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Teaching the Trackpad New Tricks?
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm seriously considering buying a PowerBook. The design is gorgeous and OS X will give me a Unix-based operating system without having to sacrifice main-stream comercial applications. What's holding me back? The trackpad. I'm a fan of the ThinkPad-style joystick, but my Dell laptop came with touchpad drivers that provide useful features like the ability to scroll by sliding your finger along the edge of the pad. That was enough to make me switch to the touchpad on the Dell, but, I can't find anything similar for the PowerBook. I found references to Overdrive, but it appears to only work with USB devices. Are there any other drivers out there that add more functionality to the trackpad? If not, is that because no one has done it yet, or is it because the APIs do not exist to do such a thing? Thanks."
Lemme get this straight...you're decision to spend $2,500 is based on Apple's choice of a secondary peripheral?
Your an asshole dude. I understand where the guy is coming from, because I have lusted after a powerbook for a couple of years now. Just because Steve might be right doesn't mean you have to make yourself flame-bait...
well, i dont know about the scrolling capabilities on the mac, but i say buy a mouse
I know it isnt what you are looking for, but even the scrolling drivers that i have for my synaptics pad dont do that great of a job, and end up being more hassle than they are worth
there are a lot of nice mice out there, including mini mice that do a nice job
Kensington pocket pro this mouse has a retracting cord, and it works perfectly
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking - H.L. Mencken
Whatever happened to the track ball? (or atari trak ball). I remember laptops used to have an actual ball built in you could spin around to move the cursors with a button on either side. This was beautiful it allowed perfect control without adding a lot of space or forcing me to carry a real mouse around with my laptop. The mid keyboard "foam nubs" and the touch pads I find horrible. I can't control the mouse cursor with great accuracy at all. If it isn't sensitive and accurate enough to play a round of quake then it isn't much of a mouse or mouse replacement. Anyone know a modern laptop that still has the ball?
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
... Which is why all of Microsoft's mice work out-of-the-box, without drivers, under Mac OS X.
Your an idiot too. I use a microsoft mouse on my mac, so yes, they do only work on real computers, specifically one that need power to run. Flaming faggot...
I'd have to concur. Microsoft makes decent mice products. I've been using the microsoft optical mouse for about a year now on my g4(running os X) and it works beautifully and it comfortable to use. Also not terribly expensive. hmm.interesting the mouse market is fairly competitive(but not cut throat) and microsoft makes a decent product.....
It really is a beautiful operating system you jerk. MS has nothing on it, and all the shitty add ons to X such as KDE or Gnome will never be as pretty, elegant, full-featured, and smoothly integrated as Aqua on OS X.
On top of that, you get a tcsh shell.
Maybe it runs on Apache. :-(
or whatever other shell you prefer. I have a few friends who are bash die hards so they switched the shell to bash. :)
What the _fuck_ are you talking about. Last time I checked Mircosoft doesnt and never has made hardware. Oh, and Intel and AMD are coming out with RISC processors, the same as the ones Apple has been using since the 80's. So, since Apple uses such terrible hardware, why is the Windows world switching over to it? Your an idiot.
If it had been a story about the latest point release of an open source software project it would have included the word "drool" and concluded with multiple exclamation points.
And nobody would criticise that.
Seriously, tps12 seems to be implying that Apple is getting some kind of free ride in the slashdot forums...anyone who thinks that should have his head examined. Apple takes tons of abuse (deserved and undeserved) in these forums. It's the Linux / open source camp that gets the free ride.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Uh... I don't know about the laptops ( I suppose I should ask some co-workers ), but I thought I'd throw this out there before too many comments went by :
I have an Adesso "TruForm" keyboard with a built-in trackpad, under OS X, and it has the feature you describe. I threw me off at first, I was a little miffed that I couldn't use the full area of the pad for movement, but now I'm with you- being able to scroll via the right hand side of the trackpad is a great feature!
Note that "It Just Works". There are/were no drivers to install, nothing, just plugged in the USB keyboard and trackpad away...
I've got a G3 (Pismo), and find that the track pad is ok for general use. However, If I'm going to be doing a lot of word processing, spread sheet work, etc. I'll hook up. my Logitech Marble Mouse (Part Number 904360-0403) as I prefer a trackball to the track pad, or to a mouse for that matter.
The nice thing about OS X is that it supports two button mice/trackballs natively, so the second button will function ! right out of the box. I have a G4 Sawtooth at home. I'm using a Kensington Turbo Mouse PRO with it. The software that Kensington makes for it gives it functionality I find quite helpful when dealing with large projects using productivity software. The only reason that I've gone with the Logitech Marble Mouse for my Pismo is that the Turbo Mouse is just two bulky for convenience when transporting a laptop.
To conclude: I prefer a trackball over all other similar input devices. I find that I've no preference when it comes to mice, and track pads.
Your kilometerage may vary.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
I've been seeing you spam discussions here for weeks now and I have only this to say - use your real name. Or are you unwilling to stand behind your comments?
Failing that you should at least endeavor to rise above your current name.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Let's see. Mice, Joysticks, Voice command things for games. That's some hardware Microsoft makes. I'm sure there are other examples.
Windows runs on Intel (and some other) platforms. Intel gets to decide their own architecture, not Microsoft. In addition, I don't think anyone ever said RISC wasn't a better proccessor. The reason people stayed with x86 architecture is because of backwards compatability with all the mission critical business apps that are out there.
Apple didn't HAVE any mission critical business apps written for it, therefore they didn't have a problem upgrading.
When calling someone an idiot, the word you are looking for is you're. You may also use "you are". The use of "your" really makes YOU look like an idiot.
...about Apple switching to Intel processors?
Also, Microsoft's hardware is better than Apple's ever could hope to be.
Just give up and switch now.
Umm, the first time I installed OS X the scrollwheel on my Microsoft mouse magically started working with out any drivers, and this was during the install.
I waited a couple more months for Intellipoint software to come out and then my back and forward history buttons on the mouse started working too.
I almost never use the button on my track pad. I either tap the track pad to click or I'm using an external mouse.
What I'd like to see is a way to map the track pad button to a right-click so I don't have to use a finger to hold the control key down when I'm not using my external (two-button, natch) mouse.
...that maybe you're right?
I think I should get my own name. But that would limit me to two posts per day because of the rampant censorship by Apple zealots here on Slashdot.
With all of this suppression of the truth, no wonder we need fine organizations like the BSA, RIAA and MPAA. Keep up the good work, boys!
The question was about about using the trackpad in OS X to do 'advanced' features like scrolling.
The above post just babbled about personal experences with mice and trackpads, and totally and utterly avoided the actual question at hand.
Moderators: The one you're after is Redundant.
I may be wrong but the "scroll area" on the side of the dell is a hardware feature, rather than just software. As such, I doubt it will make it to the powerbook, as it breaks the metaphor, and apple does not like to break metaphors.
However, I do suggest you rent a powerbook for a month. Should cost you a hundred dollars or so. This is a good investment because if you spend $2,000 on your next computer you don't want to get the wrong one (where wrong may be the powerbook or may be another dell.)
I think you'll find after a period of adjustment that the advantages in usability (much of which is from not breaking the metaphor) and other nice things about OS X will far outweight the lack of the "scroll touch pad".
For what its worth, I use an external 3 button mouse (Even though it breaks the metaphor-- I like it for games that don't have the metaphor to be broken) and the scroll wheel works fine.
In Jaguar there's even a new UI for setting the sensitivity of the scroll wheel. Apple totally supports three button and complex mice, but won't ship them for good reasons.
If there isn't a hardware component to the scroll-trackpad, then you could, theoretically, write a kernel extention to add this functionality.
I think,though, you'll find other things compensate for lack of this feature while mobile. (While not mobile, an external trackpad or trackball can be plugged in.)
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
I think you're wrong. I believe, but I don't know for sure, that Microsoft mice work with PCs and Windows boxes as well as REAL computers.
They do work with Real computers though, quite nicely. (Where REAL = UNIX, including Mac)
Oh, and they work with Mac OS 9 as well.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
About a month ago I thought about writing a shareware product that would do things like that (scroll area on the side of the pad). After a lot of research, I've concluded that it can't be done...
;)
Unless a lot of secret Apple documentation suddenly falls into my lap... if you have such secret documentation, please don't hesitate to send it to me
A little background:
The Trackpad on apple laptops (as well as the keyboard), are pseudo-ADB devices. Still. Even after ADB was supposted to be dead years ago.
I say pseduo because Apple employees claim that the hardware really isn't ADB, but it acts like one as far as the OS is concerned (at the mouse/trackpad driver level. lower down, the situation may be different).
Because of this, from the level of the ADB Mouse Driver, it looks and behaves exactly like those old Apple Extended mice (except for a few additions, such as tap-click, drag, etc). The standard ADB Extended Mouse Protocol, (as documeneted in the Apple Technote 'Space Aliens Ate My Mouse'), only reports relative movements of the pointer, as a normal mouse would.
There is no mechanism for getting the absolute location of the users finger, rather than the relative movement. Without that, you can't remap part of the trackpad to be a scroll area.
Which is why my Microsoft mouse has never failed me on my Powerbook, or under linux (or both!) but under windows 98 frequently requires me to restart mswheel.exe to get the scrolling working again, and occationally gives me a blue screen if I connect it to the USB bus while my scanner is connected. Windows 98: Worst USB support ever.
Thank you for the clarification.
Have a look at the code the reads x and y values from the trackpad. If they values sent from the trackpad are absolute x,y locations then it's trivial to patch the code. If they're relative you may still be able to set the trackpad into absolute mode. (I wrote code to do this for the Versapad under FreeBSD after obtaining details on setting it to absolute mode from the manufacturers - but the Versapad may have been unusual to support absolute mode).
-- SIGFPE
kde and gnome are getting pretty nice, have you seen any screenshots lately! damn! so sexy just wait for gnome 2.1 and kde 3.2. BEAUTIFUL, FAST, and FREE
keanmarine.com
Create a holdable pen that can make the trackpad think it's my finger and I can use it in Inkwell next month...
What, you think I'm going to tote my iBook *AND* a graphire? Nope.
I won't even ask for credit for the idea - no way this is an original thought.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Beautiful? Fast? Come now! Ugh ugh ugh...
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
A good substitute for the simulated scroll wheel feature is to hold the Command key and then drag with the mouse/trackpad. In some applications this will allow the cursor to "grab" the page to scroll both vertically and horizontally. I use it quite a bit in IE and the Finder (under OS 9, haven't tried it with OS X). Unfortunately, many applications don't work like this.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
Check out Scrollability, still Classic only, but they hint that an OS X version is forthcoming.
m at e/index.html
http://www.edenware.com/scrollability/
Also, if you want another hip accessory, try the PowerMate by Griffin. I tend to use it for scrolling , as well as video scrubbing.
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/power
Why is it that laptop pointing devices are always in the center of the laptop? I hate having to keep my hand near the middle of the laptop when it would be so much more comfortable to have it on the right, where my mouse would be. I realize that this would only be convenient for right-handed users, but how about two trackpads, one on the left and one on the right? Or, if that is too "un-unified" for Apple, how about right- and left-handed versions? Or at least right-handed and centrist versions? My ideal would be a trackball on the right side of the laptop that I could operate with my thumb.
Trackpoints are generally far better for use, on a laptop or a desktop, as there is no need to move the hand away from the home keys for any mouse or scrolling activity. A mouse, trackball or tablet might only be required for finer motions required in art production.
I've recently went from using mostly Linux and some winbloze to using OS X on an older G3 Powerbook. I had it for about a month. I've since went on to a different job and no longer have that machine. I'm also suffering withdrawls. Anyway, for the most part, I found the single button, non scrolling track pad thing very useful. If I ever found myself in true need of more mousing capability I just simply plugged my MS trackball into the USB and got what I needed. The more I used it the less I needed the external mouse. At first the UI seemed kind of lacking and odd but that went away after about two days. It's not just a mouse thing, it's getting used to the entire UI. apple-click gives you all the right button stuff and fortunately there's not much of it. The UI makes sure that everything is always in the same place for all software. It takes some getting used to but it's a very short and intuitive learning curve and once I found myself forceably without it I found just how much sense it made. Man do I miss that Mac. Guess it's time to lie in wait outside an apple store for the slow, fat and unwary shoppers ;-) Oh, and as for scrolling, it's already there, kind of. All windows have an up/down button combo in the lower right corner. As for a web browser the arrow keys work well too. And when you're on an external mouse the scroll wheel and right buttons work as one would expect. Get on OS X man, you won't be disapointed. Don't worry too much about the mouse, it's really not much of an issue.
Use a USB optical 3-button wheel mouse...and Overdrive.
> everyone is a fucking idiot.
Nope. It's NOT the result of some random and arbitrary opinion of some miscelaneous yahoo at Apple. It's the result of Jef Raskin's research on human interfaces when he was at Xerox PARC.
You about know Xerox PARC, Right? The place that invented the GUI, and inspired Apple, in the first place. And Raskin's research there showed that even the PARC researchers routinely had difficulty with the original three-button mouse. They regularly made mouse-button errors, causing Raskin to actually do the research, and develop a superior alternative. And remember, we're not talking about "joe blow at CompUSA" here. PARC was filled with computer scientists and PhDs. And even THEY routinely had those mouse button errors.
From the article I linked:
Apple is not ALL smoke and mirrors, contrary to what the MS drones would have you believe. They're one of the VERY few computer companies out there that actually bothers to do human interface research. Try reading the "Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines" sometime. They're the result of a LOT of research in human factors; rathar than some random programmer deciding on his own how he'd like the interface to work THIS time.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
The user interface places the up and down arrows on the bottom of each frame. You can also get a mouse with a scroll wheel (a la MS Optical Mouse). However on a laptop why not just use the up and down arrow keys? Seems the easiest solution.
Apple didn't always use a RISC processor. When they switched to the powerPC they managed to be pretty sucessful at providing backward compatability. Many said it couldn't be done but they actually imbeded an emulator of the prior chipset in the OS and did so seemlessly enough that often the only way you could tell that you were running software not written for the PowerPC chip was the fact that it didn't run any faster than it had on your old computer. Not every old application worked, but the instance of success for me was just as great if not greater than PC aps working with new versions of windows or dos programs running properly on newer hardware.
So perhaps there are other reasons people have stayed with intel than backward compatability.
Besides, you can run most "legacy" pc aps on a mac via a PC emulator just fine.
Not what you are directly asking for, but:
The arrow keys on the powerbook are on the lower-right corner of the screen, and pgup/pgdn are the fn modified versions of them.
Because IE supports scrolling the view by just holding down the arrow key, and it's so darned easy to use fn+up/down arrow to page up/down in other applications (or IE for fast 'scrolling') I think you may find that you can live without that mini mini scroll area.
I would really like to see Apple or anyone implement this. Until then here is what I do: use the up and down arrow keys. The arrow keys aren't very far from the trackpad so it will just require some re-education of your hands. Which just goes to show how hard it is to switch from one platform to another.
I'll take this moment to rant a bit on Apple's lack of attention to keyboard navigation. At first I thought the problem was my newness with the platform but after six months I still find myself relying too heavily on the mouse. Anyone know how to cycle amoung open windows from the keyboard?
Aren't all Microsoft mice just rebranded HP mice?
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Anyone know how to cycle amoung open windows from the keyboard?
In both OS9 and X, you can just hit apple(command)-tab. similar to the windows alt-tab, except that OS9 will switch as soon as you hit tab, and X will wait until you release the apple key.
Interesting thing is that it seems that Apple ~ (actually, it's really the ` key) is becoming the standard for switching between windows within a an application.
You don't need Geeksintraining if you're on Slashdot.
How is a comment about windows mice working with Unix computers "offtopic" when the topic is a trackpad on a mac as compared to dell, and its alternatives?
We got a moderation problem here. Hope someone catches it in metamod.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
YOU'RE!!! stupid geeks..
The trackpad on older Apples could be put into absolute mode by third party utilities, but as one reader commented, just get the Darwin source and have a look at what gives.
I use a $9.95 (on sale) handheld (well finger held) trackball from CompUSA The "trigger" is button one and buttons two and three are on top, the trackball being manipulated with your thumb. With practice you can type while still maintaining a grip on the thing, but I usually only do short sequences that way, puting it down when large amounts of typing are to be done (finger RTS otherwise?). It shares the bag with my Auto/airline lind power supply nicely. It is quite convienient. Overdrive and it should give you what you want.
Thank the USB organizations definition of the HID devices protocol for giving you the seeming mirical of "it works right out of the box without any drivers" as the default drivers often work "good enough". I am typing away on an unsupported Logitech wireless keyboard (and using a wireless trackball) through my USB KVM switch and it all "just works". Standards good. Beer bad.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
and it cured my carpel tunnel! It's very light and fits well in my computer bag. It doesn't seem to use too much juice and is hot swapable. You can sit back and use it anywhere.
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
dude, your so wrong. windows 95 has the worst usb support ever. ands whats with the new "ever" fad. worst ever, best ever. unlikely. always never and ever are very often wrong.
get a clue people.
My trackpad works absolutely fine with my mechanical pencil covered in aluminum foil. The point has to be sort of thick for it to work though.
I believe the Motorola 68000 line of processors were RISC, though I could be wrong. (Someone chime in, hrm?)
When Apple first released machines with PowerPC chips, just about the entire OS ran in emulation. In fact, parts of the MacOS were emulated until OS 9, the first PowerPC-only release. And, even on the first machines, the emulated code ran faster than it would have natively on machines of those times.
Some pointing devices can be switched into other modes ("absolute", "pressure", etc.) with non-standard protocols. I somehow doubt this can be done for the Mac, though.
Too bad that Macintosh comes with only one pointing device and a single button. Most people I know would much prefer something else, as well as a three-button mouse. With a desktop, it doesn't matter since people just plug in whatever keyboard and mouse they like (I can't remember the last time I actually have seen anybody use an Apple mouse), but with a laptop, there is no choice.