By Graham K. Rogers

Some of the changes to System Preferences with the OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion update are less evident than others. While the Trackpad preferences remains almost the same as in the previous version of OS X, some features appeared to have disappeared although one useful example was found in another preference panel.

Trackpad Preferences had a total revision with the update to OS X version 10.7 and the latest update (10.8) continues the evolution of the preferences. The preferences assist with the fine-tuning of either a trackpad that is built in to a notebook computer or the Magic Trackpad that brings the same functions to desktop computers.

The panel for Trackpad preferences, as before is in three parts: Point & Click; Scroll & Zoom; and More Gestures. All gestures and options are illustrated with video clips to the right of the panel.

Point & Click

• Tap to click (Tap with one finger) makes the trackpad act like a mouse button or trackpad bar. It seems to be the normal input method for Windows users (I prefer this off which confuses my students).

• Secondary click -- When Tap to click is not selected, the normal setting for two-finger input is shown as Click with two fingers. The video clip shows the demonstrator tapping on the trackpad which may not work with all computers. Clicking on the trackpad bar will act as a secondary click when one of the other two options are used (Click in bottom right corner; Click in bottom left corner) is selected.

  When the one finger Tap to click is selected, this item changes to Click or Tap with two fingers. This does work as demonstrated in the video clip. Two other options for the Secondary click in this case are: Click or tap in bottom right corner, and Click or tap in bottom left corner. In this case the primary click is relocated to the right.

  

• Look up -- A three-finger tap (sometimes I find I need a double tap) allows a word in text to be looked up in either the Dictionary, Thesaurus or Wikipedia (or all three). The word does not have to be selected by clicking on it. If the cursor is over a word and this gesture is used, the word is highlighted in yellow and a panel appears with information. Those with Little Snitch may want to choose the option to access links, "forever".

  Highlighting is not always instant and may need a second tap to make sure.

• Three finger drag allows a window to be moved around the desktop in the same way as if the trackpad button were held down. This also brings a window to the front when used.

At the bottom of this panel is a slider bar for tracking speed (Slow - Fast). Also at the bottom right of all panels is a button for setting up a Bluetooth Trackpad (such as Apple's Magic Trackpad). A panel is opened and a search for a suitable Bluetooth device starts. The trackpad should be on and discoverable.

Scroll & Zoom

• Scroll direction: natural -- When this is checked, as the fingers scroll down, so a page moves down, in the same way as occurs on the iPhone or iPad. It works with the page and not with the scroll bar. Those who prefer the movement of the scrollbar to follow finger movement (fingers upward, scrollbar up) may wish to leave this unchecked.

• Zoom in or out -- The Pinch with two fingers, as on iOS devices, will enlarge images and certain text content (Safari, Preview) when the gesture opens and make them smaller with the closing action. This may not work with some third party applications.

• Smart zoom -- a double-tap with two fingers -- enlarges pages. A second double-tap will return them to the normal size. As with the Pinch, this only works with certain applications.

• Rotate -- This allows a user to turn an image -- or a page in certain applications, like Preview, but not Safari -- 90 degrees (also 180 and 270). It is effective in Apple's photo software, like Aperture or iPhoto for rotating images quickly.

More Gestures

• Swipe between pages -- a two-finger swipe to left or right scrolls between pages in some applications, such as Safari, where we can view pages that were loaded or viewed before the current.

  Options here are to swipe with three fingers (to the left or right), or swipe with two or three fingers. With Safari, for example, swiping and scrolling are different actions: the latter gives a smoother transition between pages in memory, while swiping reloads a page.

• Swipe between full-screen apps -- this may be effected with either four fingers or three by default. It is also possible to specify three fingers or to specify four. If the three-fingert option is selected, Swiping between pages (above) with three fingers is not available and is automatically unchecked if it had been selected. If full-screen apps are not in use, the swipe allows any desktop space to be displayed, included Dashboard if that is selected as a space in the Mission Control preference pane.

• Notification Center -- The Notification Center is a new feature in OS X and the two-finger swipe here -- in a leftwards direction from the right edge of the screen -- is intended to make the Notifications panel easily accessible. I found this fiddly and it was difficult to make this work. It was quicker to click on the menubar icon or to use a key combination I created in the Keyboard preferences.

• Mission Control -- this may be activated using the four finger swipe up. This displays the current desktop in a smaller size with applications open, with other spaces displayed as thumbnail images above. An option here is that three, instead of four fingers may be used.

• App Exposé -- A downward swipe with four fingers accesses App Exposé. All open windows of the top application are shown minimized on the desktop. The current page is shown in a larger form. As with the Mission Control trackpad gesture above, an option is to use three fingers instead of four.

• Launchpad -- the Launchpad feature may be activated using an awkward three finger pinch plus the thumb in a closing movement. This gives a swift access to the Launchpad screens, but may take a little practice to perfect.

• Show Desktop -- while the Launchpad gesture may be difficult for some, perhaps even more difficult is the thumb and three-finger spread to show the desktop. This may also be done -- and is far easier -- with the F11 key (Fn + F11 on some Macs). All windows are cleared from the screen and the user has a view of only the desktop and icons displayed there.

Notes

Some of the items now in Accessibility had been moved from other preference panes. With this, there may have been other users affected by apparently missing features (moved not lost). It appears to me that all of the features now in Accessibility could be re-sited into panels that themselves focus on specific functions. Accessibility is intended to help those with disabilities, but while doing this with some helpful features, it also highlights the fact that there are disabled people, rather than allowing a better personal integration.

Older Macs with trackpads that do not support these gestures will display an older (simpler) trackpad preference panel.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.