The four-finger pinch is going to give me arthiritus

TOTALLY agree.

Also, I very often would pick-up a file, 'hold' it with my thumb whilst using my 4 fingers to swipe up, therefore being able to drop the file on the desktop (or vice versa to move a file from the desktop).

Can't do it anymore. Picking-up a file and then doing a 4-finger pinch without releasing the file is impossible.

Lion is as if Apple wants you to forget about the desktop (down to the fact that the Mac HD is no longer on there by default).

 

How about setting Desktop as a Hot Corner?

 

Turn off that awful gesture and install BetterTouchTool. You won't regret it.

 

The problem with bettertouchtool is its much slower than the OS implementation. After you 4 finger swipe you have to wait like 1.5-2 seconds before you can do another gesture. I really wish apple would give us the option..

 

Seriously, this is by far my biggest problem with Lion. I use the four finger swipe up ALL THE TIME, and now I don't even have the option to use it? Come on

They could at least allow a four finger right swipe to show the desktop. In Mission Control it shows desktop and dashboard at the top, and a four finger left swipe shows dashboard, so why not let you get to the desktop that way too?

 

Can't find that in the beachball-spinning-app-store.

 

There were ways to get software BEFORE the app store...

 

I used to do this so often is wasn't funny.

Finding the cut+paste shortcut (alt+cmd+v) helped.

 

Set Desktop to a Corner, drag the file to the corner, you're on the desktop, simple, no gestures.

 

If they're going to make gestures this complicated I think they need to somehow make the whole front of a MacBook the touchpad.

 

lol. if you use both hands. one to drag while the other pinches out you can do it.
you can change gestures using BTT
http://blog.boastr.net/

 

The issue is that it used to be really simple to do these things with one hand. It's a lot quicker and more convenient to keep one hand on the keyboard (or somewhere else if you only have one hand free for whatever reason) and use one hand to show the desktop.

Using hot corners is better than the pinch gesture but it's more work to move your cursor to a corner than it is to do a quick swipe.

 

Then set it to a quick swipe... he gave you the link even!

 

Agree. Apple crossed the line with Four-Finger Pinch. It's impossible to do.

I found that the easiest way for me is use four FINGERS, not your thumb, and just spread them out. The reason this might work better is because the thumb area of the trackpad is less sensitive as OS X expect your thumb to rest there all the time, so it ignores accidental input from the bottom of the trackpad.

 

BetterTouchTool is the way to go, people.

 

If the notebook isn't cooperating, give it the middle finger salute!

 

It seems really slow/buggy, you cant cancel a 4 finger swipe up etc by moving 4 fingers down, you have to wait for the animation to finish and wait about 1 second before going back down, minor annoyance but it just gets to feeling unresponsive after a while.

 

Apple should just buy BetterTouchTool at this point and incorporate it natively into OS X. The customization available with this app is way beyond anything Apple will ever do natively within the OS.

Honestly I thought my Magic Trackpad was kind of crap until I installed BTT and set it up the way I want, not the way Apple wants.

 

Just one of many UI-based decisions that make you ask yourself who they've employed at Apple. So many stupid design decisions at play in Lion.

 

You're alone there, works fine for me. And on the side of canceling swipes... really? a swipe up is a whole different gesture than a swipe down, and if the two in quick succession cancel each other out, you'll get pissed when you're using it too fast...

 

I usually drag something and go to a corner which I have assigned to show desktop and just drop it on the desktop

 

I disabled all of Apple's basic gestures, and used BetterTouchTool to make my own custom ones. I highly recommend you guys try it out!

 

I agree with polkunus, Apple have gone too far with a four finger gesture - it's just not natural

 

Exactly, what about us people with 3 fingers?