7 ms·

Touchpad Blocker: Disable touch-pad while typing

17 points by vincent_s 4y ago

dewey 4y ago
As much as I have problems with Apple's software lately, the touchpad is one of these things that Apple just does better on their laptops by default compared to all other brands.
- capableweb 4y ago
  That's the crux with Apple, for me at least. Hardware is excellent and I love it, but the software is so bad that it makes it really hard to justify purchasing the hardware. At least on the computers I can chose what OS I run, no such luck on other devices from them.
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    Anyone who's ever used Linux or Windows on their Mac knows that a lot of what makes the trackpads great is software. On these other OSs, the Mac trackpad is not much better than any other. Don't get me wrong, the trackpad hardware is far better IMO but the experience of using it is really only great on macOS.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      I've never used Windows on a Apple laptop before, but the experience of using Apple touchpad with Linux/Gnome (with a little bit of tweaking) is definitely a better experience than using Linux/Gnome on for example a Surface Pro 8 touchpad. The size matter, but also the material and hardware implementation. There is a clear difference in just the hardware, not just software.
      - cassianoleal 4y ago
        > with a little bit of tweaking > better experience than using Linux/Gnome on for example a Surface Pro 8 touchpad Sure, when you compare the absolute best with one of the worst, there will be a clear difference. Still, note that you made the point yourself about tweaking - which is done in software. > There is a clear difference in just the hardware, not just software. I agree. In fact, I said so. :)
  - carlosjobim 4y ago
    Out of curiosity: What Linux or Windows software is not available to you on MacOS? Or do you mean the desktop environment is not any good?
- goosedragons 4y ago
  They can still have problems with false touches while typing on the trackpad especially on modern 15-16" MBPs which have jumbo trackpads.
  - causi 4y ago
    Is there a point to those giant touchpads? How do people tell where left and right click are without looking down? Personally I think the death of real mouse buttons is the worst laptop UX change in the last 20 years, even beating out chiclet keyboards.
    - spiffytech 4y ago
      > How do people tell where left and right click are without looking down? Commonly on large touchpads, left click is a one-finger tap, while right click is a two-finger tap, either of them taking place anywhere on the surface. My impression is that dedicated click regions are going out of fashion.
      - causi 4y ago
        That seems awful. The more force you have to use with your pointing finger the less accurate your position is. I can't imagine trying to aim and shoot with the same finger.
        dewey 4y ago
        As with many things, this is something that feels weird for the first few days but is a complete non-issue once you got used to it. Just like typing on a keyboard without buttons when the first smartphones came out.
        causi 4y ago
        I can't imagine getting used to the force of a click feeling different depending on where my finger is. Clicking straight down in the middle vs clicking your finger sideways when it's near the far edge, etc. When I bought my last laptop I just gave up and 3D-printed buttons to put on the bottom of the pad.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Apple trackpads fail at handling very quick swipes (when I want to quickly scroll through a list), something all other touchpads handle just fine. Granted, I configured the trackpad so it handles taps like clicks. Quick swipes quite often get misidentified as taps instead. Fuck me for daring to violate the One Apple Way(tm) I guess?
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    I have tap to click as well, and no issues with quick swipes. As long as the swipe is an actual swipe, and not a tap (i.e. you actually swipe whilst touching the pad) it should be fine. I imagine you're only briefly touching the pad rather than swiping on it - either that, or your trackpad has a defect.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      I'm definitely swiping; no clue if the trackpad is defective since I otherwise don't use Macs.
gbraad 4y ago
Never had this problem, so I wonder which manufacturer has this issue.
- anonymous344 4y ago
  hp has it. i think many patents protect this feature
krzk5 4y ago
My 10yo laptop already had a palm rejection built-in in its driver, thought it's a must. Not sure who might need this
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  Despite being disabled in BIOS the touchpad in my T440 still works, it just doesn't move the mouse cursor. And no amount of tweaking in Synaptic drivers allowed me to disable "side actions". Thankfully I don't use it much nowadays, but there could be people with borked touchpads too.
  - corgihamlet 4y ago
    I hate that trackpad with a passion. My X240 had the same one. Those machines don't have dedicated mouse buttons for the trackpoint and use the trackpad instead. For some reason the mouse clicks became unreliable every so often, registering presses on the wrong side or straight up moving my mouse cursor to the edge of the screen - even if it was disabled in the BIOS. The issue was persistent across operating systems, so I returned the machine and got an X250 with dedicated buttons.
  - spyremeown 4y ago
    >touchpad in my T440 I absolutely hate the T440 touchpad. Lenovo had the almost perfect design for that time with the T430: just make it bigger and out of glass, with physical buttons on the top. But no, "let's f** everything up", said some shitty designer.
albatrosstrophy 4y ago
I always have this problem. Not sure if I want the mouse pad to be totally deactivated while typing. I don't mind the pointer moving (might be a valid input anyway), but the clicking should be disabled so that the typing doesn't accidentally appear on an unintended area of the screen.
capableweb 4y ago
I have the opposite problem. I acquired a Surface Pro 8 together with the keyboard. It does "disable touch-pad while typing" automatically and by default, and I haven't found a way of disabling it in Windows 11. On gnome I can disable that functionality easily, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware thing in the keyboard/touchpad, but on Windows 11 there doesn't seem to be any way of disabling it, built in or 3rd party. Makes it kind of difficult to play certain strategy games and using 3d/animation software when you want to be able to pan with the keyboard at the same time as you're selecting/moving the mouse around.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >On gnome I can disable that functionality easily My problem with Gnome (on Ubuntu 22.04 at least) is I can't set it to disable the touchpad if an external mouse is plunged in. WHY?! There seem to be some Gnome extensions for that but they never worked for me most likely since I'm on Wayland. Such a basic setting should be available by default, or at least through a cfg file. I guess such a setting is not necessary because my workflow is different than the ones the Gnome devs want me to have. I must be holding it wrong. /s
  - capableweb 4y ago
    You mean `gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events disabled-on-external-mouse` doesn't work for you? Seems like it's just missing Wayland support if so, file a issue if you haven't already. You might not want to complain about customizability in gnome if you have ever used Windows before, they are on two whole different levels. That `gsettings` even is available is a godsend compared to Windows and macOS.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >You might not want to complain about customizability in gnome if you have ever used Windows before Funny that you mention this, but as a long time Windows and Linux user, I find Windows far more configurable (for what I need) out of the box than what vanilla Gnome offers, especially via what the GUI offers in the settings menu. I'm more of an KDE/XFCE man myself due to the available configuration options out of the box and no need for hacky extensions. And if more configurations are needed on Windows, there's always a free easy to use GUI app (like the one featured in this topic) that can be downloaded and it's nearly guaranteed to work despite its age, because unlike Gnome/Linux, Microsoft don't change the APIs/ABIs every six months and break existing apps/extensions. And that's without going into the "this works on X11 but not on Wayland" rabbithole. So you see my good sir, having experienced both sides, I will complain as I see fit about the things that annoy me. But thank you for your suggestion, I'll give it a try.
berjin 4y ago
Is this really a problem for windows users? My macbook has a massive touch pad and I don't recall my palm ever triggering it once.
- siva7 4y ago
  Yes since macbook touchpads are by a wide margin the best on the market. That's not really news. This happened with my Dell laptops all the time
- lucumo 4y ago
  Happens to me once in a while on the Macbook. It doesn't happen as often as it used to with Linux laptops a decade ago, but it still happens every few weeks. I'm still not sure if I prefer large touchpads or smaller ones because of this. You run out of space more easily with a smaller one, but there's fewer accidents. (And more places to rest your thumbs.)
  - euroderf 4y ago
    > Happens to me once in a while on the Macbook. Same here. Aggravating. Even if the Mac just made a tiny noise when it thinks this might have happened, it would be a great help.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  Occasionally I've seen it move the cursor, but overall, it's a great experience. I remember years ago I used to always disable the touchpad on my laptops, but I've been all Apple since around 2012 so hadn't thought about that until I saw this article.
- agilob 4y ago
  Touchpad is also automatically disabled when typing on Linux, Gnome and Plasma do that since like ever.
techbutter 4y ago
I use a macbook and never had this issue.
- bedobi 4y ago
  I've used about four five different macbooks and some of them def had this issue. The worst ones were the first jumbopad ones, they would constantly pick up my palms or sides of my hands. It quickly ruins your day when you're coding. I tried all recommended tweaks to settings, nothing worked. My current one, a 2023 14 inch pro, does have a jumbopad but they must have done something because I'm not experiencing it on this one.
reportgunner 4y ago
I just disable the touchpad altogether, it's not a good way to use my laptop.
- nathias 4y ago
  what are you using instead?
  - agilob 4y ago
    a mouse?
  - nitroll 4y ago
    The trackpoint on Thinkpads is fantastic once you get used to it.
  - tanseydavid 4y ago
    Wireless trackball.
  - reportgunner 4y ago
    Keyboard shortcuts and ThinkPad trackpoint (all my laptops are ThinkPads and my work HP laptop also has a decent trackpoint)
geuis 4y ago
I heavily miss the smaller trackpads like on the 2015 era MacBook Pros. I have large hands and on the new supersized trackpads, the fleshy party of my hands under the thumbs constantly trigger random mouse movements when I'm typing.
Aardwolf 4y ago
This seems to have always been a setting that existed for a long time in Linux desktops (or at least cinnamon), I've had this enabled before, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not when you want to use mousepad and keyboard at same time for some game (but then plugging in a USB mouse is better anyway)

17 points by vincent_s 4y ago

As much as I have problems with Apple's software lately, the touchpad is one of these things that Apple just does better on their laptops by default compared to all other brands.

capableweb 4y ago
That's the crux with Apple, for me at least. Hardware is excellent and I love it, but the software is so bad that it makes it really hard to justify purchasing the hardware. At least on the computers I can chose what OS I run, no such luck on other devices from them.
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  Anyone who's ever used Linux or Windows on their Mac knows that a lot of what makes the trackpads great is software. On these other OSs, the Mac trackpad is not much better than any other. Don't get me wrong, the trackpad hardware is far better IMO but the experience of using it is really only great on macOS.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    I've never used Windows on a Apple laptop before, but the experience of using Apple touchpad with Linux/Gnome (with a little bit of tweaking) is definitely a better experience than using Linux/Gnome on for example a Surface Pro 8 touchpad. The size matter, but also the material and hardware implementation. There is a clear difference in just the hardware, not just software.
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      > with a little bit of tweaking > better experience than using Linux/Gnome on for example a Surface Pro 8 touchpad Sure, when you compare the absolute best with one of the worst, there will be a clear difference. Still, note that you made the point yourself about tweaking - which is done in software. > There is a clear difference in just the hardware, not just software. I agree. In fact, I said so. :)
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  Out of curiosity: What Linux or Windows software is not available to you on MacOS? Or do you mean the desktop environment is not any good?
goosedragons 4y ago
They can still have problems with false touches while typing on the trackpad especially on modern 15-16" MBPs which have jumbo trackpads.
- causi 4y ago
  Is there a point to those giant touchpads? How do people tell where left and right click are without looking down? Personally I think the death of real mouse buttons is the worst laptop UX change in the last 20 years, even beating out chiclet keyboards.
  - spiffytech 4y ago
    > How do people tell where left and right click are without looking down? Commonly on large touchpads, left click is a one-finger tap, while right click is a two-finger tap, either of them taking place anywhere on the surface. My impression is that dedicated click regions are going out of fashion.
    - causi 4y ago
      That seems awful. The more force you have to use with your pointing finger the less accurate your position is. I can't imagine trying to aim and shoot with the same finger.
      - dewey 4y ago
        As with many things, this is something that feels weird for the first few days but is a complete non-issue once you got used to it. Just like typing on a keyboard without buttons when the first smartphones came out.
        causi 4y ago
        I can't imagine getting used to the force of a click feeling different depending on where my finger is. Clicking straight down in the middle vs clicking your finger sideways when it's near the far edge, etc. When I bought my last laptop I just gave up and 3D-printed buttons to put on the bottom of the pad.
Dalewyn 4y ago
Apple trackpads fail at handling very quick swipes (when I want to quickly scroll through a list), something all other touchpads handle just fine. Granted, I configured the trackpad so it handles taps like clicks. Quick swipes quite often get misidentified as taps instead. Fuck me for daring to violate the One Apple Way(tm) I guess?
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  I have tap to click as well, and no issues with quick swipes. As long as the swipe is an actual swipe, and not a tap (i.e. you actually swipe whilst touching the pad) it should be fine. I imagine you're only briefly touching the pad rather than swiping on it - either that, or your trackpad has a defect.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    I'm definitely swiping; no clue if the trackpad is defective since I otherwise don't use Macs.

gbraad 4y ago

Never had this problem, so I wonder which manufacturer has this issue.

anonymous344 4y ago
hp has it. i think many patents protect this feature

krzk5 4y ago

My 10yo laptop already had a palm rejection built-in in its driver, thought it's a must. Not sure who might need this

justsomehnguy 4y ago
Despite being disabled in BIOS the touchpad in my T440 still works, it just doesn't move the mouse cursor. And no amount of tweaking in Synaptic drivers allowed me to disable "side actions". Thankfully I don't use it much nowadays, but there could be people with borked touchpads too.
- corgihamlet 4y ago
  I hate that trackpad with a passion. My X240 had the same one. Those machines don't have dedicated mouse buttons for the trackpoint and use the trackpad instead. For some reason the mouse clicks became unreliable every so often, registering presses on the wrong side or straight up moving my mouse cursor to the edge of the screen - even if it was disabled in the BIOS. The issue was persistent across operating systems, so I returned the machine and got an X250 with dedicated buttons.
- spyremeown 4y ago
  >touchpad in my T440 I absolutely hate the T440 touchpad. Lenovo had the almost perfect design for that time with the T430: just make it bigger and out of glass, with physical buttons on the top. But no, "let's f** everything up", said some shitty designer.

albatrosstrophy 4y ago

I always have this problem. Not sure if I want the mouse pad to be totally deactivated while typing. I don't mind the pointer moving (might be a valid input anyway), but the clicking should be disabled so that the typing doesn't accidentally appear on an unintended area of the screen.

capableweb 4y ago

I have the opposite problem. I acquired a Surface Pro 8 together with the keyboard. It does "disable touch-pad while typing" automatically and by default, and I haven't found a way of disabling it in Windows 11. On gnome I can disable that functionality easily, so it doesn't seem to be a hardware thing in the keyboard/touchpad, but on Windows 11 there doesn't seem to be any way of disabling it, built in or 3rd party. Makes it kind of difficult to play certain strategy games and using 3d/animation software when you want to be able to pan with the keyboard at the same time as you're selecting/moving the mouse around.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>On gnome I can disable that functionality easily My problem with Gnome (on Ubuntu 22.04 at least) is I can't set it to disable the touchpad if an external mouse is plunged in. WHY?! There seem to be some Gnome extensions for that but they never worked for me most likely since I'm on Wayland. Such a basic setting should be available by default, or at least through a cfg file. I guess such a setting is not necessary because my workflow is different than the ones the Gnome devs want me to have. I must be holding it wrong. /s
- capableweb 4y ago
  You mean `gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events disabled-on-external-mouse` doesn't work for you? Seems like it's just missing Wayland support if so, file a issue if you haven't already. You might not want to complain about customizability in gnome if you have ever used Windows before, they are on two whole different levels. That `gsettings` even is available is a godsend compared to Windows and macOS.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >You might not want to complain about customizability in gnome if you have ever used Windows before Funny that you mention this, but as a long time Windows and Linux user, I find Windows far more configurable (for what I need) out of the box than what vanilla Gnome offers, especially via what the GUI offers in the settings menu. I'm more of an KDE/XFCE man myself due to the available configuration options out of the box and no need for hacky extensions. And if more configurations are needed on Windows, there's always a free easy to use GUI app (like the one featured in this topic) that can be downloaded and it's nearly guaranteed to work despite its age, because unlike Gnome/Linux, Microsoft don't change the APIs/ABIs every six months and break existing apps/extensions. And that's without going into the "this works on X11 but not on Wayland" rabbithole. So you see my good sir, having experienced both sides, I will complain as I see fit about the things that annoy me. But thank you for your suggestion, I'll give it a try.

berjin 4y ago

Is this really a problem for windows users? My macbook has a massive touch pad and I don't recall my palm ever triggering it once.

siva7 4y ago
Yes since macbook touchpads are by a wide margin the best on the market. That's not really news. This happened with my Dell laptops all the time
lucumo 4y ago
Happens to me once in a while on the Macbook. It doesn't happen as often as it used to with Linux laptops a decade ago, but it still happens every few weeks. I'm still not sure if I prefer large touchpads or smaller ones because of this. You run out of space more easily with a smaller one, but there's fewer accidents. (And more places to rest your thumbs.)
- euroderf 4y ago
  > Happens to me once in a while on the Macbook. Same here. Aggravating. Even if the Mac just made a tiny noise when it thinks this might have happened, it would be a great help.
bdcravens 4y ago
Occasionally I've seen it move the cursor, but overall, it's a great experience. I remember years ago I used to always disable the touchpad on my laptops, but I've been all Apple since around 2012 so hadn't thought about that until I saw this article.
agilob 4y ago
Touchpad is also automatically disabled when typing on Linux, Gnome and Plasma do that since like ever.

techbutter 4y ago

I use a macbook and never had this issue.

bedobi 4y ago
I've used about four five different macbooks and some of them def had this issue. The worst ones were the first jumbopad ones, they would constantly pick up my palms or sides of my hands. It quickly ruins your day when you're coding. I tried all recommended tweaks to settings, nothing worked. My current one, a 2023 14 inch pro, does have a jumbopad but they must have done something because I'm not experiencing it on this one.

reportgunner 4y ago

I just disable the touchpad altogether, it's not a good way to use my laptop.

nathias 4y ago
what are you using instead?
- agilob 4y ago
  a mouse?
- nitroll 4y ago
  The trackpoint on Thinkpads is fantastic once you get used to it.
- tanseydavid 4y ago
  Wireless trackball.
- reportgunner 4y ago
  Keyboard shortcuts and ThinkPad trackpoint (all my laptops are ThinkPads and my work HP laptop also has a decent trackpoint)

geuis 4y ago

I heavily miss the smaller trackpads like on the 2015 era MacBook Pros. I have large hands and on the new supersized trackpads, the fleshy party of my hands under the thumbs constantly trigger random mouse movements when I'm typing.

Aardwolf 4y ago

This seems to have always been a setting that existed for a long time in Linux desktops (or at least cinnamon), I've had this enabled before, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not when you want to use mousepad and keyboard at same time for some game (but then plugging in a USB mouse is better anyway)