There are annoying multi-step gestures using combinations of tapping and draging and tapping again and using 1 vs 2 vs 3 fingers for all that and more.
They can be kind of slick if you are willing to work that way, but it requires that you have tapping enabled at all, which I can’t stand because it’s always registering random brushes as taps, and no there is no such thing as a correct sensitivity level that fixes that thankyouverymuch ;). It’s constant chore to have tapping and gestures enabled and then have to walk on eggshells around the touch pad at all times. I want to be able to rest my fingers anywhere and only generate a button click when I explicitly press a button.
The only good thing about tapping and gestures is, if I’m ever accused of anything wrong on a computer, it is a wonderful way to show that it’s impossible to prove that you intentionally clicked on anything, even if you don’t own a cat or have a baby.
I want physical mouse buttons, mainly because I need a middle-mouse-drag. I returned a Dell a couple of years back because no tech could figure out how to accomplish it. I can get by with two buttons by using the ChordMouse option, but the 3-button trackpad on the Dell Precision M4800 was the best. It actually had two sets of buttons (one above, one below).
I look forward to the day when there is an option for a physical-button trackpad and a 15" display.
I would like to add my voice to the “We want physical buttons” chorus.
I own a 2008 Thinkpad T61, whose touchpad is less than 5cm wide, yet perfectly usable, with two physical buttons below, and three above. I really fail to understand why touchpads keep getting larger and larger. This removes space for useful devices such as a keyboard and physical buttons, and increases the risk of unvoluntarilly moving the mouse while typing on the keyboard, which can have very annoying consequences.
The middle button plays an essential part in my workflow, because select - middle-click is the single most convenient way to copy-paste I know (I use Linux). ctrl-C - ctrl-V doesn’t work with my editor (vim).
I could live with just a pair of buttons though, because a simultaneous click on the left and right buttons can be configured to emulate a middle click.
A glossy display and a large touchpad without physical buttons are probably the main points that would prevent me from buying a framework laptop when my current computer ends its life.
Forgot to say I despise tap to click and turn it off every chance I get.
Between the stupid high-res screen (which I’d configure to run at something sane), DDR4 only, and the touchpad, I’m seriously torn about all of this. I really want to support the concepts but I’m having to come up with a lot of workarounds. Add another vote for the physical buttons (remote touchpad buttons). I created this account just to say this.
When Framework offers a quality trackpad with 3 physical buttons that highly resemble those on Thinkpad laptops (buttons between keyboard and the trackpad) I will buy it right away. Until then I will continue to use Thinkpads (currently using T460s and T495) . There is simply no sane reason why I should cripple myself with going to a sub-par input device that makes up a very large portion of usage experience.
Just saw the Next Level video today, too. The 16-inch Framework looks like the perfect platform onto which a button-equipped touchpad may exist.
But it wasn’t even hinted at
Buttons can still be thin. All I want is tactile response to clicks, and for the button area to be touch-inactive. Maybe they could still do that with some tweaks to current touchpad architecture. And for god’s sake, stop making touchpads bigger and bigger… who seriously uses touchpads that way? Stop copying Apple’s dumb moves!
Just hope there can be a “more traditional touchpad” option at SOME point, somehow, however it may be done.
Wha? I don’t get that. What do you even do with that huge a pad? Dunno about you, but I don’t feel like moving my arm around to get the cursor moved. It’s not a touchscreen - it’s a relative input device, so it only needs to be as large as the sweep of a finger. Not a whole freaking palm. Or, at this point, AN ARM. If they keep up at this rate, the whole palmrest will be a touchpad.
I really just want a touchpad, that I can fly a million miles an hour through (move click move click click move click), and use comfortably, without wanting a mouse.
Well, if Framework doesn’t add buttons to touchpad on the 16-inch Framework someone else can now. It being on an easily replaceable module now.
I don’t even use my touchpad much but I still want real buttons for times that I might be without a mouse. I normally have no shortage of inputs on my Thinkpad, trackpoint, touchscreen, touchpad, mouse but I certainly still want physical touchpad buttons.
@Matt_Falcon I don’t really use the whole trackpad at a time and if someone wants touchpad buttons especially in conjunction with a pointing stick, I can see how a smaller trackpad would be more appealing. I owned a W500 years ago, I never got use to the touchpoint and rarely used the upper touchpad buttons. The bottom ones I did use and truth be told, I do prefer that part at least. I’ve misclicked on this touchpad many times and every time its annoying that the machine didn’t right click like I intended and instead…did whatever else. Having said that, when I want that much room, either for scrolling or highlighting large segments of text, it’s invaluable. So I do use it. Now that my eGPU dock is fully functional, I’ll probably move towards using my mouse more instead.
@Blaise_Li you use vim while somehow want to use a mouse… what? The entire point of vim is to not touch your mouse
Hopefully you’ve actually learned vim by now but and dont work because they’re y and p as per vim keybindings since forever; or more precisely "*y and "*p for system clipboard yank and paste.
@Evelyn I use vim to edit text files, but sometimes I want to copy things from applications having a GUI. I do not do everything with vim.
What do you mean by “actually learned vim by now”? Learning vim is not an all-or-nothing thing. I started learning vim about 20 years ago, starting from a minimal set of commands and progressively adding things I use frequently enough to remember them. y and p are among the commands I use since “forever”, but (thanks to middle-click copy-paste) using explicit registers to copy and paste is not something I need regularly enough to remember.
A smaller pad with higher sensitivity is my preference also, however a larger pad is better for gesture support. A lot of gestures rely on having three or even four fingers on the pad together, then doing a movement of some kind.
I use three-finger tap to middle-click pretty regularly, which is not that bad, but in Gnome I think you swipe left/right with three or four fingers to change workspaces. That takes some serious pad real estate!
If we had the physical buttons, a smaller pad would be fine because we would not have to rely as heavily on gesture support.
One of the best features of ThinkPads is their mechanical mouse buttons above the touchpad. This works vastly better (for me) than the iffy click mechanism on the Framework touchpad.
I would immediately purchase a replacement that included mechanical mouse buttons.
(Update: I appreciate the forum moderator’s moving this comment to another relevant thread where this has been discussed for some time.)
I do…I even notice how small the other laptop touchpad in my house is in comparison and it’s a 15.6in laptop.