| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> | On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 01:59:56PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote: | > I don't like touchpads, touchscreens, or trackpoints but | > some versions are way better than others. | | OK, what option do you like if you don't like those 3? Please don't | say trackballs, because no one is allowed to like those evil things. :) Mostly touchpads, but there are a lot of differences that matter between touchpads. [The following long discussion might only interest me.] The answer depends on the way I'm using the device. Oh, and what I think I will do (when selecting a device) doesn't always match what I actually do. That's why I've experimented with so many things. All trackpointers are the same to me (usable but not great). Touchscreens are of no use to me with a normal Linux desktop. Trackpads very wildly in usability. I like mice best, but the logistics are annoying with laptops. Still, if my session is longer than, say, a minute, it is probably worth deploying. For web surfing on an Adroid or iOS tablet, I quite like touchscreens. Except while entering text. But I've never found that touchscreens on notebooks useful: - partly due to the crappy support in Linux desktops - partly because what I'm doing often involves typing - partly because horizontally reaching for a touchscreen is very tiring ("gorilla arm") - perhaps because Linux tasks require precision that is beyond capacitive digitizers. I rarely remember that I'm even on a touchscreen when I'm using one with Linux. (My main notebook, a Yoga 2 Pro, has a touchscreen. So does our kitchen computer.) Trackpointers are simple in concept but I've not really gotten used to them because I don't have one on my desktop where I do most of my typing. (Or on the typewriter or keypunch where my muscles learned to type.) My main notebook for five years (x61t) has one and no trackpad, but I carried a mouse. The trackpad should be good for touch-typists (it's in the home row). But on my high-resolutions screens, it takes a long time to move a significant portion of the screen. I've always found it a bit, well, creepy that the cursor often drifts when I let go. Touchpads on notebooks have a variety of designs with a variety of good and bad points. - I hate it when touchpads decide that I'm talking to them when I don't think I am. The cursor will zing off somewhere while I'm typing or thinking about typing. It may be my fault, but it happens much more frequently on some systems than others. There's a simple fix some systems have: ignore touchpad events while the user is typing. I suspect that isn't enough. - I am annoyed at the way touchpad use seems to require two hands sometimes: moving a finger on the surface while clicking or holding a button (or two!), perhaps even while holding a modifier key. - having the left button being the whole pad seems like a step forward but on my samples, it is designed as a lever with the fulcrum at the top so (a) the pressure varies, and (b) is theoretically infinite at the top. - I like the new gestures that have come in. But haven't seen a manual. So I'm not really confident that I know them. The most useful seems to be two-finger sliding for scrolling (but there seem to be two opposite conventions about the direction). - the middle mouse button is useful in X and Firefox. It is rare in trackpads (except thinkpads). Simulating by using left+right click isn't as reliable. - new trackpads seem to have soft buttons. My fingers cannot "feel" where they are. So I have to look down from the screen. On the other hand, if I put some effort in I could configure a middle button, I think. I don't seem to use a stylus. My x61t tablet/notebook has a stylus but cannot sense my fingers. I thought that would be worth trying, but it hasn't been useful. If I were drawing things, it would be wonderful: precise (unlike capacitive sensing of fingers) and pressure sensitive. I am envious of Microsoft OneNote users, but in reality handwriting is probably too slow. I accepted a stylus in the Nokia tablets and the Sharp Zaurus. But the iPad was a real revelation: a fluid interface and not cramped (10" vs 4"). But I perform some tasks better on the earlier tablets (ssh). (I actually do some things in busybox on my Nexus 4, but only because I haven't bothered figured out how to create a GUI for these tasks. These same tasks are probably better on my Zaurus but it is usually on the shelf, uncharged.)