GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 651134
Improve touchpad defaults
Last modified: 2013-04-04 15:34:49 UTC
Touchpad defaults can be improved: - Disable touchpad while typing should be enabled by default. I can see no reason to leave this as disabled. - Enable mouse clicks with touchpad. Most touchpads (specially netbooks ones) have tiny buttons, plus trying to hit an element in the screen while pushing the trackpad can be really annoying. Mouse clicks with touchpad is a better default. - Two finger scrolling should be enabled by default. Edge scrolling can be really annoying and reduces the overall surface to move the pointer. - Enable horizontal scrolling. With two finger scrolling enabled there shouldn't be a problem with enabling this option by default as well.
(In reply to comment #0) > Touchpad defaults can be improved: > > - Disable touchpad while typing should be enabled by default. I can see no > reason to leave this as disabled. Principle of least surprise. People don't understand why it is that their touchpads is "acting up" if this were enabled by default. If we could detect non-finger touches, we would enabled this by default, and only throw away non-finger touches (this is what OSX does). > - Enable mouse clicks with touchpad. Most touchpads (specially netbooks ones) > have tiny buttons, plus trying to hit an element in the screen while pushing > the trackpad can be really annoying. Mouse clicks with touchpad is a better > default. This should already be enabled by default if the device has no physical buttons. > - Two finger scrolling should be enabled by default. Edge scrolling can be > really annoying and reduces the overall surface to move the pointer. Two-finger is usually used for right-clicking when the device detects it. It's certainly more useful than 2 finger scrolling. > - Enable horizontal scrolling. With two finger scrolling enabled there > shouldn't be a problem with enabling this option by default as well. And horizontal scrolling can only be enabled if two-finger right-click isn't enabled. Also note that some of those functions won't work with the crappiest touchpads, so enabling them when they're not supported by the device is going to make it weird. I don't see anything for us to change here.
(In reply to comment #1) > (In reply to comment #0) > > - Two finger scrolling should be enabled by default. Edge scrolling can be > > really annoying and reduces the overall surface to move the pointer. > > Two-finger is usually used for right-clicking when the device detects it. It's > certainly more useful than 2 finger scrolling. > Two finger tap works just fine when you have two finger scrolling enabled. I use it. > > - Enable horizontal scrolling. With two finger scrolling enabled there > > shouldn't be a problem with enabling this option by default as well. > > And horizontal scrolling can only be enabled if two-finger right-click isn't > enabled. > This is not true, I use horizontal two-finger scrolling with two finger tap (for right click). Infact, horizontal scrolling is *so much* easier with two finger scrolling than anything else. > Also note that some of those functions won't work with the crappiest touchpads, > so enabling them when they're not supported by the device is going to make it > weird. > Well, if the (old, crappy) device doesn't support it, it won't work at all. I don't see a problem with enabling it for the devices out there that it does work on. I'm actually wondering if those crappy devices will even run GNOME 3 properly in the first place, because I don't remember any device in the last 3 years that this didn't work on. :)
I have a request about this topic. Setting "disable touchpad when typing" cause syndaemon to tun with following arguments: /usr/bin/syndaemon -i 2.0 -K -R I think 2 seconds of delay are too many, but in gnome-control-center there is nothing to change this value. The only possibility is to leave "disable touchpad..." check disabled and launch syndaemon manually (or at gnome startup) with the values you want. How about to give the ability to set the desired value in the touchpad panel? Thanks
Please yes make the delay adjustable. 2 seconds of no mouse is way too long. Of course the ideal is the OS X method where the touchpad software just magically knows what is a finger and what is a palm or accidental thumb joint touch. I kind of suspect that they discard touch events near the top of the touchpad while typing, but I don't know for sure.
(In reply to comment #3) > I have a request about this topic. It's completely off-topic. This isn't a forum, it's a bug reporting tool. File a bug if you're interested in seeing your problem discussed (which is most likely a dupe, search for "syndaemon" in the comments).
*** Bug 674493 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I am in favor of using the following defaults: * two finger scroll * disable pad while typing * horizontal scrolling with two fingers I'm not sure about tap to click.
And also: https://twitter.com/hergertme/status/310203892279418880
(In reply to comment #7) > I am in favor of using the following defaults: > * two finger scroll Done. > * disable pad while typing I cannot enable this, it breaks on too many occasions. A lot of synaptics devices got palm detection added (in the kernel driver), and a lot of other devices support this as well. Having this on by default will break a lot of things. > * horizontal scrolling with two fingers Done. > I'm not sure about tap to click. I've left this alone. (In reply to comment #8) > And also: https://twitter.com/hergertme/status/310203892279418880 If the defaults aren't good, they should be changed in the synaptics driver. This also conflicts with the timeout-based syndaemon usage used to implement the "disable pad while typing" feature. I've personally never had a problem with touchpad movement from my palms, and I use the same laptop as Christian :)
commit 4cc879d66ec2f443c5f05e96ce05fbf1a5d7103d Author: Bastien Nocera <hadess@hadess.net> Date: Wed Mar 27 22:54:13 2013 +0100 mouse: Enable two-finger scrolling by default For both vertical and horizontal scrolls. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=651134
*** Bug 687509 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
(In reply to comment #10) > commit 4cc879d66ec2f443c5f05e96ce05fbf1a5d7103d > Author: Bastien Nocera <hadess@hadess.net> > Date: Wed Mar 27 22:54:13 2013 +0100 > > mouse: Enable two-finger scrolling by default > What if my touchpad do not support two finger scrolling?
It doesn't do anything.
(In reply to comment #13) > It doesn't do anything. Will this still enable the horizontal scrolling by default? I see the following comment hence double checking. >- Enable horizontal scrolling. With two finger scrolling enabled there >shouldn't be a problem with enabling this option by default as well.
(In reply to comment #14) > (In reply to comment #13) > > It doesn't do anything. > > Will this still enable the horizontal scrolling by default? I see the following > comment hence double checking. Yes. But given that you don't have 2-finger scrolling, horizontal 2-finger scrolling won't do anything either. Would be good if you could try it, it feels like you're second-guessing the code we wrote...