How do you right-click?
Two-finger tap.
Apple Magic Trackpad
51–60 of 170 posts
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#52I actually think combining the Magic Mouse with Better Touch Tool (http://blog.boastr.net/?page_id=1722) is a better solution. I use the trackpad on my Macbook because it's more convenient than using a mouse when I'm on the go. In the office I prefer a mouse for precision, but I also want multi-touch gestures, and with Better Touch Tool I can pretty much customize my Magic Mouse any way I want to, which actually lends more credence to the hyperbole "Magic."
I have mine set up to move from tab to tab on two-finger swipes to the left and right, refresh the page with a three-fingered swipe up, close the tab with a three-finger swipe down, and two fingers up and down will activate expose and spaces respectively. There are a lot more gestures available to customize as well, I'm irritated Apple doesn't allow you that level of customization out of the box.
So with all that said, I think the track pad doesn't add much value, at least for me. My advice is to get the Magic Mouse, unless you actually hate it as a mouse (which some people do).
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#53Back in the days, I always preferred the Trackpoints the IBM ThinkPads used and I never quite liked the trackpads. I'm even going as far as to say that I'm quite the trackpad hater - they never felt precise to me and required way too frantic finger movement to be really comfortable for me. But when I moved to Apple hardware, I basically was stuck with the trackpads, but this time around, it was different. The bigger…
The problem with trackpads are that you have to move your hand - great for normal browsing I suppose, but it sucks when you are writing code or typing.
How is this different from any other pointing device? The only one I know where you didn't have to move your hand was the Touchstream LP (http://www.fingerworks.com/ST_product.html), but then typing was difficult at best.
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#54Does anyone know if this will have some sort of way to trigger a "middle click", like when one clicks on the scroll wheel? As far as I've seen with Apple mice, they've never had support for middle click.
The older Mighty Mouse could be configured to do this by defining the scroll wheel Button 3 under Mouse in System Preferences.
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe if enough people ask? Or the product is generally popular enough? The iPod and the iPhone are only so popular because they embraced PC in all its ... glory. Hopefully they're already working on this.
The iPod didn't support Windows when it was released. Maybe Apple are doing the same thing here; I'm sure by not supporting Windows, they're able to get a better product out much quicker.
Fair point. It would be nice if they would at least commit to bringing Windows support in the future.
I can't imagine this would affect actual sales though, just another of example of when Apple's secrecy can be irritating for some of us.
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#56Please Apple, gain the cut, copy, and paste (and other gestures) on the trackpad that you bought from FingerWorks. Freaking genius.
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#57Does anyone know if this will have some sort of way to trigger a "middle click", like when one clicks on the scroll wheel? As far as I've seen with Apple mice, they've never had support for middle click.
Mighty mouse had middle click support; you just click with your finger on the scrolling ball. Not great but you could program what to do with this button.
Unfortunately the Macbook trackpad doesn't have middle click natively. However, with BetterTouchTool you can assign commands for 2, 3, 4, and even 5 finger clicks. For five finger click you have to include the thumb. This means that clicking the trackpad with your thumb while a single finger is on it is a 2 finger click, which I prefer to be a regular left click. These are all settings you can control.
Anyway, BetterTouchTool lets you configure a whole bunch of different actions (clicking or swiping in different parts of the pad with a different number of fingers) to activate a whole bunch of commands.
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with trackpads are that you have to move your hand - great for normal browsing I suppose, but it sucks when you are writing code or typing.
How is this different from any other pointing device? The only one I know where you didn't have to move your hand was the Touchstream LP ( http://www.fingerworks.com/ST_product.html ), but then typing was difficult at best.
The Trackpoint (little nub) mouse on some laptops doesn't require you to move far if at all from the home row.
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#59How do you right-click?
On the newer MBPs you can assign the bottom right corner to right clicks (or just use the two finger tap method mentioned by others, which feels quite natural). I assume that’s possible with this device, too.
Re: Apple Magic Trackpad
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with trackpads are that you have to move your hand - great for normal browsing I suppose, but it sucks when you are writing code or typing.
How is this different from any other pointing device? The only one I know where you didn't have to move your hand was the Touchstream LP ( http://www.fingerworks.com/ST_product.html ), but then typing was difficult at best.
IBM Trackpoint http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/healthycomputing/trkpnt.html
Best pointing device ever.
You can keep your hand in home position for typing and manipulate the cursor. It doesn't actually move, but is force sensitive and is delicately calibrated to move in an intuitive manner.