Thinkpads got it right with the physical mouse buttons above the touchpad.
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2026
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Bring back the nipple! (xkcd 243)
It left? Mine's got one and it's fairly recent.
I got a ThinkPad this year with one
Got mine last year I think.. A p16s gen3 for reference.
You're growing nipples?
No, I'm rubbing themπ.
My 2023 Thinkpad has one
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(1 replies)
I always preferred below since you could then use the thumb to click. Buttons built into the touch surface are worse than not having them at all, however.
For people using gnome: you can swipe to the side with 3 fingers to change to other workspaces, and you can swipe down with 3 fingers for the equivalent to pressing the windows button or hitting the hot corner
Can you sell workspaces to me?
I never understood the benefits compared to just alt-tab
I never understood the benefits compared to just alt-tab
I use it daily and I would be so pissed if it went away.
I work in IT and often times when I'm working on something (with multiple windows / apps open) somebody knocks at my door or calls my phone or messages me on outlook / teams and needs me to do a thing or help with a problem, which more often than not also means I'll be opening another X windows / apps.
Many times I just couldn't find the specific window / app anymore, which I was searching for at this moment, because there were so many things open on my desktop.
Now I have a simple rule: 1 workspace = 1 task
I work on something and have X windows / apps open on a workspace, someone tells me to look at problem X, I instantly switch to a different, empty workspace and use that. It's like "grouping" windows / apps together. It's especially helpful because a lot of my tasks run in a browser or terminal and I don't want to alt-tab through X browser- or terminal-windows just to find the correct one.
Sometimes I look at my colleagues desktop with 30+ windows open on 1 workspace, struggling to find the window he's looking for and I am sooooo glad I'm not like this anymore. He's using mac and opening the overview / expose (or whatever you call it) and every window is so tiny, I'm having a hard time making out which is which.
I see the benefit. For example if I have to keep a window open just so it is open. But I don't need to look at it. For example when opening a VM that I'm going to access via SSH.
In that case it's useful so it is open but nowhere to be seen.
On the other hand, setting up the thing, and later remembering that I have it in case I want to manually close it is a hassle. So it's just easier to not use the workspaces and just have it minimized. It's going to be on the far side of the alt-tab queue anyway.
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(2 replies)
Three fingers up on GNOME I use a lot when I'm on my laptop. On desktop I've bound an extra mouse button to that action that I use a lot also.
Learning this the hard way made me feel old :P
You can also three-finger tap the touchpad to perform a middle click.
Ooh, kinky.
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(8 replies)
One of my favorite customizations on Mac is enabling three finger drag in the Accessibility settings.
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Wait until you realise you can side scroll, go backwards, change desktop, use the application switcher!
I use a dedicated track pad on my desktop PC instead of a mouse, specifically because of that stuff! Unless you're playing an FPS game or something, mice are just so kludgy and limited by comparison!
Thatβs what I am always saying. But then people look at me like I am crazy. I donβt even own a mouse and havenβt missed one ever
Swipe with 2 fingers to scroll. Or scroll using one edge.
Depends on the touchpad
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(1 replies)
usually you can also double tap then hold to do a click and drag if you didn't know that
Three fingers for middle click. Four fingers to make it squirt.