Touchpad MacBook vs Windows

Archive User Feedback
1

Hi,

I have a MacBook, and I can use the touchpad for:

  • pinch with 2 fingers -> zoom in and out
  • move two fingers up, down, left or right -> rotate around the object
  • Shift + two fingers movements -> pan left right up down.

On Windows I know I can:

  • Ctrl + Alt + touch to zoom ( or touchpad two finger up/down)
  • Alt + left ckick touch to rotate around the object
  • Shift + Alt + touch to pan

Is there any way to configure Blender to have the same behavior on Windows ?
I need that 3 touchpad actions equal to mac!
I don’t want to use a mouse!!! lol
Thanks

2

The reason for this, is because Macs have shipped with good multi-touch trackpads for over a decade. These features, obviously, only work if you have multi-touch.

Most PC laptops didn’t support this, and had terrible trackpads too, so it wasn’t a priority to add this to Windows. That would only serve users who use Windows on the Mac laptops, which is a very small market.

If someone can try and figure out how many Windows-based laptops now ship with multi-touch trackpads, it would be useful.

Edit: After some quick web searching about large, multi-touch glass trackpads on Windows PC’s, I came up empty handed. I only found posts that claim that there exists none on PC laptops. If this is true, there’s nothing much Blender can do to make PC trackpads better.

Edit2: I find it confusing from your original post if you are referring to macOS vs Windows or Mac laptops vs PC laptops.

3

I think the confusion was using the term “Trackpad”… I really want to say “touchpad” :slight_smile:
I have to change the title :wink:

Yes, I am talking about laptops (macs vs windows). If we have all these features touchpad (gestures) available on both laptops why they behavior different? Why I have to use additional keys on the Windows system if I can make all gestures behaviors on the touchpad. If the touchpad gestures are the same on both systems why they don’t work the same?

4

Still not clear to me if you are referring to macOS vs Windows (software) or Mac laptops vs PC’s (hardware)

The trouble has mainly been hardware on the PC side. Do you have any information about glass multi-touch trackpads on PC laptops? I haven’t been able to find any info about this.

5

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/input/touchpad-interactions
https://github.com/joonro/List-of-Windows-Laptops-with-Precision-Touchpad

1 Like
6

Ok, so it seems there now exists several PC laptops with multi-touch trackpads?

At the time the multi-touch support was added to Blender, this was not the case. Was around a decade or so ago.

Still, the PC-laptop trackpads I’ve seen are all still tiny and aren’t glass, which makes multi-touch gestures not so nice.

Any info on the Windows API’s to hook into this?

7

Let me explain…

You have 2 laptops
mac : blender mac version
windows: blender win version

Those are the basic movements to work with blender:

When you open blender with mac (using the touchpad) on 3DView:

  • zoom in and out = pinch with 2 fingers
  • rotate around the object = move two fingers up, down, left or right
  • pan left right up down. = Shift + two fingers movements

When you open blender with windows (using the touchpad) on 3DView:

  • zoom in and out = Ctrl + Alt + touch to zoom ( or touchpad two finger up/down)
  • rotate around the object = Alt + left click touch
  • pan left right up down. = Shift + Alt + touch

If you can see, complete different behaviors to reproduce the same functionality. Both have a touchpad the and same behaviors on different programs but completely different on blender.

Why, yes why… using the windows system I can’t do the same actions using touchpad ??? Why on windows I have to use different keys!!!

8

You are still very unclear. You just repeated your original post without answering any of my questions. Mac/Windows means what? Hardware or software?

You can run Windows even if you use a Mac laptop. macOS only runs on Macs.

9

I am not talking about touch the screen!! I am talking about the Trackpad… that replace the mouse.

10

Nobody is talking about touch screens. I am assuming this is about trackpads.

11

mac hardware, using blender for mac = macbook air
windows hardware using blender win version = lenovo laptop

Two different machines

12

Ok, your terminology is very confusing. ‘Windows hardware’ ? You are mixing things up.

Hardware: Mac / PC
Software: macOS / Windows / Linux.

13

hardware: Mac -> macOS -> blender for mac = macbook air
hardware: windows -> Windows -> blender win version = lenovo laptop

Sorry all confusing…

14

I told you why. Because, at the time this was added to Blender, there were basically no shipping PC laptops with multi-touch trackpads.

But according @jenkm this has changed now, so yes, I think it could be added.

The trouble is, we don’t have very many Windows developers.

If a Windows developer wants to submit a patch to add this, it would be welcomed.

1 Like
15

Those are the basic movements to work with blender, should be one priority to blender team.
Any workaround?

To work with blender and get a more powerful graphic card - GPU… I bought the windows machine.
New macs don’t work with NVIDIA GPU because Nvidia Drivers for Mojave 10.14 Not Available

If I know what I have to do … to build a patch to add this … :frowning:

Working with windows (using mouse or trackpads) is very frustration !!!

16

Has anyone come up with a solution for this?

17

I’m surprised there are still people who are surprised to hear that there are good trackpads/touchpads on windows laptops!!
You should play with a surface device for sure, I have yet to see another device match it on keyboard/trackpad aside from the 2015 Macbook Pro.

18

If you are looking for good touchpad support it seems (from my experience) that updated Linux distros and macs are the only way.
Linux ignores a lot of the ease of use functionality that Windows tries to have. This means that clicking with two finger and moving them around acts just like right click and drag on a regular mouse. Same goes for 3 fingers.
Nothing beats the mac touchpad support though, for now.

19

To be honest, there are a lot of problems with Mac trackpads,
it is likely that Blender supports Windows trackpads even better than Macs.

T65714 – Crash in Node Editor.
T65350 – Popovers scrolling.
T64385 – Node Editor zooms very fast.
T61259 – Problem with the Loop Cut.

20

This is the closest I have come to Mac navigation on windows. You only use one finger. Maybe this is bad in some other way but give it a try.

windows blender trackpad navigation
windows blender trackpad navigation1761×1924 404 KB