WOOHOO!! Finally tapping with the trackpad!!! :)

[SyndicateX]

Alright, I know you all probably already know about this but I was just too excited! My only pet peeves with macs have always been the 1 button mouse and that you had to click things with the tab below the trackpad instead on tapping the trackpad on the powerbooks. I feel stupid for never having figured it out but its all the the control panel and now I am tapping myself happy! It just makes things soooooo much easier!

 

[Counterfit]

Err, how long did it take you to find that, may I ask?

 

[jeff.macaddict]

I get my powerbook tomorrow.

Whats he mean, tap on the trackpad. How exactly does that work. Does the whole trackpad act like a clicky-thingy? (I know the trackpad doesn't physically click)

 

[SyndicateX]

about 3 weeks. Ive looked right at it too and for some reason always thought it meant something different. Ooh well. i wish they would turn it on by default though.

 

[altair]

hehe. Apparently having it on drains battery, which is probably why they dont have it set default. But yeah, i would be bloody pissed off if i couldn't tap the track pad, and had to use to button.

 

[Kwyjibo]

haha, yeah i don't use that feature at all, thats what the button is for ...

 

[SyndicateX]

Now if we could just get apple to use 2 buttons on their mice or at least stick mini scroll wheels on them, i would be completely happy. I dont mind using my Griffin scroll thingy, but I miss my scroll wheel.

 

[G5orbust]

Originally posted by SyndicateX
Now if we could just get apple to use 2 buttons on their mice or at least stick mini scroll wheels on them, i would be completely happy. I dont mind using my Griffin scroll thingy, but I miss my scroll wheel.

Apple has had problems in the past about keys ruining screens. I dont think they want to add a protruding scroll wheel to the mix.

 

[SyndicateX]

No, I mean on their external mice. I have the bluetooth mouse and I love it to death just slipping open the cover and using it anywhere, but browsing web pages gets somewhat tedious when i have to drag the page down...then click....then scroll down.......

 

[MacBoyX]

I'll go you all one better. Get SideTrack. It replaces your Apple trackpad driver and allows you to use the side of the pad as a scroll. Also lets u set the tap to be a double click or opt-click. And it's free. It's a beta but I've used it on my PB 15 (TiBook), 3 iBooks, and my 12" PB. It rocks!

http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/index.html#whatisthis

Makes your trackpad way more useful trust me!

MacboyX

 

[Foxer]

I've had a PB for a year and never knew I could do this. I'm an idiot. This was one of the two or three things I missed about PC's on my Mac.

 

[SyndicateX]

Well like I said in my first post WOOHOOOO!!!! Im glad my stupidity and amazement in not knowing this forced me to write this post and it helped somebody else get past this too. To me this is one of those things Ive always said "Damn you apple." for never implementing and it was really there all along.

 

[rueyeet]

Originally posted by jeff.macaddict
Whats he mean, tap on the trackpad. How exactly does that work. Does the whole trackpad act like a clicky-thingy?

Trackpad tapping means you can tap on the trackpad with your finger, and it's interpreted as a mouse click. That way you don't have to navigate with one finger and press the button with another....much easier. It's so habitual for me that I found it very annoying at the Apple store when their Macs didn't already have this enabled.

The only thing I still use the button for is for click-and-drag, though you can set the trackpad to do that too (I'm just clumsy).

 

[mactastic]

Actually one of the things about Panther that bums me out is that the login screen no longer accepts trackpad taps when the main account has it set to accept them. It used to be this way in Jagwire, and hopefully they will get around to fixing it.

I also had no idea it took more power to accept trackpad taps than button ones. Weird.

 

[Pilgrims Pro]

Originally posted by SyndicateX I dont mind using my Griffin scroll thingy, but I miss my scroll wheel.

Yeah I love my Griffin Powermate, I dont know what I would do with out it. Makes scrolling so easy.

Originally posted by mactastic
I also had no idea it took more power to accept trackpad taps than button ones. Weird.

I have never ever heard this, with PCs or Macs, I have owned a laptop for 10 years and have had a trackpad with "tap" enabled for atleast 6 or 7.

 

[jxyama]

FYI... the tapping for mouse click will not work on the OS X login window... i've spent my share of time at the login screen, tapping away a few times before realizing i need to actually click.

Edit: oops, macstatic had already mentioned this...

 

[Counterfit]

That doesn't matter too much, as you can type the first letter of whatever account (like file in the Finder) and press return/enter. That will select that account and bring you to the password entry screen.

 

[mactastic]

Originally posted by Counterfit
That doesn't matter too much, as you can type the first letter of whatever account (like file in the Finder) and press return/enter. That will select that account and bring you to the password entry screen.

Yeah, that's been my primary method of logging in since long before panther. I'm just curious why that particular piece of functionality was removed in the jagwire-to-panther transition. My wife finds it more annoying than I do since she was used to tapping on her account name to get to the password screen.