4 ms·

I am much more bothered by the fact that I can't control my mouse and keyboard at the same time. Still, I applaud efforts like this to make things better. Howev

I am much more bothered by the fact that I can't control my mouse and keyboard at the same time. Still, I applaud efforts like this to make things better. However, key layout seems to be one of those things that just won't change once the majority uses one standard.

NikolaNovak 10y ago
Isn't that exactly what Touchpoint (or whatever it's called these days) is for? My boss has been informed that laptop with a Touchpoint is a "condition of employment" - I cannot imagine working without one. I see people trying to work with touchpads and it just makes me cry... Sample Image: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/thinkpad_x1_carbon_touchpoint.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/think... Edit: Apparently Wikipedia imaginatively calls it a "pointing stick" :> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick
- kutkloon7 10y ago
  I do have one indeed, but I'm not able to make accurate movements with it (for example, it's a lot of hassle to click the cross that closes a window with the touchpoint). Maybe a better one would help. I am using an old ThinkPad T410 now. I definitely want to buy a laptop in the same bussiness style as my next one. Love the feel of the keyboard and the separate buttons for the touchpad (I don't think I have ever accidentally pressed one). Are there any models (of any brand) with a particular good touchpoint feel? Edit: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/looking-for-nub-best-and-worst-notebook-pointing-sticks http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/looking-for-nub-best-and-w... Apparently, the Lenovo one is supposed to be good. Bummer, I don't like it at all. It seems to switch from moving slowly to moving really fast at a rather unpredictable spot, which makes it hard to make precise movements in a fast way. You usually overshoot about two times if you're trying to click in a small area. Edit: LOL, it also only just occured to me that using the trackpoint with your index finger is the best option (I was using my thumb before). Work a tiny bit better (still not very well honestly).
  - NikolaNovak 10y ago
    Thinkpad is the best one out there, so if you don't like it, you won't like anything else. I've used it on T410, T420, T450, T530, T61, T23. You do have to set up acceleration and speed to suit you (takes a while I assume), and set them up differently than you would for a mouse. I will absolutely agree that learning curve is higher for trackpoint and that it's less intuitive than touchpad - but it's a bit like Vi/Emacs vs MS Notepad - one is immediately intuitive, the other rewards you for initial investment. I think giving a random person a touchpad and a trackpoint, and asking them to immediately do something, touchpad will win. But I also firmly believe the achievable ceiling is higher on trackpoint. I cannot imagine using it with my thumb!! Interestingly, while I'm right handed and use my mouse with my right hand, I use my trackpoint with left index finger, thumb over buttons... but I think that's a quirk of mine and not a generalized thing.
- fdim 10y ago
  I've never found it convenient to use. Touchpad with multi-touch (for scrolling) is much better and for any serious work not going to switch from a dedicated mouse (anywhere mx/mx2).I am not sure what people's issues are with such input. Disclaimer: I am software developer
  - kutkloon7 10y ago
    Moving your hands from the touchpad and the keyboard and back every time is rather annoying.
  - NikolaNovak 10y ago
    As I said above, for me, touchpad is slower and less precise (note that the blue/middle button is set for scrolling on trackpoint by default and works great). I'm willing to admit that it's largely due to whatever a person is accustomed to. However, I still have to see somebody use Touchpad in a way that doesn't make me cringe as to how long anything takes... maybe I need to find a more proficient friend :)
- MayeulC 10y ago
  Very honestly, it boggles my mind just to try to imagine how one can accurately control a mouse with that thing. It feels so much like an analog joystick, and as such, it doesn't have a way to enter an absolute motion. Trackballs, touchpads, mice, even a lot of esoteric solutions such as eye-trackers do. Even Valve made a controller with touchpads to work around this problem. I find them too slow for long distances too, and they tend not to be accurate enough if you increase the speed. I had a couple of friends at university looking forward to have some of those, but they admitted (on their own, while presented with the above argumentation) it was for the "premium/professional" look of those rather than usability. So,in my highly subjective experience, this input method is highly unusable when used as a mouse. I wonder how you perceive these issues? Maybe I am just using them the wrong way? Edit: One thing I wish more laptops had is a third button, though, if only for interacting with tabs/link in the browser, and copy/paste. You can also use a touch pad with your thumb quite accurately (tap to click), but it's a bit awkward.
  - NikolaNovak 10y ago
    I'll agree that the Trackpoint uses a different method than virtually all other solutions (relative indication of direction desired as opposed to absolute motion). As to the rest though, I have exactly the same complaints about touchpad - lack of speed, accuracy, etc... it just boggles my mind how people can put up with it (especially on smaller laptops/netbooks). Largely I imagine therefore it's whatever you're used to. That being said, and for whatever this extremely biased and small sample is worth, there's nobody I know (friends, family, co-workers, fellow geeks) who can beat me on either speed or precision if they use a touchpad and I use trackpoint. I can pinpoint things down to a pixel (can never do it with touchpad, regardless of time), drag & drop with ease and I can move from one corner of the screen to the other in less than a second in one motion. [couldn't care less about "professional" look - nobody I know would be impressed... if anything, most people will just look at me in bewilderment/pity when I try to use the touchpad :]
jccalhoun 10y ago
Whenever I have to use the number pad for any length of time I find myself wondering why it isn't on the left. Sure I could tab or use arrow keys but often it is just easier to use the mouse to click the box/cell I want to put numbers into. So lots of moving my right hand back and forth. Having the number pad on the left would be so much easier.
- clarkmoody 10y ago
  Well if it will be a huge boost to your productivity, you can always get a detached number pad a move it. http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/902/images/Image_03S.png http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/902/images/Image_03S.p...
- toast0 10y ago
  You could move the mouse to the left instead; I've been doing that at work (but not at home) for ergo reasons: it's a shorter move from the home row to the mouse if the hand have to cross the number pad. It took about a week of cursing the ergo team, and then it's pretty much normal feeling. (Also some amount of cursing Apple because the reversed mouse buttons only work when i login, not at the login screen; and some amount of cursing mouse makers because very few models are nice for left handed use)
Cthulhu_ 10y ago
Another alternative pointer I've seen in use at a previous job was a 'roll bar': https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Roller_bar_mouse_2.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Roller_b..., a horizontal tube that can roll in both directions and be slid from side to side. Can be controlled with one or both thumbs, ends up just under the space bar.
tgb 10y ago
The vimium plugin for chrome has a neat feature: pressing f brings up one or two letter labels over each link on the page. Type the label and it'll open the link. This eliminates a large amount of my mouse use. But I agree, I've always wanted a plausible one handed keyboard (of course I'm writing this on one now: my phone).

NikolaNovak 10y ago

Isn't that exactly what Touchpoint (or whatever it's called these days) is for? My boss has been informed that laptop with a Touchpoint is a "condition of employment" - I cannot imagine working without one. I see people trying to work with touchpads and it just makes me cry... Sample Image: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/thinkpad_x1_carbon_touchpoint.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/think... Edit: Apparently Wikipedia imaginatively calls it a "pointing stick" :> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick

kutkloon7 10y ago
I do have one indeed, but I'm not able to make accurate movements with it (for example, it's a lot of hassle to click the cross that closes a window with the touchpoint). Maybe a better one would help. I am using an old ThinkPad T410 now. I definitely want to buy a laptop in the same bussiness style as my next one. Love the feel of the keyboard and the separate buttons for the touchpad (I don't think I have ever accidentally pressed one). Are there any models (of any brand) with a particular good touchpoint feel? Edit: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/looking-for-nub-best-and-worst-notebook-pointing-sticks http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/looking-for-nub-best-and-w... Apparently, the Lenovo one is supposed to be good. Bummer, I don't like it at all. It seems to switch from moving slowly to moving really fast at a rather unpredictable spot, which makes it hard to make precise movements in a fast way. You usually overshoot about two times if you're trying to click in a small area. Edit: LOL, it also only just occured to me that using the trackpoint with your index finger is the best option (I was using my thumb before). Work a tiny bit better (still not very well honestly).
- NikolaNovak 10y ago
  Thinkpad is the best one out there, so if you don't like it, you won't like anything else. I've used it on T410, T420, T450, T530, T61, T23. You do have to set up acceleration and speed to suit you (takes a while I assume), and set them up differently than you would for a mouse. I will absolutely agree that learning curve is higher for trackpoint and that it's less intuitive than touchpad - but it's a bit like Vi/Emacs vs MS Notepad - one is immediately intuitive, the other rewards you for initial investment. I think giving a random person a touchpad and a trackpoint, and asking them to immediately do something, touchpad will win. But I also firmly believe the achievable ceiling is higher on trackpoint. I cannot imagine using it with my thumb!! Interestingly, while I'm right handed and use my mouse with my right hand, I use my trackpoint with left index finger, thumb over buttons... but I think that's a quirk of mine and not a generalized thing.
fdim 10y ago
I've never found it convenient to use. Touchpad with multi-touch (for scrolling) is much better and for any serious work not going to switch from a dedicated mouse (anywhere mx/mx2).I am not sure what people's issues are with such input. Disclaimer: I am software developer
- kutkloon7 10y ago
  Moving your hands from the touchpad and the keyboard and back every time is rather annoying.
- NikolaNovak 10y ago
  As I said above, for me, touchpad is slower and less precise (note that the blue/middle button is set for scrolling on trackpoint by default and works great). I'm willing to admit that it's largely due to whatever a person is accustomed to. However, I still have to see somebody use Touchpad in a way that doesn't make me cringe as to how long anything takes... maybe I need to find a more proficient friend :)
MayeulC 10y ago
Very honestly, it boggles my mind just to try to imagine how one can accurately control a mouse with that thing. It feels so much like an analog joystick, and as such, it doesn't have a way to enter an absolute motion. Trackballs, touchpads, mice, even a lot of esoteric solutions such as eye-trackers do. Even Valve made a controller with touchpads to work around this problem. I find them too slow for long distances too, and they tend not to be accurate enough if you increase the speed. I had a couple of friends at university looking forward to have some of those, but they admitted (on their own, while presented with the above argumentation) it was for the "premium/professional" look of those rather than usability. So,in my highly subjective experience, this input method is highly unusable when used as a mouse. I wonder how you perceive these issues? Maybe I am just using them the wrong way? Edit: One thing I wish more laptops had is a third button, though, if only for interacting with tabs/link in the browser, and copy/paste. You can also use a touch pad with your thumb quite accurately (tap to click), but it's a bit awkward.
- NikolaNovak 10y ago
  I'll agree that the Trackpoint uses a different method than virtually all other solutions (relative indication of direction desired as opposed to absolute motion). As to the rest though, I have exactly the same complaints about touchpad - lack of speed, accuracy, etc... it just boggles my mind how people can put up with it (especially on smaller laptops/netbooks). Largely I imagine therefore it's whatever you're used to. That being said, and for whatever this extremely biased and small sample is worth, there's nobody I know (friends, family, co-workers, fellow geeks) who can beat me on either speed or precision if they use a touchpad and I use trackpoint. I can pinpoint things down to a pixel (can never do it with touchpad, regardless of time), drag & drop with ease and I can move from one corner of the screen to the other in less than a second in one motion. [couldn't care less about "professional" look - nobody I know would be impressed... if anything, most people will just look at me in bewilderment/pity when I try to use the touchpad :]

jccalhoun 10y ago

Whenever I have to use the number pad for any length of time I find myself wondering why it isn't on the left. Sure I could tab or use arrow keys but often it is just easier to use the mouse to click the box/cell I want to put numbers into. So lots of moving my right hand back and forth. Having the number pad on the left would be so much easier.

clarkmoody 10y ago
Well if it will be a huge boost to your productivity, you can always get a detached number pad a move it. http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/902/images/Image_03S.png http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/902/images/Image_03S.p...
toast0 10y ago
You could move the mouse to the left instead; I've been doing that at work (but not at home) for ergo reasons: it's a shorter move from the home row to the mouse if the hand have to cross the number pad. It took about a week of cursing the ergo team, and then it's pretty much normal feeling. (Also some amount of cursing Apple because the reversed mouse buttons only work when i login, not at the login screen; and some amount of cursing mouse makers because very few models are nice for left handed use)

Cthulhu_ 10y ago

Another alternative pointer I've seen in use at a previous job was a 'roll bar': https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Roller_bar_mouse_2.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Roller_b..., a horizontal tube that can roll in both directions and be slid from side to side. Can be controlled with one or both thumbs, ends up just under the space bar.

tgb 10y ago

The vimium plugin for chrome has a neat feature: pressing f brings up one or two letter labels over each link on the page. Type the label and it'll open the link. This eliminates a large amount of my mouse use. But I agree, I've always wanted a plausible one handed keyboard (of course I'm writing this on one now: my phone).