Would someone be able to create an input module that’s an older-style touchpad with individual left/right buttons, instead of a “clickpad”?
I know the old touchpad parts still exists as Clevo uses them.
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Welcome to the forum.
Yes, there is the possibility that someone could make a touchpad module with buttons. Though it might have to connect to a different spot than the stock touchpad modules use, as it’s not clear what interface those spots use.
I personally really hope someone does create one. With left, right, and middle buttons.
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This would be very much appreciated. Although I usually have a mouse attached, I do sometimes use the touchpad. I dislike clickpads and would definitely be willing to sacrifice touchpad space for buttons. The 3"x2" touchpad on my aging Thinkpad T520 is large enough. Also, I use middle-click paste on Linux extremely often, so three buttons would be my desire.
How do I link in with someone who can do this?
My framework is due Q1 and I would like to commission a touchpad by then.
Well, first we need the touchpad docs.
You might check in with the crew in the trackpoint keyboard thread. Although some thinkpads integrate the trackpoint buttons with the keyboard (and that’s what I’m personally working on) there are also models of thinkpad where the mouse buttons and touchpad are a separate assembly, for example:
That might be a good source of parts for a framework touchpad module w/ integrated buttons.
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I’m not a hardware person so my next question will sound really stupid …
Just to be clear nothing can happen now because they haven’t actually released the information that the hardware people need to know about the touchpad like what wires go where, what to solder, and what to connect to pogo pins? Those “docs”?
Thank you for answering, I’ll post something in the thread and then lurk.
Yes, although yesterday we got some more information from @nrp which fills in a lot of the blanks on the hardware side, we still don’t know the exact I2C protocol to use (that’s software side). The bigger limitation is really just that very few people have hardware outside of Framework, so the mechanical part (how tall/wide/thick can the touchpad be) is uncertain. If you’ve got the machine in your hands you can take out a ruler and micrometer and work this out in relatively short order, so this will resolve itself in time, especially as batch 1 makes its way out into the world.
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I understand. Thanks.
I’m batch 8 so I have time to wait. 