Two Finger Scrolling on Many Laptops...

[LEDAdd1ct]

What's in a name? For some, it means brand loyalty; for others, it means quality, and for others, it means a way to distinguish oneself. When it comes to computer components, however, inside those devices is a chip, or what is called a chipset. For example, inside a wireless device there is a wireless chipset, which is the brains of the radio. Those of you familiar with Linux know that what counts is not the brand name on the package, but the chipset inside which makes it tick.



Many laptops/netbooks/notebooks these days feature trackpads/touchpads, nifty little devices that function in place of a mouse. Mac enthusiasts enjoy cool features in their UI, such as two finger scrolling and two finger right click. These are called gestures, since they communicate a piece of information to the OS by a gesture. But what about the rest of us? Are we left out from these innovative features?



I used to think so.



As it turns out, Synaptics, the maker of many (but not all) trackpads on laptops released updated drivers which support two finger scrolling! Those of you on Windows 7 may already be enjoying this, but what about those of us still happy to use Windows XP? Thanks to the updated Synaptics driver and a tiny little program, many folks here at CPF can now enjoy these features. There are three main steps.



1) Many people running Windows will have generic mouse/trackpad drivers installed. Unfortunately, these gestures are only supported under the official Synaptics driver. To find out if you have a Synaptics trackpad, open Device Manager and look under Mice. If it says Synaptics in there, cool! If not, you will need to find out if you have a trackpad made by Synaptics/with a Synaptics chipset. If you are running the generic Windows driver, go to Properties and then Details. Click on Hardware IDs and google your hardware ID. For example, the hardware ID on the laptop I am using for my trackpad is SYN0903. I discovered this even while running the generic trackpad/mouse driver. If the name starts with SYN or something similar, you are set.



2) Now, download the latest Synaptics trackpad driver. Go here.

After downloading and installing the driver, reboot.



3) At last, visit the page with the utility. The utility is what takes the two finger scrolling now enabled in the driver itself, and makes it functional for the end user. Go to this page here. Download and unzip the file, and put it somewhere safe. Run the program. Examine the Scrolling and Tapping tabs. Configure it as you like. For example, I instructed the program to make two finger clicking equivalent to a right click.



I am using an older laptop right now to write this thread, and the driver installed without issue and the utility works fantastically. I can now scroll with two fingers and right click by tapping with those same two fingers.





Two notes:





1) I don't know who the author of this program is, but I am certain he or she would appreciate a few bucks. If you'd like to donate, I am sure they would be grateful!





2) You can also discover who makes your trackpad through lspci in Linux, or, by using a program like Everest to enumerate the PCI devices attached to your machine.



I hope some Windows folks are able to take advantage of this awesome feature. Credit goes to Synaptics for the updated driver, the person who posted the utility on the code.google website, as well as this site here, which features a fantastic tutorial and screenshots of the utility.



If this works for you, post and let me know. If this doesn't work or you need help determining the manufacturer of your pointing device, post and I will try and help you. Remember it only works on Synaptics devices, though that covers many machines.



Enjoy!

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

Eugene:

Synaptics has had the two finger scrolling since the late 90's, Apls got it in the early 2000's.

BTW its a touchpad,not a trackpad unless its an IBM, IBM called their touchpads trackpads to go with their trackstick, so it's only a trackpad if its on an IBM, touchpad is the general name.


fizzwinkus:

synaptics hacked their capacitive sensors to guess that a single large presence on the sensor was actually two fingers.

apple initially had used synaptics sensors, but then built their own sensor capable of seeing many points of presence/size/intensity at once, and called it multitouch. multitouch is what drives the iphone and apple trackpads and is much more sensitive/capable of detecting false movement than synaptics.

other companies are now building competitors to apple's multitouch, but i haven't heard of synaptics doing so yet.

for the history of multitouch, look up fingerworks (acquired by apple ~2005). they were an early 2000s company that built multitouch trackpads/keyboards, kind of like what you might see on star trek. i still have one.

it's called a trackpad here as well: http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/

i also remember installing 3rd party drivers on apple notebooks to enable scrolling and corner clicks in the 90s.


LEDAdd1ct:

Guys, thanks for the informative posts and history lesson! I was wondering how they could implement this feature (detect more than one finger) simply through a driver update without changing the hardware. Detecting a "large finger" seems a nifty way of doing it, even if it isn't as accurate.

Very cool!


fizzwinkus:

:thumbsup:

you've got me strolling down memory lane...
http://www.amazon.com/Fingerworks-TO.../dp/B0001597YO

here's a late model fingerworks keyboard/mouse: http://lowendmac.com/bookrev/04/0130.html#4
in it, you would replace the mechanical keyboard and essentially ignore the trackpad. the touchstream was basically a giant iphone keyboard without the screen.


Gaffle:

Co-worker brought her HP laptop in the shop the other day so I could check out some anti-virus issues. I think this was a 17inch laptop. Pretty big. Now the computer I use is a 13inch Macbook Pro. The touchpad on my laptop is HUGE, and excellent. The touchpad on the HP, which has tons of real estate , is half the size of the Mac. That was difficult to use. So different compared to what I use. Having the 2 finger scrolling factor makes it easier, but I wish the pad were a big larger. I mean come on, there is plenty of space for it!

donn:

I'm waiting for UPS to drop off a new Acer sub-notebook today, and it has an Alps touchpad which supports gestures.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember having another machine with an Alps touchpad, and it supposedly did taps and gestures. Gestures never worked, but taps were great.

We'll see how this new one works.

fizzwinkus:

one of the reasons synaptics makes small trackpads is that they can not factor out accidental touch. once you go larger than a certain size, your palm starts to creep into the trackpad area and screwup their sensors.

the macbook pro is larger because apple has coded it to recognize and ignore palm presses (another benefit of fingerworks)

​

 

[DM51]

I'm glad you bumped this, Bryan - I hadn't seen it before and it is interesting.

Can you use a trackpad to do some of the features you get on an iPhone or IPad, such as pinch-zooming, moving the page around etc?

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

Good morning, David! I'm glad you like the thread. If I were the only one to post, I probably wouldn't have added the information from before the crash, but when other people help and donate their expertise, I feel terrible at letting that die.

Yes, many modern trackpads can do those things. There are really only two parts here, the actual, physical hardware, and the driver portion. The origin of this thread was on how to use updated drivers on older trackpads. However, many newer trackpads have what is called multitouch, which allows them to perform complicated functions such as sensing pinch to zoom, rotate, scroll, etc. There are better and worser implementations of this, but Synaptics is known for making good componentry on the hardware side.

When I look for a good trackpad in a laptop, I look at how sensitive it is, who makes the chipset, how much area it takes up, how tall and how wide it is, and what additional functions it has. Poorly implemented drivers can make a touchpad physically capable via its hardware of advanced functions like two-finger scrolling and pinch to zoom operate very, very poorly in those departments, or, even worse, cause ordinary mousing operation to suffer.

Many Lenovo Ideapads were guilty of this.