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I use CAD software and a really common action is to zoom out (two finger scroll) followed by a click and drag to pan around the document.

On the new MBR pro with force touch trackpad I'm finding that if I do those operations in quick succession the click isn't recognised at all. Instead if have to do a deliberate finishing of the zoom before starting the click. As you can imagine, that's pretty frustrating when you do it all day.

I recently had my macbook stolen and was forced to upgrade from an old 2008 macbook to a new MBR pro. So I've gone from OS 10.6 to 10.10 and from the older trackpad to the new force touch one. This means I'm not sure if it's a change in the OS that I'm trying to track down or something to do with the new force touch trackpad.

I installed BetterTouchTool to see if there was anything in there that looked like it would help. It had a "live view" so I could see what the trackpad was seeing and the movements (and clicking) are all being "seen" by the software. It's just that the driver won't acknowledge the click until the scroll is done.

Any ideas of what I can do to tweak this behaviour?

Edit - try the following:

  • scroll down using two fingers on this page
  • lift one finger and apply pressure with the other to do a click
  • drag up to the top right as you're doing it to simulate a click and drag

alternatively:

  • scroll down using two fingers on this page
  • use your thumb to click and index finger to drag up to the top right

You'll see that it takes almost a second to recognise that you're trying to click. The only way to be sure of getting the click is to end the scroll before rolling into the click.

This was not a problem on the older trackpads because they had a physical button, so they knew when you had transitioned to the click. Now that it's the force system it's not distinguishing between them so well - evidently it has a delay in it before it acknowledges that you're definitely trying to click.

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  • Are you asking how to disable the force click ?
    – Ruskes
    Jun 24, 2015 at 9:30
  • No. I've added more detail in the question.
    – Aidan Kane
    Jun 24, 2015 at 11:14
  • It's still rather unclear what you're asking. It seems the same desired action can be accomplished by zooming with a two finger spread, then using two fingers to pan around the document or image. These are the gestures by default, and there is no lag.
    – Rampant
    Jun 29, 2015 at 19:14
  • In my software (web app) the scrolling action does the zoom, click and drag does the pan. The webpage demonstration was to show the gestures I want, a scroll gesture followed by a click/drag. In the Cad software it manifests as a zoom and a pan, on the web browser it's a scroll and a click/highlight. My problem is that the new force touch system takes a long time to register the click. It's a slightly confusing thing to explain.
    – Aidan Kane
    Jun 29, 2015 at 23:52
  • I've just spent 45 minutes on the phone with Apple support. They understand the issue and actually came up with a better example. The problem exists on google maps too. Try to zoom out and quickly drag the map around. They're looking into it
    – Aidan Kane
    Jun 30, 2015 at 15:50

2 Answers 2

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In Preferences/Accessibility/Trackpad there are additional (pre force touch) trackpad options such as 3 finger drag. I don't use CAD so cannot say if the exact scenario can be addressed, but it is worth a look.

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  • 3 finger drag is an interesting idea (I found it under Accessibility -> Trackpad for anyone with the force touch system). Unfortunately it doesn't really work either. It means you lose 3 finger swipe between pages. More problematic, it locks into which ever mode you're in, so if you start scrolling (2 finger) you need to lift your hand off and put it back on to get to the drag mode (3 finger).
    – Aidan Kane
    Jun 30, 2015 at 14:38
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Use a two finger to pinch to zoom in and out, use two fingers to pan around the image or webpage.

This is the default setting in System Preferences > Trackpad > Scroll & Zoom. There is no lag.

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  • I've tried the pinch zoom but unfortunately it's too slow and clumsy. The two fingers don't scroll around in my case. It's a click and drag action that moves the document around.
    – Aidan Kane
    Jun 30, 2015 at 14:27

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