On 28 Apr 2010, at 22:05, Ethan Grammatikidis wrote: > On 28 Apr 2010, at 15:40, lu...@proxima.alt.za wrote: >>> if you're feeling ambitions and want something more like your laptops track >>> pad. >> >> Surely you jest? Something that repositions the cursor to an >> uninteresting location in the middle of a document by simply hovering >> one's thumb in the vicinity of the space bar? Or am I just >> particularly cursed with this? > > I expect it's a trackpad quality kind of thing. On the ancient iBook I have, > in System Preferences there's a checkbox labelled "Prevent accidental > trackpad input." I don't know quite what it does or how it does it, but it > works very well for me.
It did that simply by enforcing a minimum time (maybe around 1000ms) from the last key press before interpreting any input from the trackpad. I found it quite annoying since my trackpad felt like it needed a sturdy poke to make it responsive again if I wanted to move the cursor around while editing something. My MBP, and I believe all the newer Apple laptops, no longer offer that option, but they work all the better for it. I don't know quite how it works in this incarnation, but I neither move my cursor accidentally nor feel like poking the trackpad until it comes back to life nowadays :) Additionally the area is surprisingly large now that no space is devoted to a button, and the whole trackpad can be clicked. Sadly, when I upgraded Parallels my Plan9 VM stopped booting, and I haven't bothered to try and get it going again since I mostly work with my laptop balanced on my lap so a physical mouse is not at all useful... and I haven't found a comfortable way of mousechording with an all-in-one trackpad/button :( Surely I'm not the only one that dislikes separate mice? Cheers, -- Gary V. Vaughan <g...@gnu.org>
