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. 

fyorge

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.

onshaper

There is no good reason for this to not be supported. Please, someone make a ticket and throw it in a developer's sprint. Save us all the headache.

fyorge

I'm not sure exactly when it was implemented, but two finger pinch now controls zoom.  If there was a way to switch two finger (no click) swipe to control pan, we'd be there.  Also, I have realized that left/right two finger swipe does not scroll through the tabs at the bottom of the screen.  It is very annoying to need to remember to swipe up and down to scroll through the tabs.  Please fix this!

lenore_horner

Great.  Now we have two ways to zoom (pinch or two-finger up or down motion) and still no way to pan.  Ctrl + 2 finger drag or tap drag just moves me to another browser tab.  Resetting our track-pad settings for one app from what works in everything else is not a real solution.   Inkscape, Gimp, GeoGebra, Desmos are all cross-platform apps that have intuitive ways to use the track-pad or track-pad + some combo of shift, ctrl, option, command to both shift and zoom intuitively.  Some of these are open-source.  How has this 5-year old major BUG not been fixed?

steve_shubin

2017 entry level MacBook Pro


PAN

CONTROL
+
TWO FINGER PRESS & HOLD DOWN
+
SLIDE




ROTATE

OPTION
+
TWO FINGER PRESS & HOLD DOWN
+
SLIDE




ZOOM

TWO FINGERS LIGHTLY BRUSHING UP & DOWN

david_keils

rotate does not work for me at all - macbook pro 2021 M1. nothing special at all. i need to be able to rotate with shift + 2 fingers panning (aka right click). as a reference, look at fusion360 as it is the perfect mechanism. is that please possible with onshape or will i have to stick with fusion 360? 
thx

steve_shubin

@david_keils

What happens when you try rotating WITHOUT using the Option key ?

In other words, just doing a -----  Two finger press and hold down and slide on the trackpad

onshaper

There is a generally accepted way for trackpads to work in these types of applications. Onshape doesn't follow it. If customers are asked to configure their machines specifically for a product, the product is not working as expected, especially a web app. Adding gesture support is not a large ask. It will provide a better experience to some of Onshapes core customers... people who need CAD but are using a multi-gesture laptop in the field.

NeilCooke

I use the trackpad a lot. Zoom = two fingers up/down (or pinch, but less control), rotate = 2 fingers click & drag, pan = Option + 2 fingers click & drag. It's smooth and easy. Just make sure you turn off "swipe between pages" or set it to "swipe with 3 fingers"

joachim_lous

I already have a trackpad setup that I am used to for years and years (tap-to-click and two-finger tap to secondary click) and which roughly matches my pen tablet when use that. I'm not going to change it for one stubbornly eccentric app. There are others.

• Ctrl or optipn + Two-finger click+drag in chrome just brings up the context menu and does nothing else.
• One finger click and drag selects fine. No modifier keys have any effect on it - except control, which makes it launch the context menu.
• Zooming works fine (two-finger drag). No modifier keys have any effect on it.

What a waste.

So I have no way to pan, and no way to rotate with the track pad.
Rotation I can at least do with on-screen controls for, but for panning there aren't even any scroll bars - I have to resort to zooming out and then into my area of interest.
This is beyond silly.

nick_papageorge_dayjob

joachim_lous said:

I already have a trackpad setup that I am used to for years and years (tap-to-click and two-finger tap to secondary click) and which roughly matches my pen tablet when use that. I'm not going to change it for one stubbornly eccentric app. There are others.

• Ctrl or optipn + Two-finger click+drag in chrome just brings up the context menu and does nothing else.
• One finger click and drag selects fine. No modifier keys have any effect on it - except control, which makes it launch the context menu.
• Zooming works fine (two-finger drag). No modifier keys have any effect on it.

What a waste.

So I have no way to pan, and no way to rotate with the track pad.
Rotation I can at least do with on-screen controls for, but for panning there aren't even any scroll bars - I have to resort to zooming out and then into my area of interest.
This is beyond silly.

I take it you're on a Mac since you said "option" key? I'm on a mac and have my trackpad setup the same way (tap to click, and 2 finger tap for secondary).

One thing to double check, make sure your OS preferences are set to default mouse controls. I had mine set to Creo, and I could not get the trackpad to work fully.

To rotate, with 2 fingers press and hold down until you get the "force click" on the mac, then move them around.

To pan, do the above for rotate, and then press and hold the control key. I find if you press the control key first, it sometimes does not work.

This works with Chrome, firefox, and safari, on my Macs.

julian_kingman

I figured onShape just didn't have pan and rotate commands, obviously was expecting it to work as other apps do, and it's definitely not working as expected. Pan = drag + modifier key, rotate = drag + other modifier key. It's gotta be like 10 lines of code to add this... Great product, it will be much better now that I realize I need a mouse 

han_hannik

I just cant believe how difficult and impossible this program is. NONE of the navigation works for me. I can only ZOOM and NOTHING else. Have tried every possible combination of crtl, option etc, two finger press-slide, one finger press slide. Absolutely NOTHING works. Waste of time

NeilCooke

@han_hannik you need to adjust the default trackpad settings. I use the trackpad a lot. Zoom = two fingers up/down (or pinch, but less control), rotate = 2 fingers click & drag, pan = Control + 2 fingers click & drag. It's smooth and easy. Just make sure you turn off "swipe between pages" or set it to "swipe with 3 fingers"

emile_amato995

@NeilCooke Hi sir,

I assume this isn't an important problem. It concerns few Mac users addicted to trackpads but allergic to "force click". But as one of them, I would found it amazing to have that feature into Onshape. I read this topic and I guess we can sum it up that way:

Could your team ad this option into the mouse controls panel ?

• Rotate = 2 fingers click tap & drag
• Pan = Control + 2 fingers click tap & drag

Thank you very much for your attention sir