Changing Proportions Of Left And Right Click On

[alfista]

I've done some searching but haven't found the right combination of keywords.

I'm trying to make my trackpad so that right-click is only about 20%-30% of the right part of the trackpad and the remaining left side of the trackpad is a normal click. I click with my right thumb and often find myself right clicking when I want to be normal clicking.

I thought magicprefs would do this, but it doesn't appear to have the option. Anyone aware of a hack that would help?

Thanks,

Jason

 

[jdechko]

On the mac trackpad, a right click has nothing to do with where you click, unless you set the system preferences to bottom left or bottom right corner. What is likely happening is you still have your index finger on the trackpad while you are performing a click operation with your thumb. The trackpad sees this as two points of contact (finger + thumb) and does a right click.

If you want to perform a single click, you can just use your mousing finger, no thumb required. Because the entire trackpad is the button, you can click or two-finger-click anywhere on the trackpad to perform primary (left) and secondary (right) clicks respectively.

If you are are new to mac and unfamiliar with the gestures of a single finger click vs. a two finger click or any of the other available gestures in OS X, open up the system preferences and click on the trackpad icon. There are great short videos that explain what each gesture does, showing how to perform the gesture and the result of the gesture.

 

[alfista]

Thanks jdechko,

Keeping my fingers near the keyboard I'm inclined to click with my right hand thumb for speed, which works well for me, but about 10% of the time the click is registered on the right side of the trackpad, not the left, yielding the wrong result. Even if my right index finger touches down on the top of the trackpad, it is the balance of where the thumb is, left-to-right, that determines whether I get a 'normal' click or a 'control' click. If I could shrink what is considered the right-click area, I think I'd be in business.

Thanks,

Jason

 

[talmy]

I'm not in front of a Mac at the moment, but if I remember correctly BetterTouchTool has lots of controls over the operation of the touchpad. You might want to check it out.

 

[alfista]

Thanks Talmy - that is one powerful tool but as far as I can tell it doesn't have the option I'm looking for so maybe it doesn't exist. It also has some Lion compatibility issues.

 

[jdechko]

Thanks jdechko,

Keeping my fingers near the keyboard I'm inclined to click with my right hand thumb for speed, which works well for me, but about 10% of the time the click is registered on the right side of the trackpad, not the left, yielding the wrong result. Even if my right index finger touches down on the top of the trackpad, it is the balance of where the thumb is, left-to-right, that determines whether I get a 'normal' click or a 'control' click. If I could shrink what is considered the right-click area, I think I'd be in business.

Thanks,

Jason

Again, it's not which side you click on the trackpad that determines whether it's a normal or secondary click, but the number of fingers you have touching the trackpad. If you have 2 fingers (index and thumb) anywhere on the trackpad, you will get a secondary (control) click. If you want to do a normal click, you will need to make sure that your index finger is lifted off of the trackpad, leaving only your thumb. If you want to do a secondary click, you need to have a second finger on the trackpad.

If the trackpad recognizes one finger = primary click.
If the trackpad recognizes two fingers = secondary click.
This is regardless of where (physically) on the trackpad you actually perform the click.

 

[alfista]

I got it now. Awesome. Thanks!

 

[jdechko]

I got it now. Awesome. Thanks!

Great! Yeah, sometimes it's a little hard to explain, but it makes a lot of sense once you start using it that way.