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I HATE The Macbook Pro trackpad

NJRonbo said:
I think my point is very clear. Sorry you have a problem understanding it.

I am using my index finger only.
Click to expand...

Forgive me if I misunderstood the point of this thread as to just simply HATE on the trackpad, EMO-style, instead of genuinely asking for the readers to help you find out:

1. The reason you're having a problem.
2. The solution to it.

The very first response to your previous post about this topic (yes you already posted about this before, about a month ago: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/748690/), solves point 1.

The very first response to this post solves point 2.

Even more, the last response to your previous thread already told you that all gestures can be turned off in Snow Leopard, which means Apple already knows that this is an oversight *and* they are already doing something about it.

So, what else do you want?
 
Completely forgot about the other thread.

Appreciate you reminding me of it, but curious for a complete
newbie around here you sure come off like a sny little sh**

You a little embarrassed you had problems comprehending my point
so you felt a little rebelious? I understand.
 
NJRonbo said:
I hope Apple is hearing the feedback on this.

I just installed MultiClutch and it has solved the problem,
but at the same time it has created another. Now my Safari
suddenly disappears (mimimizes itself) for no apparent reason
if I move my fingers on the trackpad the wrong way. It only
happens now and then, but I need to figure out why.
Click to expand...
Go to System Preferences and then MultiClutch and remove three fingers up for hide. It's enabled by default I believe. Swiping three fingers up selects "Hide".
 
NJRonbo said:
Completely forgot about the other thread.

Appreciate you reminding me of it, but curious for a complete
newbie around here you sure come off like a sny little sh**

You a little embarrassed you had problems comprehending my point
so you felt a little rebelious? I understand.
Click to expand...

You're welcome.
 
While we are ranting, I'll throw out that I can't live without a dedicated clicker (yes, I have tried), nor can I live without two finger scroll.
Resizing is a bit of a pain because it never works when you want it to, and always happens when you don't. I assume this will be fixed with Snow Leopard.
 
Personally, I love the touchpad and it is a large reason of why I bought the MBP.

If you don't like it for the reasons you mentioned, you can adjust the sensitivity of the gesturing or turn it off completely in firefox. I am not sure about safari, but in firefox, go to the address bar and type in:

about:config

It will give you a warning message (don't worry, it is completely reversible), just click ok.

in the search bar, search for "gestures"

then double click on the one you want to change like "zoom in" or "pinch" and change the setting. The sensitivity setting is called "threshold". I believe that the higher the number is, the less sensitive the gesture becomes. My guess would be that the number represents the number of milliseconds before the gesture is registered.
 
I find the buttonless, multitouch, large, glass trackpad to be the only trackpad I have ever used that doesn't suck, kinda like how I find the iphone to be the only phone I have ever used that doesn't suck
 
Lifelong PC user and I'm loving the trackpad. Though there was a slight learning curve to get used to the sensitivity and gestures.
 
NJRonbo said:
There is so much to love about the new 17" MBP but alas
one flaw that almost makes me wish I never bought the thing...

The trackpad!

Specifically, the gestures. You know, the same kind of finger
sizing you do on the iPhone.

I use this laptop for hours each day. I constantly have a problem
with accidental resizing of a webpage. It's the biggest nuisance
I have ever encountered on a laptop.

Apple needs to put something in their next software revision that
allows users to turn off the gesturing.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...

I totally disagree. I think the trackpad is awesome and one of the things I really love about my MBP.
 
I consider this new trackpad revolutionary and a really great selling point :). It just makes sense in my opinion
 
Overall I love the new trackpad. I went from a MBA to a MBP and the glass is awesome!

I don't mind the lack of a button, though it did take some getting used to.

The thing that bothers me is how loud the click is. I know this sounds kind of stupid, but the MBA and my old PowerBook both had really quiet buttons. The loud click of the button is something that always bothered me about my old PC... now it bothers me about my Mac.
 
NJRonbo said:
Don't worry, nobody is saying trackpads in general are bad.
Click to expand...

actually, my favorite input device has always been a nice substantial trackball like Kensington's Expert Mouse, and i did say trackpads in general were bad for years; i never liked them at all. but i've realized while reading this thread that i think the trackpad on my 17" Unibody MB Pro has finally changed that. i share many people's frustration with spontaneous, unintentional resizing of screen elements; it's happened to me many times in Safari, and a few minutes ago i somehow managed to make all my desktop icons smaller by just moving my fingers on the trackpad, which is especially baffling since i can see no option that corresponds to this behavior in the Trackpad pref pane. i had to open View Options and use the slider to put my icons back to the size i like them at. and trackpads in general suck for applications where you need a lot of control; i couldn't think of using a trackpad (or a mouse, for that matter) for fine-detail image editing, and when i used to play World of Warcraft, having to use even my MB Pro's trackpad was a one-way ticket to death. but for general computing, i must say i think the MB Pro's trackpad has finally changed my mind about trackpads. mostly.

diogodasilva said:
can you thumb click and drag stuff around with these new trackpads?
Click to expand...

yes you can. you can click either by tapping the surface of the trackpad, or by pressing down on the trackpad like a regular mechanical button - because in addition to being touch-sensitive, the whole trackpad *is* a regular mechanical button.

so to thumb-click and drag stuff around, you press down on the trackpad with your thumb until it clicks and hold that while your finger uses the pad's touch-sensitivity to drag.

as far as your hand is concerned, it's identical to doing the same thing with a trackpad that has a mechanical button at the bottom; it's basically just that with this trackpad, there's no visible delineation between the trackpad and the mechanical button, because the two are the same.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You can disable the feature in System Preferences > Trackpad and unclick the "Pinch Open & Close" option.
 
I also love the trackpad. Maybe you just have some bad habits, doing the gestures wrong ya know. I rarely have a problem with it. The trackpad with tap to click is ****ing magical.
 
Fireproof! said:
Hmmm...

I totally disagree. I think the trackpad is awesome and one of the things I really love about my MBP.
Click to expand...

I love the mbp trackpad,one of the main reson I sold my thinkpad IBM and switched to the 17" wonderfull laptop, I am all day on it one hand tracking,its better then tuch screen because it function as a remote tuch screen so my screen stay clean.
 
I think the trackpad is it's best feature and is one of the main reasons I'll be buying a mbp.

if you hate it so much you should just return it and look into another laptop. trackpad is one of those things that can really eff up the user experience and since you hate it so much it's note the lappy for you
 
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cherry su said:
You can disable the feature in System Preferences > Trackpad and unclick the "Pinch Open & Close" option.
Click to expand...

THANK you. i didn't realize that setting was the problem because its name has nothing to do with its function. it should be called "Pinch to Zoom".
 
Like most, I to love my MBP trackpad. My old MB had the basic 2 figure gestures, so maybe it wasn't such a learning curve for me. The only gestures I couldn't get use to in the first 20 minutes was the 'tap to drag' gesture which can be disabled and the rotate gesture in preview which I just don't use.

I use jitouch 2 which adds a bunch more handy gestures.
 
newcronos said:
I still don't get it.

I just tried the hardest to get my 2-fingers gesture of scrolling up and down a website to 'accidentally' resize the fonts and I couldn't do it. The only way scrolling up and down can do a resize is if I do it with my thumb and index finger. Of course I'd never scroll up and down using my thumb and index finger (kind of dumb, when I think about it :)), so this will never happen to me.

What exactly did you do?
Click to expand...

It's pretty easy to do accidentally if you keep your thumb at the bottom of the trackpad while scrolling. I'm just trained to keep my thumb there from years of laptop trackpads with buttons at the bottom.
 
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