Why is not enabled TapButton of touchpad on Fedora by default?

Peter Hutterer peter.hutterer at who-t.net
Thu Sep 27 00:17:51 UTC 2012


On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 11:58:51AM +0200, Martin Sourada wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Sep 2012 16:44:16 +0200 
> Kevin Kofler wrote:
> 
> > drago01 wrote:
> > > Because some people that can actually use it (i.e I never
> > > accidentally click when trying to move the mouse; maybe you just
> > > have a crappy touchpad?).
> > 
> > On my notebook, touchpad tapping is off of course. I have this
> > problem each time I try to use somebody else's touchpad which has
> > tapping enabled. Many different touchpads, always the same problem.
> > So it's not just a particular crappy touchpad.
> > 
> I wonder if you have problem with touch-screen smart-phones as well,
> it's essentially the same thing as far as your fingers are concerned.

not quite. smart-phones are explicit touch screens and the only
interaction you have with them is touch. and it's direct-touch interaction
as well. on a touchpad, an indirect device by nature, accidental touches can
happen while the keyboard is being used. That depends on touchpad size, hand
size, position of the hands, finger conductivity and even environmental
conditions.

> As it never happened to me, it's kind of a mystery how you can
> accidentally type while moving... Also there's one nice feature on
> touchpads with tap-to-click, that you can double-tap-and-move to
> drag (and drop afterward).
> 
> What I have personal issues with is accidental tapping while typing, but
> that can be avoided by using "Disable touchpad when typing" setting...
> 
> The good thing about tapping is, as someone else already said, 
>  a) you don't have to move your finger (i.e. you click where you moved,
>     which is pretty much intuitive). This is a massive win when you
>     click often.

fwiw, "intuitive" is a dangerous word to use. "learned" is better and more
accurate in most cases.

>  b) It's silent (the touchpad buttons usually emit rather loud clicking
>     noise which is annoying, especially when clicking often).

note that the noise is feedback to the user that the event happened. I
recall a study by (I think) MS that showed the importance of this. 
if you have software that does not react to a button press event, users on
physical devices (mouse) are inclined to think the software is broken, users
on touch devices (touchscreen) are inclined to think the touchscreen is
broken. depending on the scenario, this can be an important distinction.

>  c) You do not have to press as hard when tapping.
>  d) You can scroll using touchpad.

scrolling and tapping are unrelated in our driver.

Cheers,
   Peter
> 
> That said, I still prefer wireless mouse to touchpad and, when not
> travelling, also use it, so I don't get bothered much by the current
> default setting.
> 
> Martin



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