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I assume some gestures are simply not possible. Like click-to-drag and scroll simultaneously. Not every app handles gutter-hover-to-scroll in a usable way. On a mouse or a pad with buttons, you can keep the left click held down and scroll with the wheel or gesture. Uni-pads make this impossible.

panzerboiler
You assume it wrong. You can click-to-drag and scroll simultaneously without issues on an Apple trackpad.
jayd16 OP
"Without issues" is a stretch. You need to use two hands or be skilled with one. Its trivial on a mouse or a pad with a discrete buttons.

But ok, what about just dragging a long distance where you would normally lift the mouse or finger? Is there some hidden gesture for this? Maybe once your initial drag finger hits the edge you need to use two more to do a move gesture? But I've seen that trigger scroll and/or pinch-to-zoom.

samtheDamned
This reminded me of a feature in windows where if you were dragging something and reached the end of the touchpad, the cursor would continue on the same trajectory as long as you kept your finger at the edge of the touchpad. Then you could overshoot a little so you could bring your fingers back to the middle to regain maneuverability. I haven't missed it since I switched to linux but now that I'm thinking about it that was a very nice touch (no pun intended).
swiftcoder
> what about just dragging a long distance where you would normally lift the mouse or finger?

This is why you set Trackpad speed to "fastest", and take advantage of the aggressive trackpad acceleration. When you move your finger quickly you'll easily reach the far side of the screen before your finger reaches the edge of the pad, and slow finger movements will still be precise

apetrovic
I'm probably missing some context, but on my Mac I'm using three fingers drag and I can lift fingers and (quickly) reposition them without breaking the drag.
nagisa
I have the external apple trackpad (the most recent usb-c version at that) and this click-to-drag and then attempting to scroll does not work on Linux. Seems like this might have been a particular attention to detail on part of macOS devs.

As far as I know touchpad implementations just report finger locations and its up to software to interpret what a combination of these gestures means.

How does that work? You've got to tap the touchpad to trigger the initial click, don't you? For some reason, I really HATE tapping a touchpad (let that be an Apple or otherwise), it breaks my flow, I suppose? (like, you have to pause at the cursor's location, lift, tap twice to initiate a dragging event, then finally move on) whereas on the ThinkPad I daily drive I do all the cursor movement/scrolling with my right hand and the selection/clicking with my left thumb on the physical key that sits on the top of the touchpad sensitive area. That makes click&drag workflows super efficient, I find.
panzerboiler
You click and drag with one finger and you are free to scroll with two other fingers during the drag. It is a multitouch gesture. (I don't use "tap to click" since I always found it cumbersome)
Just for me to understand, you navigate to that thing you want to drag, then press harder (without the double-tap+move in short sequence, do there's that), and that registers a drag event?

Could you do the "press harder" part with, e.g. a thumb in an other region of the touchpad instead of the finger that did the navigation?

panzerboiler
Yes, you can. As long as one finger is "pressing hard-ish" a second finger can command the drag position, but if the finger that is pressing (you do not need to press very hard to trigger a click) is not the one that is also moving, then you will have issues when also scrolling with two other fingers, because at that point you have 4 fingers touching the trackpad, and by default you get anoter gesture registered (probably a zoom out to see all the windows in the workspace, called "expose"). If the fingers touching the trackpad are "only" three, you can drag and scroll, with the window that receives the scroll being the one under the pointer/item being dragged.
Thanks for clarifying, it seems analogous to having a physical mouse button, then (except that the haptic feedback is simulated, which strangely isn't off-putting to most, I've personally always felt the sensation uncanny)

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