[MarkS]

Originally Posted by dont

"Both button click"

In Firefox, if you have a wheel mouse then clicking down on the wheel (a middle button click) while hovering over a link will open that link in a new tab. This is very handy when going through a list of search results: you can keep the search results in one tab and look at individual pages in other tabs - all with one click.

The Dell version of the touchpad driver maps clicking both touchpad buttons together onto this middle button click. You lose this with the Synaptic driver, but it is easy to make one of the new corner hot spots work as a middle button click.

Thanks for explaining this trick!

[iamwiz82]

Mine seems to sensitive even when I dial it down. I'm thinking that the trackpad is being affected by pressure on the wrist pad area of the case.

[dont]

Is that with the original Dell driver?

If so, then it might be worth trying the Synaptics driver (see earlier).

I am new to touch pads and find that I get best results with quite a light touch, initially I was pressing a lot harder than I do now. Now that my 'muscle' memory is starting to develop I find that I get fewer over-reactions from the touch pad. The other thing is not to wander onto the edges of the touch pad area when just moving the cursor around.

[moongdss]

when I first got my Mini, I would have described the touchpad as overly sensitive, but now it's downright retarded. On thanksgiving, I left the mini in the car for several hours in the cold (we're talking between 40-50 degrees F). When I brought it in and turned it on, the trackpad didn't work at all. I let the thing warm back up, but ever since it seems like it has dead spots at the top and the tap/click half works.

Anyone ever hear of this happening before?

I'm thinking I may have to call Dell on this one.


EDIT: Nevermind, somehow my touchpad setting got bumped down to the least sensitive possible. *scratches head* Now that I've bumped it up it seems to be working normally.

[nd4spdbh]

Originally Posted by dont

I installed the latest Synaptics generic driver for the touchpad and, after a couple of hours use, I find it much better than the Dell driver. The touchpad seems much more responsive and the Synaptics driver has extra features that I like.

If you do want to install Synatics driver then yout first have to remove (using the control panel) the Dell stuff and re-boot. I was afraid that removing the Dell touchpad software would leave me with no touchpad at all, but the basic functionality still worked.

Previously, I kept reaching for a mouse but now I can get by quite nicely with just the touch pad.

I get the impression that the Dell driver is a branded version of a much earlier Synaptic driver - I wonder if the same is true of the webcam as the Dell software for that device sucks.

ya i also will say use the standard synaptics driver... its much better than the dell one and SO MUCH more feature rich, provides a much better time with the trackpad. You have fully customizable options, you can specifie special regions... the works. I have pretty much found that using the latest drivers from the individual companies rather than dell's drivers work the best.

[JoeinDallas]

Pardon the density (denseness?), but the synaptics drivers are only available in Windows, right? (Not for Ubuntu?)

Joe

[nd4spdbh]

Originally Posted by JoeinDallas

Pardon the density (denseness?), but the synaptics drivers are only available in Windows, right? (Not for Ubuntu?)

Joe

as far as on synaptics site thats what it looks like... windows drivers only, someone correct me if im wrong.

[entropic_existence]

Originally Posted by nd4spdbh

as far as on synaptics site thats what it looks like... windows drivers only, someone correct me if im wrong.

Maybe on the Synaptics site but there are Synaptics touchpad drivers available on Ubuntu as well, and it is probably already installed by default. This MAY be an open source implementation reverse-engineered I'm not sure.
But you can configure it to provide extra functionality that the generic install doesn't have. I know on my Inspiron 9400 it was possible to configure the touchpad to have all sorts of multi-touch capabilities. I did this in Arch Linux following this guide:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics

The Xorg method should work on Ubuntu as well although you may want to read about configuring with gsynaptics and synclient. Both are also discused in the link provided above. I am sure there is discussion about this for Ubuntu 8.04 and Ubuntu 8.10 over on the Ubuntu forums as well.

It is well worth it to configure your touchpad with some of this extra functionality. These touchpads chipsets are frequently capable of much more than you think. I know with some of the last generation macbooks many of the multi-touch and gestures features found in the upgraded Macbook were already availabloe, you just had to install a newer driver.

[ArKay]

If your worries about losing the driver to update it - realize the driver is on the restore DVD - you can always reinstall the software (and driver) by going through said DVD and running the Synaptics software.

So if you don't like the way the newer driver works - (whack) all gone - original driver in place.

Personally I find the current pad a bit to small to use the corner function stuff with... but that's me. I always tend to glide my finger a bit to far to the right and end up scrolling half the time anyway. :?

[Copycatken]

With the non-Dell Synaptics drivers, it is still possible to simulate a middle click. However, instead of pressing both left and right buttons simultaneously, a middle click is done by pressing CTRL + left click.