Do you have any tips for getting used to it? I've been using my first Thinkpad (a 5th gen X1 Carbon) and I've tried on and off to get used to it but it doesn't feel like it'll ever be better than using the trackpad.
Disable your touchpad and never take your hands off home-row. The real "ah-ha" for me was when I became proficient at using the nub while my hands were on home-row.
IMO the nub isn't more accurate or anything like that, 95% of the value is simply the position next to home-row.
Jack up the sensitivity to maximum and it works pretty well. I don't need to carry a mouse with me when I'm traveling because the nub is so much better.
To add to that, on Xfce at least it’s not enough to adapt the graphical mouse settings but one also needs to manually set (e.g.) /sys/bus/serio/devices/serio1/serio2/sensitivity to a larger value (I use 220) for a suitably fast mouse.
Same here. I found learning vim to be easier than getting used to the nib. Would love for the nib to be effective for me. I think the nib requires to much force to push around.
I'm not sure what sensitivity I have it set at but most of the time I'm only moving the tip of my finger maybe half a millimeter at the most. you shouldn't have to press it that hard but it does take a while for most poeple to get the hang of it.
Am I the only one finding the trackpad a lot more usable than that "nipple"? (And I am a trackpad hater).
Most people don't realize you can have very precise movement on the trackpad just by slightly rotating the finger while mantaining it down. Try it: get to the nearest point moving the finger normally, then adjust finely by rotating the finger tip to the wanted direction. Very easy and at least to me much more accurate than that red thing.
Yeah, trackpad is more usable. But also more of a hassle.
I do most things with the keyboard with both hands on the home row. This is great, but there are still applications and some websites where I need to use the mouse. For those things, it's great to not have to move my hands to use a mouse -- it's the reason I really like the TrackPoint.
Once your hand is there though, the trackpad is better. Though you can extend that to; once your hand is on a real mouse, the real mouse is even better. But that's even farther away. And whipping your hand back and forth between mouse and keyboard is really annoying, at least to me.
I’ve been using my thumb on MacBook trackpads without having to noticeably move my hand. In fact moving back to a desktop having to move my hand is annoying.
And there on the 2012 era smaller trackpads. Probably easier on the new ones that are twice the size.
To be completely honest, I don't use the nub. The trackpad was 5/5 on the MBP, but I feel the trackpad is 4/5 on the X1. It's plenty fine to use... I also carry a portable mouse in my laptop bag.
I've been using a trackpoint for a long while now and I was 99% certain they were superior to everything else but i had been hearing a lot of good things about the surface book trackpads and that they were at the same level as apples so I decided to switch for a while.
its been about 4 months of using nothing but a trackpad and even though its really good im fairly certain I'll be sticking with trackpoints from here on out.
one thing that's really starting to bug me lately is the accidental clicks from your palm hitting the edge of the trackpad. I don't know how people manage with those new macbooks with the oversized trackpads
Any tips on what the correct angle is? Every few month for the past 3 years I've been trying to get used to the trackpoint on my lenovo. I never stick with it longer than an hour. It's just so much slower than the trackpad. Am I doing something wrong?
The only angle I've had issue using trackpoint with is if you're very high above the laptop, like if you're standing above it. At this angle, trackpad is better.
Protip: Lenovo makes different styles of nubs that you can buy. "Soft Rim" is easiest to use IMO ( amazing grip), followed by the "Classic Dome" (great grip but rubs off easily).
Try playing with acceleration factor in your OS / DE settings.
I used to have trackpoint send the cursor across the screen pretty efficiently when pressed harder, while keeping it quite reasonably accurate when pressed gently.
The same applies to mice, but the threshold(s) for a trackpoint differ(s) from mouse's, so it pays to tweak it until you're comfortable.
I have not. To be fair, other than the X1 Carbon, I haven't tried any of the latest PC trackpads (Surface, Dell, etc.) in a while. Hopefully they have improved.
Dell's prove just as good as the carbons aside from keyboard. The dell keyboard is miniscule.
The x1 has what feels like a full sized keyboard in a lightweight package, lightweight like a macbook air but with a nice mechanical keyboard. The dell feels like a netbook that found some big boy pants. It's keyboard is atrocious/typing feels cramped.
I used thinkpads for a long while, and TrackPoint eventually came to hurt my index finger--call it RSI if you will, but whenever I use TrackPoint these days the distal joints of my index finger start aching, which is the usual reminder for me to disable it and use the trackpad instead.
No faults to speak of (~10 year macbook user here) as someone who uses an x1 c5 now. I miss using cmd-c/cmd-v & soulver (math app. on MacOS), but otherwise no drawbacks.
I had exactly the same issue when moving to Linux from macOS.
Certainly in the Gnome Terminal on Ubuntu I've been relieved to find out that C-c is still SIGINT and you can get copy using Ctrl-Shift-c. Ctrl-Shit-v to insert.
Wait no. I went from a Linux work laptop to a Mac laptop about five years ago and not having a dedicated modifier key (Mod4) for working with the window manager was a huge pain and a pretty steep un-learning curve.
On my personal laptop, the Mod4 key is just for me to use for customization.
You manage windows with your mouse and the window title bars/borders. There are universal shortcuts available also, just like Cut, Paste, Print, etc. are universal.
Of course, in an ideal world, windows would be "spatial", remembering their position and size so they always opened exactly how you left them, so managing them with your mouse would be no big deal, and even more efficient and human-centric than whatever tiling WM Linux users think is cool today. But these days not even Apple wants to commit to that. Nevertheless, the paradigm of a universal set of commands that all applications respond to is central to the Mac user experience, and the window-management shortcuts Mac OS provides are part of this. You're just so used to a difficult-to-use OS where "window manager" is a separate concept that you have difficulty understanding the simplicity of how the Mac does things.
As far as I’ve been able to tell, you have to install third party software like Better Touch Tool or Spectacles if you want keyboard shortcuts for window management other than a full screen toggle.
Almost all of the window management functions of macOS are mouse driven and hidden behind slow animations.
Personally I find the experience awkward. I don’t like taking my hands off the keyboard just to snap a window to the side of the screen or move it to another display.
Compare that to Gnome where super-left snaps to the left instantly. Super-up toggles full screen and shift-super-up moves the window to the next screen instantly. All without the slow as molasses animations.