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The three finger drag pattern comes from Fingerworks, the multitouch trackpad company that Apple bought to get their multitouch tech.

A Fingerworks trackpad is when I switched away from a mouse, and in some ways it was even better than a modern Apple trackpad. First it was huge, maybe like twice the area of a MacBook Pro trackpad. It had no click switch at all. Taps only, which were very reliable.

It also lay flat on the desk and was only a few mm thick. So it felt like just resting your hand on the desk. And it was possible to just passively rest your hand on it with no reaction. So using it, my hand and wrist were totally relaxed when not moving the cursor (most of the time). Whereas with modern Apple trackpads, I sometimes get spurious inputs when resting my hand on it.

It also had tons of gestures that were mapped to keyboard shortcuts. So an “opening the jar” arcing motion with 4 fingers opened whatever file was currently highlighted. And “closing the jar” closed the current window. Etc.

I remember seeing the original Fingerworks website and then it vanished and I assumed they went out of business. But little did I know.

They are the basis of the prototype that Bas Ording used to design all the interactions we know today on touch: inertial scrolling with rubber band effect, row of icons for apps, pinch to zoom, etc. It was a fingerwork trackpad with his Director (in 2004!) interactions projected on! It was designed for a Mac tablet, but then the focus shifted to a phone.

I spend most of my time using a ThinkPad laptop touchpad, but the critical property that makes it usable for me is the physical mouse buttons. I find it incredibly awkward to use any system without physical mouse buttons, or any system where tap-to-click has not been disabled.

I tried, on my current laptop, to see if I could get used to having tap-to-click enabled even without actually using it; I wanted to see how far off I was from being able to deal with any non-ThinkPad. I ended up turning it back off after a few days, after many many clicks I didn't want to click.

My wife feels the same way as you. I guess everyone is different. To me, tap-to-click and two-finger right click feel the best by far.

I have on my desk an old IBM M4-1 keyboard (compact keyboard with trackpoint), a mighty mouse (the one with the track ball in it) and a mac laptop with a touchpad. I think this gives me access to nearly all the input widgets available except maybe a chorded keyboard or foot pedals. For a while I actually had 2 keyboards on my desk and sometimes I'd type all on one, all on the other, or sometimes left hand on one and right hand on the other. When I moved to WFH mostly I got rid of the second keyboard (and switched to the M4-1) because my home office isn't all that large.

I use them all at probably random ratios as the mood and task suit me.

I also use a single 30 inch 16:10 monitor.

Everyone else in my family hates this setup.

I'm mostly with you, but I don't feel the need for separate mouse buttons, so long as the touchpad can give me feedback on clicks. If the whole touchpad is the button, and two finger clicks work for right click, then that's all right. Took some getting used to, but it works fine now. Tap to click though, I've never got that to not be annoying.

I've tried the clickpads. Requiring a more deliberate action to click is good; requiring an absurd amount of force compared to what's needed to push a mouse button is bad. And the "hinged" feeling where it's obviously attached on only one side feels bad, as well.

It's possible that a much better clickpad could be usable, where it's anchored in a non-hinged fashion so it pushes evenly, and the force required to click is comparable to a mouse button.

Not sure exactly which company you are referring to, but Apples clickpads haven’t had any moving parts for a long time—there is just a force sensor and a physical actuator to make it vibrate when tapped that makes it feel as if it moved. But it does not actually move, so there’s nothing to push unevenly about it. It can be a bit uncanny to use when the machine is powered off since the haptic feedback is designed just to trick the brain into thinking it moved.

Those aren't "clickpads"; they don't click. Some of the older ones had a "force touch" where you could push harder to do something different, but the amount of force required for that seemed excessive.

I'm talking about a touchpad that physically actuates like a button.

Gotcha. I remember those not working well.

I believe all newer models still do that too since 2016, but just not the UI (force touch was mostly only on phones in my recollection). It can be used as a fairly accurate kitchen scale even: https://github.com/KrishKrosh/TrackWeight

Agreed on all points.

Why do you find this better? I find it awkward to have to contort my hand to hold the button down when dragging around. This was already the case with older trackpads with the buttons below, but now all trackpads with physical buttons I've seen have them above (probably intended for the trackpoint).

I really hate the hinge-style trackpads, but even on macs, I always enable tap to click and double-tap-drap to hold. On mac os and linux you can enable a "persistent hold for a short while" which allows to lift your finger briefly without losing the hold. Never found a similar setting on windows, which drives me crazy whenever I absolutely have to use that os.

> This was already the case with older trackpads with the buttons below, but now all trackpads with physical buttons I've seen have them above (probably intended for the trackpoint).

I think they're officially intended for the trackpoint, yes. But I find buttons-above convenient, because if I rest my arm/hand in a relaxed fashion on the laptop palm rest, I can use my pointer or middle finger for precise movement, and click with my middle or ring finger.

That said, I'd take buttons-below over no buttons. With buttons-below, I'm using my middle finger to mouse and my pointer finger to click, and that's still reasonably comfortable.

In both cases, I find it better because: clicking the button requires a deliberate action that won't happen by accident while using the touchpad; there's no delay required to confirm if touching the touchpad is a click something else, it's never a click; there's nothing timing-based at all, motion is motion and clicking is clicking; right-click and middle-click have dedicated buttons (I probably use middle-click many times more often than right-click on any given day, to open links in tabs and to close tabs).

This isn't something that could be solved with a better touchpad or better software.

> if I rest my arm/hand in a relaxed fashion on the laptop palm rest, I can use my pointer or middle finger for precise movement, and click with my middle or ring finger.

Huh, interesting. I just tried this, and it's indeed quite comfortable to use the index finger to operate the trackpad and the middle finger on the buttons. Middle + ring feels awkward to me, probably because of the size difference between my fingers. I suppose it never occurred to me to try it this way because I usually use my middle finger on the trackpad.

I don't know, does a trackpad count? In one sense, no, it's not a mouse. In which case, I guess I'm in the same boat. I don't know if I even have any mice in the house anymore.

OTOH, I thought this might be a post from a keyboard shortcut wizard.

I thought it was going to be about someone who’d fully embraced the terminal.

Preferring a trackpad to a mouse seems not so unusual, right? I guess sticking to it so completely is. I prefer marble-mouse type devices, but I can’t say with any certainty that I haven’t accidentally touched a mouse in the past 14 years.

> I prefer marble-mouse type devices

I've never heard of those. Do you mean a trackball?

I guess Marble Mouse is the Logitech brand-name, oops.

I've tried them all. Trackpad, trackpoint, trackball, all of them. I keep coming back to a mouse. Everything else is either frustrating and finicky, or it induces RSI after a few hours.

What worked for me is “logitech lift”, one left handed the other right handed. When they are connected I set up my Mac to disable the trackpad.

That + sport and standing desk, did wonder to me.

I detest the trackpad on my Windows (Linux soon) laptop, so I have to use an external mouse with it, but I use the "magic trackpad" on my personal and work macbooks including external ones without issues (except if I have to drag something very far; this three finger drag seems to make it nicer although it wouldn't work if I needed to make sure not to let go like when dragging files around). Just wanted to point out that there's a big difference.

I don't daily drive a mac anymore, but I seem to remember that it allowed you to hold the selection with one or more fingers, and move another finger on touchpad for the actual moving part. You could lift this last finger without letting go of the selection.

I wanted it to work, I really did. I even went so far as to buy an external magic trackpad, because people raved about it. That trackpad is in mint condition ... in my closet.

Did you try a mousetrapper?

I haven't used a mouse in ages, but I haven't used a trackpad - ever. I've never found one that matches the accuracy, speed, and overall joy of using TrackPoint to move the mouse cursor.

Yeah it’s really a shame that the track point wasn’t adopted globally (I’m assuming for patent reasons, but surely any patents must be expired by now).

For years I used a Trackpoint external keyboard plus a mouse. The track point is great for small movements when you’re primarily typing, and the mouse is great for when you are primarily moving the cursor.

I love trackpoint for navigation and UI control. But it's not that great for drawing / painting (even though I did use it for that, successfully).

I exclusively use trackpads like Magic Trackpad 2 when I'm on MacOS. But I exclusively use a mouse when I'm running Windows and Linux.

MacOS just seems more tailored to the touchpad experience. Windows and Linux more tailored to the mouse experience.

Modern GNOME distros (Ubuntu and Fedora when running Wayland, for example) work pretty well with a trackpad. You get all the usual Mac-style gestures: two finger scrolling, pinch to zoom, three finger horizontal swipe for workspaces, three finger vertical swipe for "expose" style app overview, etc.

I'm running a Framework 13 and other than the physical click requiring more effort than the haptic "click" on a Mac, it's pretty dang similar.

Wish I could use a trackpad as-is. My wrists are mildly FUBAR after decades of computer work/obsession, and now I'm having to deal with it. For me, that means that continual wrist pronation freaking hurts.

Let your arms hang straight down. Now bend your elbows and lift your forearms so that they're at 90º to your body, i.e. parallel to the ground. Notice that your hands are naturally oriented so that if you were holding a pole, it would be much closer to pointing downward than sideways. Rotating your wrists "inward" so that your hand is parallel to your desk, in the position to use a trackpad, is not their normal position.

I used a magic trackpad for quite a while until I found myself in agony by the end of the day. One of my coworkers told me he was exploring using vertical mice and that caught my attention. I tried one and it stopped the pain, like, immediately. Mousing around was awkward for a few days until I got used to the different hand orientation and movement, but that passed quickly. Now I'd never, ever go back to a trackpad.

I'd considered making a little block to mount my magic trackpad sideways at, say, a 45º angle to my desk so that my wrist wasn't so pronated, but even then it nudges you toward radial and ulnar deviation which can also become uncomfortable over time. I'd rather just painlessly use my vertical mouse which uses forearm movement and write extension/flexion to zip the cursor around my screen.

Sounds like you might benefit from something like the UHK[1].

It's got tenting, which approaches that natural tilt to your hands, and there are several mouse add-ons to choose from, I'm sure one of them will suit your needs.

[1]https://uhk.io/

Yeah, something like that is awfully appealing. I don't have as much trouble with typing as with trackpadding for whatever happy combination of reasons, the biggest being that I taught myself to type after playing piano for many years first, and so completely ignored "proper" home-row typing in favor of piano-like "move your hand around and wiggle your fingers" typing. I'm still one of the faster typists I know, so doing it "wrong" hasn't held me back at all.

But. If my hands start to hurt while typing, I'm definitely trying something like that as my first keyboard experiment.

Neat thing about a split board: it forces you to do correct typing. I was like you until I got the UHK. It was a pretty awkward first week with lots of trying to press buttons with the wrong hand and ending up smashing air instead. But after a week I was reprogrammed.

It’s funny: I’d never given it a moment’s thought until I saw this piece but I’ve realised I’m probably the same. The only time I’ve used a mouse since maybe 2012 or so is on the odd occasion I’ve fired up an FPS on a laptop rather than on a games console. And that’s it.

(I’ve tried playing FPSs with trackpads as well but, even with Mac trackpads, which remain far and away the best, it is not a good - or even acceptable - experience. Mouse all the way for fragging action.)

Trackpad works fine for everything - but mouse + keyboard still wins by far for FPS.

"Right click and drag" is just not something a trackpad does well.

I've always hated trackpads, they always made my fingers extremely sore and I didn't find they worked well. Someone told me "you're just not used to it", like I hadn't been already trying for 20 years!

The Mac trackpad, however, is wonderful. I enjoy using it.

Not sure why, but Windows laptop touchpads always feel kinda rough to me, especially next to Mac's.

> macOS setup guide used to include an option to turn on three finger drag, but now it has been hidden in the accessibility option.

I don't understand why Apple does this. It's like the "allow ANC with one AirPod" setting, which is also inexplicably an accessibility option.

Thanks for mentioning that. I have one hearing aid so I've had to take it out so I can wear both AirPods when I want noise cancellation at all with AirPods. (I can also stream to the hearing aid but it is very tinny, completely lacking bass.)

In my opinion, fingers are too big.

I need to do precise drawing work, like drawing electronic schematics or PCB layouts or other kinds of technical drawings.

I cannot imagine doing such things comfortable with a touchpad.

I have also not used a mouse for more than a decade, but that is because I had switched at some point from a mouse to a trackball and a few years ago I have switched to something much better, i.e. a small graphic tablet (having the size of a mouse pad) used in mouse mode, a.k.a. "Relative" mode, instead of in its default "Absolute" mode.

With a sharp stylus, I can point much more precisely than I could ever do with my fingers. I can also move the cursor instantaneously to any part of the screen, with a minimal movement of my fingers, because the velocity of the point of the stylus is much greater than I could ever achieve for the tip of my finger.

Moreover, the position in which I hold the stylus is more comfortable than if I would have to put the finger on a touchpad and the movements of the fingers have a smaller amplitude than required by a touchpad, which also improves comfort. (To reach any point on the screen, only the 3 fingers holding the stylus have to move, no hand movement is necessary.)

So from my experience, a touchpad cannot compete with a stylus, neither for accuracy, nor for speed, nor for comfort. (With a very light stylus, like from Wacom, also the transitions between touch typing on the keyboard and using the graphic pointing device are much faster than with a mouse, because touch typing remains possible with the stylus between the fingers.)

A touchpad may be fine for text manipulation or Internet browsing, but for drawing, it is too slow in comparison with a mouse or trackball, and even more so in comparison with a stylus, while the devices that are better for drawing can also easily accomplish the simpler tasks for which a touchpad is acceptable.

I have tried to go completely mouse/trackpad free with vimari/vimium, scoot, and rectangle. Worked relatively well, and helps me move things around as fast as I can think.

web moves: https://github.com/televator-apps/vimari mouse moves: https://github.com/mjrusso/scoot window moves: https://rectangleapp.com

Drag lock is a good setting, just test drove it and will be using it.

Ooh thanks for the hot tip on Scoot! I've been using Mouseless (https://mouseless.click/) for a while and it's been a game changer, allowing me to almost never touch the trackpad. That said, I like the fact that Scoot allows for selecting elements. Gonna give it a shot!

I’ve been on a Wacom tablet (without display) for almost three decades now.

I was given one free, when Wacom was my client in my first job, and after a couple of days of awkwardness have never looked back.

In that time I have owned 4. Just upgraded to a 2025 model (the latest) recently.

I have large hands and using a mouse means my hand is resting more in the desk than the mouse. I find it uncomfortable and inaccurate.

I love being able to do graphical things with a pen and though I love the trackpad, prolonged use causes discomfort due to needing to keep my fingers under tension. The more precision you need on a trackpad the worse it gets.

I think the learning curve on tablets is hard to overcome. They feel weird for the first few hours. It’s worth trying to overcome.

Also around cheap tablets. Wacom survive for a reason.

I too have ended up with a pen tablet. XP-Pen mini 7"

Broke my wrist snowboarding which ended up with my wrist getting pinned back together. After it surgically "fixed" and healed and I started using that hand again, I got super inflamed tendons in my wrist to the point it would wake me up a night and barely able to use a normal mouse at work. I ended up trying 3 different types of ergo mice, none of which helped. In desperation I ended up ordering the pen tablet, it felt good in my hand right away and after struggling with brain/hand/cursor location for 2 weeks it's become my preferred method. I mapped the shortcut keys on the tablet to copy/paste/middle click/ double click which is awesome.

For me the tablet lives right in-front of the keyboard, just like a laptop trackpad. I tried off to the side, but couldn't get used to it.

If, like me, you like to script your Mac environment setup, the following two commands SHOULD do the same thing:

    defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerDrag -bool true
    defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadThreeFingerDrag -bool true

ETA: I tested it, and the behavior is correct when I log back in after running the above. Oddly though, the settings aren't showing as turned on in the settings panel. If anyone has a scriptable solution to that I'd love to hear it.

I might be the odd-man-out here, but I almost exclusively sit at a desk with a full-size mechanical keyboard and mouse, 2 monitors, and a tower in the closet nearby LOL -- I can't get any real work done hunched over a laptop! Not that I'm incapable of adapting, I just dislike the cramped ergonomics of screen and keyboard, and really need a mouse for precision in Photoshop etc. It always blew my mind when I worked in an office how coworkers were cool with coding on a 13 or 14 inch screen, rarely docked the laptop, sitting around on couches or whatever instead.

I'm in much the same boat. Daily Apple trackpad driver for the past 15 years at least, maybe more. Every time I have to use a PC with a mouse it kills me a little (and don't get me started on those trackpads cheap PC laptops ship with...)

I've been using an external trackpad instead of a mouse since around 2009. At first, I used ratpoison as my window manager on my EEE PC as a daily driver, which is controlled entirely via the keyboard, then I used StumpWM for a long time and now I use cagebreak (which is a Wayland compositor with ratpoison-like behaviour). I use the trackpad very sparingly, only when it’s really necessary.

>I am still amazed by Mac's Trackpad quality to this day. I used to own Windows laptops, and most of their touchpads are so shit

I have hear multiple times that patents are the reason for the bad trackpads outside of Apples products. But I have never been able to find a confirmation.

Talking about mouse alternatives I would like to give rollermouse a shout-out. Beside the relaxed arm position they give, I really like that they invite to use both hands at the same time. With the similar workload between both hands and arms I find the over all strain lower even with repetitive tasks for a long time.

I like laptop trackpads because it means you're always close to the keyboard, so you can easily switch between cursor and typing without only relying on one. It's good for UI design work for example.

I haven't used a mouse since about 1999 when my index finger told me I'd been doing entirely too much double-clicking in my Flash animation job. It's been all drawing tablets since then. I have a mouse that I use on the rare occasion of playing a game that requires you to move the view by pushing the cursor against the screen edges; I have to hold it in a weird, awkward grip because that tendon still starts screaming if I try to use it to click a mouse button.

I get the love for Macbook trackpads, but Lenovo really nailed it with the ThinkPad trackpoint and glass trackpad combo, especially on more recent models.

I switched to a mac trackpad years ago due to hand pain that comes whenever I grip/use a mouse. Something about that half-closed-hand light grip has become just super painful. Unfortunately I still need to use one for FPS gaming, just haven't found a controller to match the speed and precision needed to aim and fire at a game opponent.

>haven't found a controller to match the speed and precision needed to aim and fire at a game opponent.

Gyro aim is a must, and if you wanna be the best you can be, I would also suggest learning Flick Stick, which in addition to using gyro, remaps the right stick to immediately turn to the direction you tilt it in, allowing instant 180s (at the cost of no longer aiming vertically at all). Steam Input allows you to set this up for any game. You need to initially dial it in by adjusting how many pixels a 360 degree turn moves until you can do two 360s and be aiming in the same spot. You can do this by temporarily binding a button to do a 360 degree rotation and then finding something in the game to stare at. You can find videos of people doing this on Steam Deck.

As for the controller, I'd currently recommend the 8BitDo Pro 2 or Pro 3, but if you can wait, the new Steam Controller should be even better.

I'm in the same boat when it comes to gaming. Primarily use a trackball mouse and have used it for some games like World of Warcraft or Path of Exile but a traditional mouse is still king for any FPS game.

I did learn recently that Zowie released an ergonomic version of their mouse that I plan on checking out though. Unfortunately there's just not a ton of options out there for ergonomic gaming mice.

Consider trying a vertical mouse. They look odd and the first day or two it is strange but after a while it becomes second nature. It was only after using one for a few mo ths that I realised most of my issues with typical mouses.

Also it is funny going back to a standard mice, it feels like you are awkwardly using a tiktak for input.

Yep that's what I currently use--it's the only way I can even bear holding one.

Some people use console controllers on pc playing competitive FPS games (see for example TheBrokenMachine), maybe thats an alternative for you? Personally I think it would take me 5+ years to get used to tho…

The three finger drag is an ergonomic marvel, combined with tapping (vs. clicking) and a couple of four finger gestures it’s perfect. I don’t use (or drag around) a mouse since very long; not even when heavily using Photoshop and similar pointer-heavy applications.

I can't use the trackpad for too long without getting RSI type feelings.. I am trackball these days.

One of my favourite features on my Asus Zenbook (Windows) is the "Disable Touchpad" hotkey.

I mean ... it's great that they gave you a slight accommodation, but that's at best a bodge to workaround bad hardware and software.

Actually, the pad is not too bad - I'm just really not into trackpads.

You have me beat by two years and I never knew about the three fingers drag. Great find... thanks!

Trackball gang here. Nulea seems to be my latest iteration, I've tried a bunch of them.

When I first learned of them I thought they were ridiculous, but it really saved my hands going ergonomic w/ the Trackball and Keyboard (Microsoft Ergo style - Nulea as well).

When I do use a mouse, I use a Logitech Lift because horizontal grip mice are uncomfortable, but now that I've retired and 99% of my time is on my MacBook Air, it's all trackpad, and my hands don't seem to mind it.

Anecdotal, but I haven't used my Magic Trackpad 2 since I bought a trackball (Kensington Expert Wireless). Removes all the same wrist strain issues while retaining flick accuracy of a mouse.

Logitech MX Ergo fan here!

This is the best. I use it for work as well.

+1 on trackballs, I use a sanwa gravi myself

Windows has something better than three finger drag. It has single finger second tap and hold. Plus extended zones for when the trackpad is not big enough to stretch across

But it misses the killer feature that both macs and Linux have and makes this glorious: allow lifting the finger for a short time without letting go of the selection.

I love the Magic Trackpad and I've used exclusively for years, at some point my wrists start to hurt and I'm now stuck with some Logitech MX Vertical.

One of my buddies has beaten minecraft many times using only his mac trackpad. In fact, he's better than I am with a mouse.

The Magic Trackpad and Logitech MX Master 3s mouse are an excellent combination for me. I see benefits from both.

I'm on 12 years and I didn't know about the 3 fingers drag, thanks for sharing!

It is utterly insane that 3 finger drag isn't the default or at least not buried 3 layers deep inside accessibility. Apple, what are you doing?

I didn’t use to be as buried before System Preferences became System Settings.

can anyone recommend similar hardware compatible with linux? that also supports the three fingered drag and other stuff mentioned in the article?

You must use wayland on linux for these things to work.

Touchpad is unergonomic. It can be better than some other touchpad but using it constantly is like having a bad posture while sitting. A bit less damaging tbh cause spine is a spine, you know, and likely you have two arms anyway. But in the same category of unergonomic things.

I despise trackpads. They feel so sloppy and approximate. Mice work great for my needs. But the best laptop pointer for me has been the pointing stick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick

I despise trackpads.

And yet I'll use nothing else. Conversely, I have never gotten along with pointy sticks, all the way back to the original 1993 Toshiba Portégé[0] despite their apparent popularity.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook_Portégé

TIL majority of people (ITT) call touchpad a trackpad

I thought you use it to distinguish between external trackpad vs laptop touchpad, but seems many people still use it even for laptop touchpad, so can someone enlighten me what's the distinction in usage?

“Mouse!” —- Rafael Alonzo’s I.T.F. Technical Computer Institute Ad (by way of SNL)

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