I still use the little bit of foam tape in the thumb-resting/traditional button-placed area of the touchpad (as in photos, way way above). My thumb rests there and I click the pad to click, as if it were a button. It’s janky and it still results in occasional slide-clicks, even though there’s literally no finger movement to cause it.
My true solution is that I just stopped using the Framework laptop as a daily. My work laptop is a Precision 7560, and my daily is a Latitude 5580 or a Latitude E7440, depending on which room I’m in. All 3 of which have wonderful touchpad buttons (and that Precision is an 11th gen Intel just like the Framework ).
I would like an alternative touchpad option also, with a smaller pad and at least 2 preferabbly 3 physical buttons.
Using a “click area” and just pretending it’s a button is not a sufficient replacement for a button, even if you create a tactile boundary with tape, because:
The pad still registers the “button” finger on the pad and confuses it with your other finger that you are trying to use for dragging or selecting. It either thinks you’re trying to do a pinch/zoom gesture, or it screws up the aim not putting the pointer where you want, or it simply doesn’t move the pointer at all, or barely moves it a little. It’s infuriating.
There is actually only one physical button under the pad and it doesn’t register the equivalent of trying to press both buttons at once. I actually want 3 buttons not just 2, which is not outlandish, my X1 Carbon has 3, and all my mice have 3, and I use middle-click a lot. I’m merely willing to accept 2 as a compromise.
I also like the pad to be a lot smaller so that:
Less area to collect unwanted touches. (palm hits, etc.)
Smaller range of motion so everything fits within your finger’s reach without stretching or even moving your whole arm.
Everything the OP said in the first place basically and then some. It ain’t just him.
The pointer is a point of human interface and is highly personal preference. There is no one way that works well enough for everyone that you should just say everyone else, adapt to this way. For most machines, that just had to be that way because you couldn’t realistically offer multiple choices. But it seems that this machine is actually uniquely positioned to actually be able to offer the user a choice like that in a way that no others ever could. At least in theory a different version of the touch pad assembly could be made that users could replace themselves and which fits right in the existing spot. The closest to that sort of choice that ever came before is Thinkpads having both a pad and trackpoint at the same time.
I understand the company is small yet and can’t do everything, and I’m not trying to say this should go to the top of the emergency priority list. I’m just saying I really hate the touch pad and it’s one of the things I have to just swallow and work-around and generally just tolerate and excuse. I mostly just always carry a mouse and only use the touch pad when forced. That can’t be any product manufacturers goal in life. I do so because obviously the machine has so many other facets I value so highly, but that still isn’t exactly great. It’s just feedback that you can’t know any other way if no one says it.
Thanks for the confirmation that I’m not the only one driven nuts by this. I know I can’t be the only one that naturally uses a touchpad in this way.
Just one tiny point, though:
This is actually exactly what I set out to fix, when I came up with my “solution” – finding a material that insulated the pad from sensing my finger resting on it. The tape I use here is 3M VHB foam tape - with matte scotch tape on top of it, for texture/smoothness, blocking the top adhesive. In terms of tactile, it’s about as good as it can get: it blocks the pad from sensing touch there, and it’s comfortable enough (not friction-sticky like smooth shiny plastic) to almost live with - if not for the other shortcomings of the pad.
As you mention, though: you can’t click both buttons at once (basically it’d just sense a single right-click if you try, here), and no middle-click either.
It seems like a distant dream at this point, but it’s still a dream none the less. I figure there’s got to be a reason Dell still keeps buttons on their highest-end workstation laptops!
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.
My work laptop is a Precision 7560, and my daily is a Latitude 5580 or a Latitude E7440, depending on which room I’m in. All 3 of which have wonderful touchpad buttons (and that Precision is an 11th gen Intel just like the Framework 
).
I do…I even notice how small the other laptop touchpad in my house is in comparison and it’s a 15.6in laptop.