To report a bug or give me a quotable endorsement for my next ClickPad II README, send e-mail over the information wagon trail to:
danwr@halcyon.com
You can obtain the latest version of “ClickPad II” by harnessing up your web browser and directing it to:
<http://www.halcyon.com/danwr/warrior.html>
Why ClickPad II is Better than Sliced Bread
ClickPad II allows you to use the TrackPad on your brand-spankin’-new PowerBook 520, 540, or 5300 without subjecting your thumb to the ergonomic horrors of the TrackPad button.
To click using ClickPad II, just tap the trackpad with a spare finger.
To double-click, just tap the trackpad twice (with said finger).
To hold the virtual ClickPad button down:
• Position the TrackPad cursor
• Tap once, then immediately plop your finger back down (down, quickly up, quickly back down and hold)
• You don’t need to hold your finger down and wait; if you want to drag, just start moving your finger
• To release the virtual button, lift your finger and wait. If it releases too slowly, you can release it more quickly by tapping the TrackPad again (as you did to start the drag).
• Oops — you ran out of pad? Quickly lift your finger, move it back to the center of the TrackPad, lower your finger, and away you go. If you lift your finger off the TrackPad for too long, ClickPad II will release the button.
Using ClickPad II with your PowerBook allows a much softer touch than pressing the physical button on the TrackPad and will ensure many hours of increased productivity; eating sliced bread which using your PowerBook will just leave you with lots of itty bitty crumbs clogging up your keyboard (and if you spread honey on your sliced bread…<shudder> don’t get me started).
Requirements
ClickPad II requires a PowerBook with a TrackPad; specifically, the PowerBook 500 and 5300 families are supported. The PowerBook 2300 family is not, because the 2300’s come with TrackPads that exhibit ClickPad-like behavior right out of the box. Future PowerBooks will likely come with these fancy-pants TrackPads as well.
Audible clicking requires Sound Manager 3.0 or later.
Installing & Configuring ClickPad II
Drag the control panel “ClickPad II” to your system folder icon and allow the system to move it to the control panels folder. Restart your PowerBook and you’re ready to go.
From the control panel, you can enable/disable ClickPad II without having to reboot, enable/disable audio feedback, and enable/disable automatic menu locking (the virtual button is automatically locked down when you click in the menu bar; it is released when you click again) – this is like the old freeware extension StickyClick.
Credits and History
ClickPad II owes a heavy debt to the original ClickPad by Bruce Oberg, of course, and uses the same underlying method to work its magic. ClickPad II, like the original ClickPad, does not install any trap patches, so the chances of a conflict are tiny. Bruce credits Rich Kubota, Gordon Sheridan, and Brian Bechtel for ClickPad, so I think they deserve mention here as well. Kudos to all the early ClickPad II pioneers who sent in bug reports!
Changed in 2.0.4:
• Added 'sysz' resource that was missing in earlier releases (theoretically this could alleviate some loading problems)
• Added detection of an external mouse at boot; if one is installed, ClickPad II behaves a little differently, thus handily avoiding a bus storm [Bad puns suppressed]
• Minor performance tweaking
• Added a Finder help balloon (to help people trying to use ClickPad II on an unsupported machine)
Fixed in 2.0.3:
• Now works with 7.5.3 500-series TrackPad driver. For some reason Apple took out the 'tpad' gestalt selector.
Fixed in 2.0.2:
• Fixed a problem on some systems where “Make Sounds” didn’t work unless you opened the control panel and toggled the setting. Under system 7.5.3 this is a problem with the Sound control panel.
Fixed in ClickPad II 2.0 (vs the original ClickPad):
• ClickPad did not work on the new PowerBooks (190 and the 5300 family) because of a slight change in the TrackPad driver software.
• ClickPad did not work exactly right with an external pointing device (e.g., a mouse) plugged in. ClickPad II does.
Features New or Improved in ClickPad II:
• ClickPad prevented the new PowerBooks from sleeping or dimming the display, and used the processor fairly heavily (resulting in increased power usage and perhaps slightly slower performance). ClickPad II is more responsive during heavy trackpad usage and “dozes” when you stop using the trackpad to reduce CPU & power usage.
• You can now “lock” the trackpad button down, allow drags and menu selection without using the (physical) trackpad button. Way cool.
• ClickPad II provides audio feedback; this helps with dragging the cursor. Hopefully it's subtle (read: quiet) enough to use in an environment like a meeting or airplane (it's actually slightly quieter than the keyboard on my machine).
Fine print: Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Didja know SimpleText doesn’t support shift–arrow to select text? Nor does it support option-arrow, or command-arrow.
