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system76 / laptop-suggestions

Repo to collect laptop design suggestions and feedback as issues.
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Drop Trackpad Buttons, Double the Size of Trackpad! #62

Open eduncan911 opened 4 years ago

eduncan911 commented 4 years ago

Why/User Benefit/User Problem

Very difficult to switch to, and use, a System76 machine after using MacBooks for a decade.

There are those that think a trackpad just moves the mouse. Then there are artists, musicians, and other professionals that live and die by the realestate of an ultra-precise, extremely large, oversized trackpad on the MacBook Pro.

This is the single biggest reason I haven't been able to sell these machines to my clients (well, that and 4k): everyone uses MacBook Pros, some with Linux installed on them. No one wants to give up those extra large trackpads.

Especially since Linux hard-codes the "deadzone" palm rejection crap (the Apple guys have been patching the kernels to get rid of this) of like 20 or 30%.

Description of the feature

Bonus points for patching the kernel in Pop_OS to remove (or make adjustable) the useless hard-coded deadzones for Palm rejection of such a large trackpad.

Dmole commented 4 years ago

I try to use keyboard over trackpad, but when forced away from he keyboard I use a mouse to avoid flat finger syndrome. Touch screens are nice and big but it's also nice to have a fingerprint free screen.

ghost commented 4 years ago

The buttons can still exist; just "hide" them under the trackpad. What I mean is, allow clicking the whole trackpad and then either use location or number of fingers (preferred) to differentiate between left, right, and middle click. For those who like it, make a "tap to click" option.

eduncan911 commented 4 years ago

allow clicking the whole trackpad and then either use location or number of fingers (preferred) to differentiate between left, right, and middle click.

Most DEs already can do that with libinput drivers.

FiretronP75 commented 4 years ago

I didn't know buttons under trackpad were still a thing LOL, are some laptops still doing that?

eduncan911 commented 4 years ago

I didn't know buttons under trackpad were still a thing LOL, are some laptops still doing that?

I hope not. My Thinkpad Helix has them under the trackpad, and I can't stand it.

JohnAD commented 4 years ago

Or better: make it a user option. I specifically choose laptops with buttons.

Thinking big picture: one could simply make a cavity in the top of the case with published screw-mount and usb port locations. Then even third-parties could make different trackpad setups and styles. Or people could 3d-print holders for other input methods.

eduncan911 commented 4 years ago

Or better: make it a user option. I specifically choose laptops with buttons.

Thinking big picture: one could simply make a cavity in the top of the case with published screw-mount and usb port locations. Then even third-parties could make different trackpad setups and styles. Or people could 3d-print holders for other input methods.

Good idea. However, it would be more involved than that. You'd need a different palm rest because a large track pad has different dimensions than a track+buttons.

FiretronP75 commented 4 years ago

This is interesting. I decided to try out POP! OS on a laptop that has no trackpad buttons or hard pressing, only soft tapping. It turned out that by default, the OS disables soft tapping the track pad for clicks. So I had to use keyboard navigation to get to the trackpad settings and enable tapping clicks.