Macbook Pro Touchpad Emulation

sgrif · 2012-09-08 19:41:12

I've been tinkering with various settings for both xf86-input-synaptics and xf86-input-mtrack-git from the AUR. They both work relatively well, but I can't quite get the functionality I'd like from either and am hoping someone here has found a solution.

Synaptics seems to be great in terms of precision and sensitivity, but I often like to have my thumb resting on the bottom of the trackpad, which when I have two finger scrolling turned on, causes the mouse to scroll instead of move the pointer. Simply defining a portion of the bottom of the trackpad as a deadzone would be sufficient, but if it's possible I'd prefer a solution involving either detecting my thumb as such, or only detecting two fingers for scrolling when they are within a certain distance of each other. In addition, I find the cursor sometimes moves a few pixels when clicking, though I'm not sure I can get a solution for that problem without making precise cursor movement feel unnatural. I'm also using `xinput set-button-map bcm594 1 2 3 5 4 7 6` to swap scrolling direction, which I believe meets the solution of reversing scrolling on the trackpad but not the mouse, though I'm not somewhere with a physical mouse that I can test that.

Mtrack works well for me, but I've had some issues with getting the sensitivity feeling right, and changing the value in my xorg configuration doesn't quite get it there for me. My biggest issue with it is the lack of the ability to "fling" or "coast" while scrolling, where scrolling at a faster speed causes the scroll event to continue to be sent for a certain amount of time after releasing. Is there any way to add this ability to mtrack? I also can't seem to find a way to test configuration changes without having to restart X (ala synclient), which makes trying things like slight sensitivity changes difficult to gauge. Is there a tool to do this, or perhaps a general purpose xorg property editor?

Thanks for your time.

Last edited by sgrif (2012-09-08 19:42:31)

lspci · 2012-09-09 18:32:41

sgrif wrote:

I've been tinkering with various settings for both xf86-input-synaptics and xf86-input-mtrack-git from the AUR. They both work relatively well, but I can't quite get the functionality I'd like from either and am hoping someone here has found a solution.
Synaptics seems to be great in terms of precision and sensitivity, but I often like to have my thumb resting on the bottom of the trackpad, which when I have two finger scrolling turned on, causes the mouse to scroll instead of move the pointer. Simply defining a portion of the bottom of the trackpad as a deadzone would be sufficient, but if it's possible I'd prefer a solution involving either detecting my thumb as such, or only detecting two fingers for scrolling when they are within a certain distance of each other. In addition, I find the cursor sometimes moves a few pixels when clicking, though I'm not sure I can get a solution for that problem without making precise cursor movement feel unnatural. I'm also using `xinput set-button-map bcm594 1 2 3 5 4 7 6` to swap scrolling direction, which I believe meets the solution of reversing scrolling on the trackpad but not the mouse, though I'm not somewhere with a physical mouse that I can test that.
Mtrack works well for me, but I've had some issues with getting the sensitivity feeling right, and changing the value in my xorg configuration doesn't quite get it there for me. My biggest issue with it is the lack of the ability to "fling" or "coast" while scrolling, where scrolling at a faster speed causes the scroll event to continue to be sent for a certain amount of time after releasing. Is there any way to add this ability to mtrack? I also can't seem to find a way to test configuration changes without having to restart X (ala synclient), which makes trying things like slight sensitivity changes difficult to gauge. Is there a tool to do this, or perhaps a general purpose xorg property editor?
Thanks for your time.

I hear you on the fling/coasting thing. I really would like that kind of thing too. Did you check the wiki on touchpad synaptics? You might find something on there that might prove useful, I haven't read all of it so just because I didn't find anything on flinging doesn't mean that you won't. Synclient should change things on the fly, or at least it changes them for me on the fly. I am kind of working on a script that sort of acts as a go-between for the user and synclient, but I don't want to start promising people that I'll ever finish it because I may not, and so I don't want to incite expectations that I have no expectation of ever fulfilling.

Also take a look at some example configs

Last edited by lspci (2012-09-09 18:33:35)

sgrif · 2012-09-09 20:34:21

I have. There's no mention on the wiki of allowing "resting thumbs". I did fiddle with the bottom edge settings, however it disables "movement and taps" in that region, but still detects the finger there for the purposes of scrolling. I think really what I need is a way to specify a maximum distance the fingers can be apart. I do use synclient to configure on the fly, the question of a program for that was for the mtrack drivers.

That example config doesn't have any changes in settings related to the issues I'm looking to resolve.

Last edited by sgrif (2012-09-09 20:35:53)

lspci · 2012-09-10 02:34:59

sgrif wrote:

I have. There's no mention on the wiki of allowing "resting thumbs". I did fiddle with the bottom edge settings, however it disables "movement and taps" in that region, but still detects the finger there for the purposes of scrolling. I think really what I need is a way to specify a maximum distance the fingers can be apart. I do use synclient to configure on the fly, the question of a program for that was for the mtrack drivers.
That example config doesn't have any changes in settings related to the issues I'm looking to resolve.

Okay, well take a look at some of these sites and see if any of them are helpful; I'm sorry that the wiki turned out to be worthless in solving your problem.

http://www.synaptics.com/
[SOLVED] Ignore Finger Resting at Bottom of Unibody Macbook Pro Touchpad?
Missing support for thumb resting on bottom of clickpad
Ignore finger resting at the bottom of the trackpad
Synaptic manpage
chromiumos-xorg-synaptics.git
Trackpad button issue

Arch Linux

#1 2012-09-08 19:41:12

Macbook Pro Touchpad Emulation

#2 2012-09-09 18:32:41

Re: Macbook Pro Touchpad Emulation

#3 2012-09-09 20:34:21

Re: Macbook Pro Touchpad Emulation

#4 2012-09-10 02:34:59

Re: Macbook Pro Touchpad Emulation

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