2-finger rightclick missing on macbook pro with osx 10.4.8

Z

zenx

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Hi,

I have recently bought a new macbook pro 15" with osx 10.4.8 and I have installed all updates. I wanted to enable right-clicking with 2fingers on trackpad but when I go to system preferences > trackpad I don't see the option "lay two fingers on pad makes any click a RightClick". take a look at the attachment.

it's kinda strange. any ideas why does it happen? any ideas how to solve it?


thank you!
 

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Probably because there's no option there for the two-finger trackpad feature to do that? It's never been a feature to my knowledge.

The only option there for the two-finger trackpad feature is for scrolling. Control-clicking will give you the contextual menu (aka, the right-click menu). Also, using a two-button mouse will bring up this menu by right clicking.
 
nixgeek said:
Probably because there's no option there for the two-finger trackpad feature to do that? It's never been a feature to my knowledge.

The only option there for the two-finger trackpad feature is for scrolling. Control-clicking will give you the contextual menu (aka, the right-click menu). Also, using a two-button mouse will bring up this menu by right clicking.
Click to expand...

nixgeek - good guess, but you need to actually look at a MacBook or MacBookPro. The new ones do enable this, and it's called (or something close) press trackpad button while holding two fingers on trackpad enables secondary click (which is same as control-click, or right-click), And updating to 10.4.8, gives that option to all Macbook/macbookpros.

zenx - you should try creating a new user just for this purpose. Login as that new user, and check in the prefs for the presence of that setting option. If the secondary click option exists with that user, then you have some corrupted plist file in your main user. If not, you could try a PRAM reset, or a reset of your power manager. Come back here, and some one can provide you with some more help on that.
 
DeltaMac said:
nixgeek - good guess, but you need to actually look at a MacBook or MacBookPro. The new ones do enable this, and it's called (or something close) press trackpad button while holding two fingers on trackpad enables secondary click (which is same as control-click, or right-click), And updating to 10.4.8, gives that option to all Macbook/macbookpros.
Click to expand...

Hmm.....I learn something new everyday. :D Thanks for the correction...I didn't know that there were such differences with the MacBooks (Pro and non-Pro). :o
 
Definitely is a feature - and a very good and nice one as well. :) ... Question remains why this feature would be missing on one MBP running 10.4.8... I'd try the usual... repair permissions, try logging into a new test account etc. ... Worst case: Reinstallation. It shouldn't be a hardware problem, really...
 
DeltaMac said:
zenx - you should try creating a new user just for this purpose. Login as that new user, and check in the prefs for the presence of that setting option. If the secondary click option exists with that user, then you have some corrupted plist file in your main user. If not, you could try a PRAM reset, or a reset of your power manager. Come back here, and some one can provide you with some more help on that.
Click to expand...

Tried creating a new user and going to sys. preferences for that user - failed
Tried reseting PRAM - failed
Tried restoring mac with install disk without deleting the mac osx volume - worked! :D

Now I can right click without the control key ;) Thank you for your help!
 
Well, my guess would be that specific functionality has to be at least supported by the trackpad input controller (if there is such a thing...) before a control panel can offer such functionality.

It is not a shock to me that "older" versions of hardware don't support newer functionality, though more than a few times in the past, a clever third-party programmer has managed to unlock functionality that did not appear to be available in older hardware.

It may well be that a programmer could provide this functionality. I can only guess that the extra overhead of the additional code was prohibitive in the time constraints for the given OS "update" release.

Since two fingered scrolling was previously available, it would seem to be a matter of intercepting states and actions to do so, but it is often much easier to say, than to do. :eek:
 
I think you should sometimes read what others have already written after the first post. ;) The problem was solved, and wasn't about "older hardware" or anything.
 
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