As part of our survey to our current customers we asked what areas you would like to see improved on the hardware. One of the higher requests was improving the touchpad click-ability. We would love to hear from our customers more specifically how they would like to see it improved and what issues they are having specifically with it.
Touchpad Perimeter buttons
Thu, 2009-12-03 11:54
Touchpad Perimeter buttons
Fri, 2009-12-11 22:14
#2
What about this
One concept that we were thinking about...
For those applications like XBMC that are more optimized to be used with a 4-way plus select type of input, what if the touchpad could be turned into this type of button arrangement by segmenting areas of the touchpad to provide those 4-way function and select. Touching and clicking in that region would function the say way as that being its own button. Something like the image below.
This is something that could be done using the absolute data coming from the touchpad.
Something that we could consider if there is enough interest in this.
Chris
Wed, 2009-12-16 03:14
#3
Similar to iPod Touch Remotes...
I have an XBMC remote on my iPod Touch that is similar to your design and it works well. I've also used a remote that uses gesture based control. This specific remote allowed the user to input up, down, left, right and select commands by dragging from the center of the screen in a cardinal direction. The further away from the center the user dragged, the quicker the command would be repeated from the remote to the computer. I would think that by using absolute coordinates, the user wouldn't even need to start their gesture in the absolute center of the touchpad. As long as distance and direction were calculated from a starting location, the appropriate command could be sent.
I think there would be a lot of value in being able to divide the trackpad into four virtual buttons that could each be custom mapped to a specific command, but I'm not sure that the trackpad would work better than the hardware buttons for directional navigation.
-Greg
I have large fingers and I tend to press the touchpad by accident when trying to use the perimeter buttons. To compensate for this, I try to not press the perimeters buttons as deep, but when doing this, the button presses are often times not registered. A different style of button with a firmer feel would be nice. Also, a small amount of space between the buttons and the touchpad would also be helpful.