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Portables (Apple) Businesses Apple Hardware

Two-Finger Scrolling For Older Mac Laptops 86

Posted by Zonk from the let-your-two-fingers-do-the-walking dept.
Michael Stroeck writes "Want that nifty scrolling on your portable but have an older one? No problem, Daniel Becker has written a free alternative driver for older PowerBooks and iBooks that works like a charm. It is based on Apple's AppleADBMouse-209.0.10 driver from Mac OS 10.3.7 that is available as part of the publicly released Darwin source code. As such, the driver is covered by the APSL (Apple Public Source License)."
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Two-Finger Scrolling For Older Mac Laptops More

Two-Finger Scrolling For Older Mac Laptops

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  • What about two-finger clicking first?
    • What about two-finger clicking first?

      Is there a reason that you would prefer this over one finger clicking? You can turn one finger clicking on in the Preferences panel under mouse and keyboard. There is even an option to ignore "accidental" clicks, in case that is why you want two-finger clicking.

      Though, it would be nice to have two-finger clicks indicate a CTL-Click, so now that I think about it, that could be a nice feature. Good idea!

    • RTFA: "In addition to scrolling, the driver also turns left clicks into right clicks whenever two fingers are on the trackpad. This works with the trackpad button as well as with click-and-drag movement."

  • Insensitive clod (Score:5, Funny)

    by musselm ( 209468 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @01:45PM (#11644569)
    I only have one finger, you insensitive clod.
  • How does this work? I was assuming that the new powerbooks have a different touch pad that can sense when two fingers are pressed on it at a time. I always thought trackpads could only sense one point of contact.

    I will have to give it a run.

    • Re:Umm (Score:5, Informative)

      by Durin_Deathless ( 668544 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @01:58PM (#11644763) Homepage
      For those that didn't RTFA, it's any machine with one of the new 'W Enhanced' touchpads. As far as I can tell from personal experience, all iBook G4s have it, and a variety of AlBooks as well. My friend's AlBook that is a bit over 18 months old doesn't have it, but I suspect his younger sister's does, as her PB is younger than my iBook, which does. It works like a champ. It replaced SideTrack for me. I'd recommend the one that is XY only, as the rotational thing doesn't seem all that useful and just made the XY scrolling jumpy.

  • It works (Score:3, Informative)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @01:51PM (#11644655) Journal
    Works great on my 12" 1GHz PB. I think this is going to be a keeper.

  • I already scroll with two fingers. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One finger: Alt
    The other finger: Down-arrow

    Who needs extra software?

  • SideTrack (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nottsp1 ( 854247 )
    This is excellent news. In contrast to the current news posted on the SideTrack [ragingmenace.com] website, it is indeed possible to retrofit this technology to older trackpads. I still admire SideTrack's use of hot corners though.

    I wonder, has anyone used this function in conjunction with the new drivers?

  • Warning! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JQuick ( 411434 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:10PM (#11644922)
    It can crash some systems hard.

    I have an aluminum powerbook which according to the web site is supported. I am running Macos X 10.3.8.

    I followed the instructions for installing the XY based driver temporarily. Immediately upon loading the new driver the system dims the screen and instructs the user to do a hard power down and restart the machine.

    I will investigate further. For now, be very careful, and those for whom it does work should post explicit information on their software+hardware configuration so as not to mislead others.

    • Precompiled driver appears to not work with 10.3.8 (Score:5, Informative)

      by JQuick ( 411434 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:36PM (#11645221)
      I ran a few tests.

      1. I configured the source to build for only XY support.
      2. I ensured that my newly built driver and the preconfigured driver each had appropriate permissions. (root:wheel).
      3. I wrote a script which unloaded the system version of the driver and loaded either the prebuilt or the newly compiled driver based on an argument.

      results:
      Each time, the prebuilt dirver would panic the host and require a hard reboot. Note that this was immediate, and did not require me to touch the trackpad to trigger the failure.

      Conclusion, since 10.3.8 was so recently released the developer probably did not know to rebuild the pre-compiled distributions.
      If you have already installed it, and are running 10.3.7, you may be at risk when upgrade to 10.3.8. Either upgrade from source now, or revert to the stock driver and wait for new binary packages.

      The freshly built driver appears to work as advertised.

      Test system:
      1 GHz Aluminum 17" powerbook with 1GB memory.
      OS, stock 10.3.8 with no third party drivers installed.
      • Another bit of information. Just in case the version of the development tools is a contributing factor, the software I am using is 10.3.8 and Xcode 1.5

        I have already submitted test results and other followup information to the author of the driver.

        Public thanks are deserved by the author. He did a nice job. I enjoy the functionality and appreciate his effort.

      • Re:Precompiled driver appears to not work with 10. (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Did you touch the touchpad? I noticed it will crash if I bump it during the unloading of the old ktext and loading of the new one.

        Also it works but but my fingers must be funny. Since I have to spread my fingers a bit to get it to work. Very unnatural feel.

    • Re:Warning! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Lars T. ( 470328 )
      The site says most AlBooks are supported. Did you check
      ioreg -l | grep "W Enhanced Trackpad"
      • My first post was deliberately short, in order to prevent others from suffering a similar fate.

        In it I stated that I had followed instructions and that the web site claimed my system was supported. So, yes, this means that I ran ioreg to verify before proceeding.
    • I wonder what the difference is? Obviously you aren't the only one to have this problem, since he warns about it on the page.

      The odd thing is, I have one of the very first 15" AlBooks and the driver works fine for me. Is your machine the same generation than mine or newer?

  • Mirror (Score:3, Informative)

    by KAMiKAZOW ( 455500 ) <kamikazow@hotmail.com> on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:11PM (#11644931)
    Yesterday the page was down. I don't know, if it was because of slashdotting or due other reasons, but just to be safe a mirror of the source code:
    Download [rapidshare.de]

    And here's TFA:

    Two-Finger-Scrolling with pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks
    What's this all about?

    This is a hack to activate two-finger scrolling on supported pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks (i.e. those with a "W-Enhanced" trackpad, including most AlBooks and recent iBooks) on OS X 10.3 (tested on 10.3.7 and 10.3.8).

    It is based on Apple's AppleADBMouse-209.0.10 driver from 10.3.7 that is available as part of the publicly released Darwin source code. As such, the driver is covered by the APSL.

    Modified by Daniel Becker, Feb. 2005.
    How do I scroll, then?

    To enable scrolling mode, just place two fingers on your trackpad instead of one. Both fingers need to be placed next to each other horizontally (not vertically). Some people get better results with their finger spaced a little bit apart, while others prefer having the fingers right next to each other.

    The hack enables three scrolling modes: Vertical, horizontal and circular.

    For vertical and horizontal scrolling, move the two fingers up/down or left/right in a straight line, respectively, top scroll in that direction.

    Circular scrolling works similar to the iPod's scroll wheel: Move the two fingers in a circle to scroll up or down, depending on whether you move in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.
    Scrolling seems to be a little jumpy sometimes, what's up with that?

    This usually happens when the driver mixes up X/Y and rotational scrolling. Enabling just one of the two at a time should help.

    Also, several people suggested they get better results if they disable "Use smooth scrolling" under "Appearance" in System Preferences.
    Can my trackpad do this?

    To check if your trackpad can support two-finger scrolling, use the following command:
    ioreg -l | grep "W Enhanced Trackpad"

    If this prints out a line containing "W Enhanced Trackpad" = 1 on the right, your trackpad is "W-Enhanced" (and can thus be used for two-finger scrolling); if it doesn't print out anything at all, it's not.

    Please note that this check will not work if you have SideTrack installed. SideTrack loads its own mouse driver, which doesn't publish the "W Enhanced" property.
    So where's the download?

    AppleADBMouse.zip (source, ~73k)

    AppleADBMouse.kext.SCROLL_ALL.zip (binary, all scroll modes enabled, ~68k)

    AppleADBMouse.kext.SCROLL_XY.zip (binary, only X/Y scrolling, ~67k)

    AppleADBMouse.kext.SCROLL_ROT.zip (binary, only circular scrolling, ~68k)
    OK, so how do I install this driver thing?

    To install from source, open the project file in Xcode and build it, then open the terminal, go to the "build" directory inside the project folder and do this:
    sudo chown -R root:wheel ./AppleADBMouse.kext
    sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleADBMouse.kext && sudo kextload ./AppleADBMouse.kext

    And that should be it. The driver stays loaded either until you manually unload it (just reverse the paths to the .kexts in above procedure), or until the next system restart occurs.

    If you have SideTrack installed, you'll need to specify its .kext in place of /System/Library/Extensions/AppleADBMouse.kext.

    WARNING: In case the driver should for any reason fail to load, do not touch the trackpad before you have reloaded the original driver or your machine will crash! It's OK to use the keyboard, though.

    If you prefer to just install one of the precompiled binaries, just unzip the downloaded archive, open a Terminal, go to the directory you just unzipped to and use the same commands given above.

    In case you'd like to install the modified driver permanently, the e

  • Mini Review (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:20PM (#11645031) Homepage
    I just bought a new 15" PB (got it 3 days ago, read about my adventures in my .sig). Let me give you a little review of two-finger scrolling.

    I came from a Windows laptop that you could scroll using the touchpad. You'd either have your finger on the right edge of the pad (for verticle) or on the bottom edge (for horizontal). That was a VERY nifty feature that I loved and used all the time.

    So then I got the Mac. Before Apple announced that feature I was planning to use SideTrack so I could get the scrolling, but when Apple announced it I decided to give their way a try. Here is my review: IT ROCKS!

    It is SO easy to do and works flawlessly. You don't need to know where your finger is on the pad. It doesn't matter how far apart the two fingers are, it works great. I've found myself using my index and ring fingers for it (just seems comfortable). It scrolls so easily and naturally it took absolutly no time to get used it. It's a fantastic feature.

    My only complaint: on my Windows laptop I could drag to scroll and then lift my finger and it would keep scrolling. I would like that functionality too, but it's no big deal.

    So in short, if you've got an Apple laptop I suggest you try this if it does work (I haven't tested it, but I have no doubts as this is a hardware feature not a software feature, I think), I bet you'll love it.

    • Hey, I'm thinking of getting that same model, and I've heard that there were some issues with the trackpad. Have you encountered any? All I know for sure is that I was trying it at the Mac store, and I found that the vertical mouse movement in general was verrry pokey, even on the highest settings. You couldn't easily get from the top to the bottom of the screen in one movement, which is quite simple with my Latitude. I was just wondering how it was working out for you. Maybe I just wasn't using it rig
      • Ooo! I was just reading some stuff on pbzone and a reader was saying that changing things in the "Universal Access" settings (choose mouse, then change initial delay and/ or maximum speed settings). Could you verify if that works for making the trackpad cover more area in one swoop? I can't wait to give this a shot at the Mac store, too, because the short movement of the pointer really discouraged me (and made my wrist sore). Thanks!

  • another trick (Score:5, Informative)

    by peteforsyth ( 730130 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @02:23PM (#11645076) Homepage Journal
    Here's a useful trick that works on every trackpad I've tried, Apple or Windows:

    For getting the cursor all the way to the other side of the screen (say, from right to left, for a right-handed person): put your middle finger on the right side of the trackpad; then put your index finger on the left side; then remove the middle finger.

    Because the track pad only recognizes one point of contact, it interprets this as your finger moving "really fast," and moves the cursor all the way to the other side.
    • That trick will no longer work under this driver, since multiple points of contact are significant and are interpreted in a different way.
    • Interesting trick, but after hours of trackpad pat (ok, a few minutes ;-), I can't sucessfully do it on the first gen iBook G4. No matter the timing between fingers.

      Too bad :-)

    • FYI: If your laptop will work with this extension, it will NOT work with the parent's trick.

    • put your middle finger on the right side of the trackpad; then put your index finger on the left side; then remove the middle finger

      This trick is considered accidental trackpad input by OS X. As such, it will be ignored by default (this behaviour can be changed by unchecking "Ignore accidental trackpad input" in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane.

      • In my experience you are not right about this. I have 'ignore accidental trackpad input' checked and the tip still works.

        I still find dragging my finger more convenient.. but I also crank up the mouse velocity settings...

  • I'm using this on an Al PowerBook 17" 1.5Ghz. I agree with many others assessments, the XY only is the way to go (gets a little jumpy with the rotation). It works wonderfully.
  • It works just as it says on an iBook G4 purchased two weeks ago.

    It is very nice, thanks Daniel!
  • I've been using this for a couple days, and I love it. I had tried Sidetrack previously, but found it was much too easy to accidentally trigger, and simultaneously too hard to reliably trigger when wanted. This solves both of those problems. The only thing I would say is that the rotational mode doesn't really work well at all, so just use the XY mode. For those that are interested, I'm using the hack on a 12" 1.33 GHz Powerbook purchased in Nov. 2004. I'm running Mac OS 10.3.8, but installed the hack
    • Please state if you installed this from the source distribution or the binary distribution. The binary XY driver forced a panic on my system, as I reported in an earlier post.
  • I'm about to buy my first Apple portable (looking around for a lightly used 14" G4 iBook), and am wondering why nobody has brought a replacement two (or more!) button trackpad to market. I mean, it isn't like there's not a huge installed base of machines that would use an identical part. I figure the latest incarnation of the iBook (what do you call the non-clamshell version?) is the single most common laptop in the world at this point. I've not yet torn apart an iBook myself, is the trackbad something that
    • ...(what do you call the non-clamshell version?)

      Usually referred to as 'dual USB'. For a complete reference on Apple's crazy naming conventions, you can't go wrong with Apple History [apple-history.com]

      • Ahh, thanks. Didn't know that was such a general name, thought it only referred to that year's models.
      • A more general name for non-clamshell iBooks (at the moment) is iBook G4. All of the clamshell iBooks were G3.
        • This is a confusing naming convention because while all clamshells were G3s, not all G3s were clamshells.

          The 'icebook' or white iBook naming conventions are generic enough to not exclude any models but also get the form factor across.
        • Sorry, forget I said that. I got that one incredibly wrong. Although all of the clamshell iBooks were G3s, not all G3s were clamshell. In fact, nowhere near: there was a gap of almost three years between the release of the white iBook and the conversion to G4.

          It's been a long day.
    • I figure the latest incarnation of the iBook (what do you call the non-clamshell version?) is the single most common laptop in the world
      More popular than the ThinkPad? Doubtful. More popular than the Dell Latitude? Also doubtful. I have a G4 iBook at home myself, but when I'm out on the road I don't see anybody with iBooks (or PowerBooks, for that matter); they're all either ThinkPads or Dells.
      • But don't the ThinkPad and Latitude lines comprise many physical housings for which replacement trackpads would vary? We've only got one ThinkPad here, but a bunch of Dell laptops of varying vintage, and they seem like they're all fairly different, which was how I meant my claim.

        I may be a gibbering Mac fanatic, but even *I* don't think that Apple sells more laptops than IBM or Dell.
      • I would guess that any given model of the iBook (for example the iBook 14" 1.25GHz I'm using) sold more units than any given model of ThinkPad or Latitude at the time (for example, a Latitude 100L)

        The difference being that Dell sell about 17 different models of laptop, whereas Apple sell two iBook models and three models of PowerBook. I would also imagine that there's a dominant iBook model (14"?) and a dominant PowerBook model (15"?)

        So, although Dell or IBM might sell more laptops overall, I bet there's
    • The last Apple laptop mousing device that *might* have been practical to sell as a user-replaceable aftermarket "upgrade" part was...uhm...maybe the TiBook's trackpad, which was less than impossible to get to.

      That's it. There's no friggin' WAY anyone but an expert could successfully replace the trackpad button on virtually any other Mac laptop.

      I wouldn't be too surprised if a company like MCE has already investigated the possibility of doing this and decided it just wasn't economically viable. There are a
    • Yes, I know it's poor form to bitch about moderation. So? How the hell is that a troll post? All I can figure is that some Mac zealot thought I was uttering the one-button-blasphemy. I obviously failed to make my credentials clear before uttering such a thing. Counting my box and the ones I'm working on for some friends, I've got two G4 towers, a first generation iMac and a dual processor S-900 all within farting distance (not counting the pair of Centris 650s that I stripped for parts the other day). I've
  • 14' 1 GHZ iBook, spanning display... I love firmware hacks!

  • firefox (Score:4, Informative)

    by pinpoint23 ( 323490 ) on Friday February 11, 2005 @07:37PM (#11648479) Homepage
    firefox, by default, interprets horizontal scrolling as the forward/back buttons. this is very annoying with two-finger scroll, as it will jump pages without warning. after trial and error i figured out how to disable this:

    in firefox go to about:config (type it in address field)
    change mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.action to 0
    change mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.numlines to 1
    • Thank you - you have resolved my only complaint about this hack. Now it works like a charm....
    • interestingly, I was able to use this two finger scrolling driver in firefox with no modifications. Has anyone else experience this, or know why it works for some and not others?
  • I use uControl [gnufoo.org] for my track pad scrolling needs, and it works like a charm, just with a nice gui-ed preference pane, and it's very stable.

    Oh, it will also allow you to remap your keyboard, among other features [gnufoo.org].

  • works (Score:1)

    by Loie ( 603717 )
    the XY driver works fine on my 15" al pb 1.25 from early 2004. I didn't try the circular one.
  • works on my 1.07GHz iBook 12". Just shy of a year old.

    Excellent.
  • has anyone else noticed that the drive actually allows two or more fingers to scroll? e.g. I can have three or four fingers on the trackpad and scroll just fine... It actually feels a little more natural to me to use three fingers... kind of like grabbing the whole pad with your hand vs. pointing with a finger.

    The only downside I've noticed is that it doesn't seem to be as sensitive as SideTrack to small movements... You have to make a fairly big move to get it to respond.

    Pat

  • I'm new to Macs. How can I get this code to run on startup? It seems to work perfectly, I would just prefer not to load it everytime I boot. Help appreciated!
    • I've not tried this... but, make a shell script to unload the original extension and load the new extension, then put it in your startup items.

      I'm not sure if shell scripts can be placed in your startup items. If not, get XCode 1.5 and make an AppleScript application to call the shell script that does the work. Put the AppleScript Application in your startup items.

      From what I've read, also be careful of touching the pad while this activity is happening, or you could panic the kernel.

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