Enable tapping by default

[Peter Hutterer]

On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 10:59:24PM +0100, Jaroslav Nahorny wrote:
> 
> Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler at chello.at> writes:
> 
> > Erik Schilling wrote:
> >> Over the time I just got used to hitting the special button...
> >
> > And that's what that "special button" is for. :-)
> >
> > If the touchpad has physical buttons (or physically-drawn "virtual 
> > buttons"), why do users even expect tapping to produce a click? The finger 
> > area is for moving, the buttons are for clicking.
> 
> For speed sake. You don't have to move your fingers. It's like with the
> scroll-wheel on a mouse. Why do you need a scroll wheel? You could as
> well just point the mouse to the scroll marker on right side of the
> window, click LMB and move the mouse. It's doable. Why do you need a
> scroll-wheel then. Or use PgUp / PgDown keys on your keyboard.
> 
> Furthermore, why a mouse / touchpad at all? You can use keyboard for
> navigation.
> 
> So those are personal preferences. One person prefers scroll-wheel, the
> other PgUp / PgDown keys. The thing is, a touchpad is a piece of
> hardware. With some features built-in. And we are by default disabling a
> feature this device offers out of the box.
> 
> I know it's a matter of preferences. Exactly like the way you mount a
> roll of toilet paper on a wall
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation). 

that page's existence just made my day. thanks :)
 
> I know some people hate this feature (tapping) and some love it. But I
> think, if the device have some capability (feature) it shouldn't be
> disabled by default.

slippery slope. synaptics has a lot of features that we don't enable by
default even though the hw has the theoretical capability. examples are
clickfinger, corner buttons, circular scrolling.

remember that a touchpad is just that, a surface that responds
to touch. everything else is done in the driver and there isn't really a
limit what you could do based on that capability. tapping is no more
built-in than pinch-to-zoom (which we don't even support atm).

Cheers,
   Peter