Who Uses a Mouse with their Laptop?

[buzzingrobot]

I managed yesterday to get 13.04 working on my MacBook Pro 8,2. Ubuntu's touchpad gestures are good, but no match for the ease and capability of the OS X gestures. So, at least for the time being, and while the thing is sitting on my desk, I'm using an ordinary USB mouse.

Just curious how many folks plug mice into their laptops?

[SantaFe]

I don't! I use a trackball instead! :D

Weird it seems it's getting harder & harder to find them in stores anymore. Mice everywhere, but usually only ONE basic model trackball. :mad:

[buzzingrobot]

I have a Logitech trackball over on the shelf. Might give it a try.

Do they still make those little trackballs that attach to the side of a laptop?

[odiseo77]

Not sure if I have clumsy fingers, but touchpads always seem to click when I'm not attempting to click, don't move the cursor where I want to move it and I find them annoying and uncomfortable, so I always use a mouse when I'm using a laptop... Unless I have no space for a mouse, then I'm forced to use the touchpad.

[ssam]

I use a mouse with my laptop when i'm at my desk. I find doing any graphics work very hard with a trackpad or touchpoint. When I don't have the mouse I use the touchpoint (thinkpad :-) ) or keyboard shortcuts.


Not sure if I have clumsy fingers, but touchpads always seem to click when I'm not attempting to click, don't move the cursor where I want to move it and I find them annoying and uncomfortable, so I always use a mouse when I'm using a laptop... Unless I have no space for a mouse, then I'm forced to use the touchpad.

you can turn off tap to click in the mouse/trackpad control panel.

[odiseo77]

you can turn off tap to click in the mouse/trackpad control panel.

Thanks, will give it a try next time I use my laptop.

[Maverick Meerkat]

I use a Logitech cordless mouse.
Nothing too fancy, but I love it!

[Hylas de Niall]

Yep, always, even on my two netbooks when i'm out and about.
I got used to using a mouse back in my Atari ST days and haven't looked back since :)

[TNFrank]

I have an optical mouse and a keyboard hooked in through my USB hub station. I also have a card reader for SD, Smart Media, compact flash and memory stick and a 100MB Zip drive all hooked into the USB hub. Basically I just hook the hub into the single USB 2.0 port on the left side of my computer and I get all that stuff hooked in all at once. That frees up the two USB ports on the right of my computer for other stuff.

[David D.]

I use a Logitech wireless mouse with scroll wheel for my laptop.

[CharlesA]

I use a Logitech wireless mouse with scroll wheel for my laptop.

I use one of those fancy unifing wireless mice+keyboard things.

Sure beats using a touchpad. and tiny keyboard. :p

[Raubhautz]

Don't leave home without it! Used to be I carried around a Serial Mouse or PS2 (as the case would be) with each laptop; now it is a wireless or the dark-field mouse. I can't stand the touch-pads and disable them immediately upon purchase; The top hats (Thinkpads) I leave on for emergencies, but rarely use them.

[3mutts]

Logitech wireless mouse here for my laptop.

[jockyburns]

A few years ago I had a laptop from the company I worked for. First thing I did was buy a usb mouse and keyboard. I much prefer the mouse and prefer a "proper" keyboard . I find the track pad on most laptops very tiresome. The keyboard on a lappy, not very responsive. Hell I wish they'd given me a desktop instead and let me work from home. :D

[malspa]

Who Uses a Mouse with their Laptop?

Me.

[montag dp]

I don't. I like to use the trackpoint thing on my Thinkpad instead. In fact, I took my mouse to work for my desktop because it's better than the one I had and I found myself never using it with the laptop.

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

i have a wireless Logitech laser mouse for mine, though i use the trackpad full time now, unless i am using my desktop

[coldraven]

I'm using an A4tech GLaser USB mouse, it will work on almost any surface including glass. (fiendishly clever these laser beams)
At the moment it's sitting on an old paperback book next to my laptop, it's much easier than using the touchpad.
Not too expensive from eBay, about £12 IIRC.

[Copper Bezel]

you can turn off tap to click in the mouse/trackpad control panel.
I really prefer touchpads, maybe because I really do like using a laptop in my lap, but my new Asus X202e has such a huge trackpad and such incredibly bad performance at turning off said trackpad when typing that I've set up Ctrl+Space to toggle the trackpad's activity. It's becoming a habit to just whack Ctrl+Space when I want to enter text and again when I'm done typing, so it doesn't actually get in my way very much. I don't use the mouse when typing (I already have the habit of Ctrl+ arrow use for navigation) so it works out for the most part.

I wouldn't want to turn off tap-to-click, especially on a nice multitouch trackpad like this one. I've always ignored the left and right click buttons, and I need my middle click, anyway. This is a clickpad, so I could just turn off the tap functionality and remember to press a little harder, but I don't want to. = , It's really nice to have that effortless tap in switching windows, or scrolling in the browser (I use touch scrolling in Chrome).

[MdMax]

I'm using a mouse with my laptop because I don't like my trackpad. I would even love to find a mouse for my smartphone because I don't like touchscreens. ;)

[mips]

I do when on my desk I have a wireless logitech mouse which travels with the laptop and I use it whenever there is a flat surface at hand.

[pfeiffep]

I use the touchpad exclusively on my laptop ... I use a mouse or tablet on my desktop for editing photos, the touchpad is certainly not the correct tool for this!

[HermanAB]

I only use a mouse because I cannot find a decent Bluetooth trackball.

[sports fan Matt]

Since i'm left handed, it just makes sense and feels right to use a mouse. I do about half and half. This post, however is via a non mouse.

[kurt18947]

I don't! I use a trackball instead! :D

Weird it seems it's getting harder & harder to find them in stores anymore. Mice everywhere, but usually only ONE basic model trackball. :mad:

Do you know about trackballworld.com? I too am a trackball user and the good ones are getting scarce. Microsoft's trackball explorer was highly regarded but didn't last and Logitech has discontinued their wireless optical trackman which are now going for $150+ on Ebay. I think Logitech discontinued the wrong model.

[cessanfrancisco]

It depends on what I'm doing. I like using a mouse for stuff like spreadsheets and desktop publishing. Otherwise I don't mind the trackpad (in all its fickle glory) as I am usually too lazy to plug in the mouse. :D

[llanitedave]

I try to use the touchpad. I try. I can only use it left handed, and it's awkward. My cursor ends up jumping all over my document and I find myself suddenly typing about three paragraphs above where I should have been.

I turn off the touchpad, and I can use the mouse with either hand, and typing is easy.

I can use the touchpad at a pinch, where space is really short, but it's only much good for browsing and reading, not for doing extensive work.

[LillyDragon]

I use a mouse with mine as well. While I've configured my touchpad to be as comfortable as possible, (No click on touch, horizontal scrolling enabled, etc.) I have to switch fingers a lot while working on art, or else that gets painful very quickly. It's why I have a USB HP-branded mouse, and it's better for games anyway. ^^ (My aim with a touchpad in OpenArena is a joke. Couldn't hit an elephant if it was standing there.)


I don't! I use a trackball instead! :D

Weird it seems it's getting harder & harder to find them in stores anymore. Mice everywhere, but usually only ONE basic model trackball. :mad:

Oh man, I wish I had a trackball instead of touchpad, those things are so cool. O : < That would be a lot less stress on my fingers, haha.

[speedwell68]

Yep, I can't abide touchpads.

[buzzingrobot]

Interesting responses to my question. Seems many folks prefer a mouse.

It's been a couple of days for me with Ubuntu on the Macbook and I'm trying out Touchegg to configure touchpad gestures. It seems quite capable. Even using the mouse now, when I'm using the keyboard I find myself automatically trying to use the pad just as if I was still in OS X.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, I'm messing with Touchégg, and I really like it. It's surprisingly versatile and consistent.

Did you do anything with two-finger scrolling and the like? I haven't been able to get synaptics to "release" those gestures so that Touchégg can pick them up. Touchégg didn't recognize three-finger events until I set TapButton3 and ClickFinger3 to 0, but the same trick doesn't work for two-finger events by itself. (I wanted to try configuring two-finger pinch for browser zoom.)

Edit: Ah, got it - just needed to disable scrolling in synaptics, too. But pinch "in" is apparently broken. I'm using rotate for zooming instead, but it's finicky (sometimes gets read when I'm scrolling.)

Edit Again: Yeah, that's gone. Way too finicky and unpredictable.

[buzzingrobot]

Just started with it. I had to run the synclient commands at the bottom of this page (https://code.google.com/p/touchegg/wiki/FAQ) before it worked reliably. Buried in this post (http://www.m0sand.com/henningms/?p=435) is an explanation of how to make those persistent. Note that the command format changes; typoes here killed the boot.

Too early to tell if I will stay with it. The laptop stays on my desk, so using a mouse is not a burden.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, mine's as mobile as I am, so mice aren't really an option.


Buried in this post (http://www.m0sand.com/henningms/?p=435) is an explanation of how to make those persistent. Note that the command format changes; typoes here killed the boot.
Oh dear, don't do that! It's much simpler now with Gnome 3 and dconf. Do this instead:


gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.input-devices hotplug-command /home/[you]/.input-devices.sh

That sets the device hotplug command, which so far as I can see, serves only the purpose running input tweak scripts. It's an empty string by default.

Now, create .input-devices.sh in your home folder, mark it executable, and keep all your input tweaks in there (synclient, but also xinput, xmodmap, etc) in normal bash syntax. It'll run every time the machine logs in or wakes from suspend. Nice, clean, and non-invasive.

I had to do this to store synclient settings even before using Touchégg (I'm new to it, too.) Mine looks like this (the last line turns a useless "Asus Key" into my Exposé key):

#!/bin/bash
synclient ClickFinger1=1
synclient TapButton1=1
synclient ClickFinger2=0
synclient TapButton2=0
synclient ClickFinger3=0
synclient TapButton3=0
synclient HorizTwoFingerScroll=0
synclient VertTwoFingerScroll=0
synclient ClickPad=0


xmodmap -e "keycode 248 = VoidSymbol"

Edit: I have to ask - are you using Unity? Having to rebuild it to let gestures pass through seemed like half the fun of using Touchégg. = ) I'm using "natural scrolling" and three-finger-drag up for Exposé because I got to like them when I worked with an Air last semester, and I ran into a theme that I liked that sort of happened to be a Mac clone, and my machine has somehow has become a knockoff Macbook.

[MadmanRB]

My parents do, trackpads are a pain to work with

[2Stoned]

sometimes

[buzzingrobot]

Yeah, mine's as mobile as I am, so mice aren't really an option.


Oh dear, don't do that! It's much simpler now with Gnome 3 and dconf. Do this instead:


gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.input-devices hotplug-command /home/[you]/.input-devices.sh....

Edit: I have to ask - are you using Unity? Having to rebuild it to let gestures pass through seemed like half the fun of using Touchégg. = ) I'm using "natural scrolling" and three-finger-drag up for Exposé because I got to like them when I worked with an Air last semester, and I ran into a theme that I liked that sort of happened to be a Mac clone, and my machine has somehow has become a knockoff Macbook.

Yes, Unity. Does this work on Unity? (Never could get xmodmap to work, so that would be good.) I like Gnome Shell, but, given the way I use a desktop, the differences between Unity and Gnome Shell don't amount to much. So... I could move to Gnome without much thought.

I rebuilt Unity for Touchegg, but have since reinstalled it from the repos and Touchegg works the same.

[Copper Bezel]

Odd. Mine updated and broke Touchégg - I restarted and found my touchpad useless (except for bringing up the dash, apparently, which it was really, really good at) and had to build the damned thing again. But yes, I'm also using Unity, and Unity uses dconf and all the normal stuff in the Gnome stack, so the hotplug command works.

(I'm actually fairly picky about desktops. I was a Shell fanboy for a while, but there's just so much crap that Unity does that Shell doesn't; I wouldn't want to switch back.)

Edit: Out of curiosity, what kinds of gestures are you using? I have Scale / Exposé as I'd mentioned and the desktop Expo view (three and four finger drags up,) and I have three finger drags left and right to switch browser tabs and down for Back. I'm not having any luck with pinch and rotate, and four-finger gestures seem more trouble than they're worth, but I'm already addicted to the browser navigation gestures.

Edit: I just realized that the gsettings command adds an extra space at the start of the path, and then it doesn't work. = , I'd always just entered the path using dconf-editor, the graphical editor for gsettings, and it works there. Weird. The path specified in the gsettings command (org.gnome.etc.) is the path you'd follow in the tree in the left-hand navigation pane in dconf editor.

Always something. Gah.

[Document]

I've always preferred using a mouse over a trackpad. It's a lot easier for me to navigate and use.

[B1TM4RX1ST]

Logitech MX518 with it

[Dr. Moreau]

I don't use a mouse at all. I plug in my Wacom tablet whenever I have to do anything artsy, I can't stand trying to draw with a mouse or touchpad. I prefer the tablet for text editing and everything else too.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I disable the touchpad on laptops and notebooks. There is something about the electricity in my body. Touchpads and touchscreens don't like me. Some days if my fingers just get close to them, I do not have to actually touch them, they think I clicked. When we had mechanical analog watches I would magnetize them if they didn't have a Titanium back.

[marcmeier]

+1 to Old Grey Wolf- I only use a touchpad if there's nothing else available.

I like a USB wireless mouse and keyboard. If unavailable, I prefer the joystick thingie that IBM/Lenovo's have.

Cheers