Customizable 4-Finger Gestures Planned by Apple

[MacRumors]

MyAppleGuide discovered an unused preference pane in the version of Mac OS X Leopard that ships with Apple's new unibody MacBook Pros. The preference pane shows that Apple was planning on offering customers a way to assign different functions to the 4-finger swipe gestures found in their new laptops.

At present, the 4-finger gestures only allow you to switch applications (swipe left/right) or invoke Exposé (swipe up/down). This preference pane would potentially allow you to instead assign these swipes to other functions, such as switching between Spaces, showing your Desktop, loading Dashboard and more.

The site speculates that this functionality may find its way into Snow Leopard though it has not yet been spotted in the developer builds. Meanwhile, owners of previous generation multi-touch MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs are hoping to get four-finger gestures enabled on their machines with a future software update.


Article Link: Customizable 4-Finger Gestures Planned by Apple

 

[rockinrocker]

sweet, can't wait for this when I upgrade my portable.

 

[Wie Gehts]

Hey, what a coincidence. Many folks have some finger gestures planned for Apple as well!

 

[sukanas]

yay, this will be awesome

 

[iOrlando]

is there any way to use 2 finger gesture to go back a page in safari?

 

[Sky Blue]

Hey, what a coincidence. Many folks have some finger gestures planned for Apple as well!

haha, nice one.

The title of this article is a little misleading, as it actually seems that Apple don't plan to let the user see this panel, only they were thinking about it.

 

[asdavis10]

We're getting close to being able to fully customize the way we use the trackpad. Nice.

 

[kastenbrust]

just need a biometric finger scanner now and we're all set.

 

[elppa]

haha, nice one.

The title of this article is a little misleading, as it actually seems that Apple don't plan to let the user see this panel, only they were thinking about it.

Furthermore, the fact the nib file made it through to the OS suggests to me they got pretty far along with implementing it and pulled it late (otherwise the nib and other traces would have probably been cleaned out).

You are right though, that doesn't necessarily mean this functionality will be added in the future as the article implies.

 

[jlocalled]

If this is going to become included in Mac OS X 10.6 SL, I am so buying it.

 

[KCMichaelB]

I would like a wireless trackpad so I can place on the floor and use my bare feet for invoking expose´ and switching between apps. It's really a workout hitting the F11 key all day long.

 

[nevrozel]

Related to the news, there is a way to enable 4 finger gestures on any 2008 MacBook Airs/Pros.

Have a look here
http://www.super-poultry.com/2008/12/4-finger-multi-touch-for-older-mbps/

 

[kastenbrust]

I would like a wireless trackpad so I can place on the floor and use my bare feet for invoking expose´ and switching between apps. It's really a workout hitting the F11 key all day long.

Too much information

 

[macoazm]

older MBP multi-touch capable...

My 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro support multi-touch gestures, albeit not allowed by Apple to work.

Everyone can test this:

1- Tap your Trackpad with 1-finger: it clicks
2- Tap your Trackpad with 2-fingers: it right-click
3- Tap your Trackpad with 3-fingers: It does absolutely nothing. This means it detects it as not being 1-finger ou 2-finger click, but something else....

Proofed, right?

 

[peterdevries]

I have a unibody MBP and was already wondering why the 4 finger gestures were not customizable.

The fact that this screen has been discovered makes me wonder even more why they didn't enable it from the get-go.. What could possibly be the reason?

 

[peterdevries]

3- Tap your Trackpad with 3-fingers: It does absolutely nothing. This means it detects it as not being 1-finger ou 2-finger click, but something else....

Proofed, right?

Not really.. Number three can also mean that it detects nonsense that it can't resolve and thus decides to do nothing.

If the controller is only able to resolve two points of contact than there will be no way that it will be able to work with more than two finger gestures..

 

[8CoreWhore]

I would like a wireless trackpad so I can place on the floor and use my bare feet for invoking expose´ and switching between apps. It's really a workout hitting the F11 key all day long.

http://www.stealthswitch.com/

 

[11800506]

So I'm assuming changing the preference panel doesn't do anything?

 

[tingly]

I'm glad I haven't lost any fingers.

 

[risenphoenixkai]

Wrong. Any multitouch gestures beyond two-finger right-clicking and scrolling require an additional multitouch controller chip on the trackpad. This is the same chip driving the multitouch behaviour in the iPhone and iPod touch.

Without that chip, the trackpad is completely incapable of three- or four-finger gestures. Period.

The only Macs that have this chip in the trackpad are as follows:

MacBook Air
Early 2008 MacBook Pro (with Penryn CPU)
Unibody MacBook
Unibody MacBook Pro

No other model of PowerBook, MacBook, or MacBook Pro supports advanced multitouch gestures, and they never will. This includes your MacBook Pro.

My 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro support multi-touch gestures, albeit not allowed by Apple to work.

Everyone can test this:

1- Tap your Trackpad with 1-finger: it clicks
2- Tap your Trackpad with 2-fingers: it right-click
3- Tap your Trackpad with 3-fingers: It does absolutely nothing. This means it detects it as not being 1-finger ou 2-finger click, but something else....

Proofed, right?

 

[KCMichaelB]

http://www.stealthswitch.com/

That is freaking awesome! Thanks.

 

[rumplestiltskin]

Maybe I can drag my...no, never mind...that's too scary.

 

[roland.g]

Check out Multi-Clutch

http://wcrawford.org/2008/02/28/everytime-i-think-about-you-i-touch-my-cell/

you can assign swiping gestures for any application or globally. I set mine so that 3 finger swipe left and right switch safari tabs and swipe up closes the current tab and swipe down opens a new one.

in mail, i use 3 finger swipe up to mark mail as unread, etc.

 

[Stridder44]

Here's to hoping this is included in Snow Leopard. This and Boot Camp 3.0.

 

[ztigerpaw]

All this stuff about Snow Leopard makes me want it sooo badly by the day! I'm already getting use to Leopard on my MacBook so this is really nice.