ClickPads and Click Actions

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wednesday, February 29, 2012 01:11:30 PM Chase Douglas wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm sending this to both ubuntu-devel and ubuntu-desktop to try to get a
> larger pool of feedback.
> 
> I recently added "ClickPad" support in Precise. This is automatically
> picked up by most Synaptics and all Apple Macbook trackpads. It will
> soon be picked up by more Synaptics trackpads and the Apple Magic
> Trackpad. ClickPad support entails the ability to press the trackpad
> with one finger and perform a drag by moving a second finger.
> 
> The problem we face is that currently "ClickPad" support conflicts with
> "click actions". Click actions is the term for supporting right button
> behavior by clicking on the trackpad with two fingers. This has been
> supported for years, and has helped people perform right clicks on
> clickpad devices before the clickpad support landed in Precise.
> Unfortunately, we can't have clickpad support and click action support
> at the same time yet (ran out of time for Precise).
> 
> One feature that hasn't been turned on by default yet is a right button
> area. On Synaptics trackpads, the lower right area of the trackpad is
> marked as a right button. If you enable the right button area and then
> press with one finger in the area, a right button click will be emitted.
> 
> We can enable the right button area by default for all clickpads. The
> problem is that Apple trackpads do not have a marking for a right button
> area, and OS X doesn't provide such a feature. People coming from OS X
> will have to figure out that we a) don't have click action support, and
> b) if you click in the lower right area you will perform a right button
> click. However, people coming from OS X also expect to be able to click
> and drag with two fingers...
> 
> Our options are:
> 
> * Disable clickpad support by default
> * Enable clickpad support, but disable right button area by default
> * Enable clickpad support and right button area by default
> 
> We can have a different default for Apple trackpads and everything else.
> 
> The next Precise kernel will enable clickpad support for all known
> trackpads by default, but right button area remains disabled. Until
> then, you can manually enable support by finding your trackpad device id
> using 'xinput', then running the following scripts:
> 
> http://people.canonical.com/~cndougla/enable-clickpad.sh
> http://people.canonical.com/~cndougla/enable-rightbutton.sh
> 
> If you have tried all the options and have an opinion on which option we
> should take, please send your thoughts.

What happens with the right button area on systems that have physical buttons?

Generically, it seems to me that the time for changing long standing defaults 
is LTS+1, not LTS.

Scott K