Rotating and panning parts with Macbook trackpad

hugh_piggott

I am using a macbook to do Onshape (and everything else).  I am learning to rotate and pan parts in the parts studio.   I wonder how to do this as I do not have a right hand mouse button on my mac.  Normally there would be gestures that I could use.  Pushing control does not seem to convert my click to right click as would sometimes be the case.

Has anyone got suggestions for how to use a Macbook trackpad?

thanks
Hugh

bradley_sauln

Under the trackpad in Systems preferences, you can set your secondary click (aka right mouse click). I like to set it to the bottom right of the trackpad so I can click and then use my other finger to rotate by using the rest of the space.

bradley_sauln

Under the trackpad in Systems preferences, you can set your secondary click (aka right mouse click). I like to set it to the bottom right of the trackpad so I can click and then use my other finger to rotate by using the rest of the space.

noa

A full blog post on this too: https://www.onshape.com/cad-blog/tech-tip-how-to-cad-with-a-trackpad

skube_doo

Two and three-finger gestures still need to be supported. 

Skippy

Is there any news on properly supporting MacBook trackpads? Changing the trackpad settings is a work around but still very annoying when you are used to a two finger tap for right clicks.

Paul_J_Premakumar

@Skippy

 Full trackpad multi-touch functionality isn't supported yet. If you haven't, please submit or vote on an product improvement request. This helps us prioritize feature development. Thank you.

Jason_S

@Skippy
I have my MacBook Pro trackpad set up for two finger clicks anywhere on the trackpad.

Rotate: Two finger click and drag rotates around the part
Pan: Control + Two finger click and drag pans
Zoom: Two finger scroll focuses on your mouse

There are days I prefer the trackpad to my 8200 dpi Razer mouse.

We don't have three/four finger support, but what actions would you expect to trigger from using those extra fingers?

Rootentity

Single finger double tap to select, two finger tap for context menu, two finger drag to rotate, three finger drag to pan and pinch to zoom.  You should check out how Fusion 360 is supporting Mac trackpad, because as it is I will only use the mobile app for editing, as using my MacBook is far too frustrating.  Clicking down the button and dragging is not comfortable, I have tap to click turned on and never actually click the trackpad down.

Skippy

Jason_S said:

@Skippy
I have my MacBook Pro trackpad set up for two finger clicks anywhere on the trackpad.

Rotate: Two finger click and drag rotates around the part
Pan: Control + Two finger click and drag pans
Zoom: Two finger scroll focuses on your mouse

There are days I prefer the trackpad to my 8200 dpi Razer mouse.

We don't have three/four finger support, but what actions would you expect to trigger from using those extra fingers?

I have an older MacBook and find the two finger click and drag extremely hard to do. Id love for them to support two finger tap and drag to rotate, pinch to zoom and possibly a three finger tap and drag to pan. Of course I realise this may not even be possible with an app running in a browser but if thats the case I think people would rather know.

If you have a newer MacBook with the solid state trackpad it might be far easier and less of an issue. 

peter_clifford

I am totally lost with my MacBook Air trying to Pan. I have tried the suggestion by Jason_S that Control + Two finger click and drag will do it but it doesn't work for me.

peter_clifford

By trial and error I found that - control+right click+finger click and drag - does a pan....... how complicated is that!

brucebartlett

@peter_clifford   less complicated if you do a ctrl+ 2 finger click and drag. 

Skippy

peter_clifford said:

I am totally lost with my MacBook Air trying to Pan. I have tried the suggestion by Jason_S that Control + Two finger click and drag will do it but it doesn't work for me.

It should work, I used to have a MacBook Air and used that method. When you “click” are you tapping lightly like you would a touchscreen or pressing hard until the trackpad moves like a button? If it’s the latter you may have tap to click turned off in preferences. 

geoffrey_2

This looks like it is a long quiet thread, though I didn't find anything more recent in my searches.  I am a recent conversion from SW, where I used my Kensington SlimBlade trackball as my primary pointer interface.  I've been using it for OS as well, but enjoying the times that I've been able to unplug and use my MBP's track pad for effective CAD on the go (suggestion: don't even try that in SW - it's a nightmare).  I started thinking about how much use I get out of the multi-touch interface in many other apps, and how much I'd like to be able to bring that level of functionality to my workflow, both in and out of OS, whether I'm at my desk or on the go.  With that, my thoughts turn toward the Magic Trackpad as an addition on my desktop setup.  That said, however, I have to say that I'm not a big fan of keyboard gymnastics.  The current need for ctrl + 2-finger-click-and-drag to pan is not a reasonable way to support the macOS multi-touch trackpads.  What I'd like to see, as this was asked above, is proper support for multi-touch gestures.  To a decided extent, this kind of support already exists in the mobile apps, with pinch to zoom, two finger pan, etc.  It would be really great to see that kind of support come to the main platform, as an option, at least.