has the same problems as you. some people just solve them. for free, even.