Apple forgot the – disable Trackpad settings – for the new MacBooks and a workaround
I have to say that the new MacBook’s are really great workhorses and I like it a lot (well, have to be honest I switched from a new MacBook to a MacBook Pro for the greater screen estate).
For some, like myself, I can not really “dig” the new Trackpad. It is ok to work with, but I liked the “old” Trackpad much better. Maybe future revisions will work better and Apple might make the Trackpad “less glassy”. So for home usage, or if you have space around you, I definitely suggest to get a external mouse.
That’s exactly, how I work most of the time from home and today when my 3 1/2 year old decided he wanted to play with “daddy’s trackpad” while I had my Bluetooth mouse connected I thought “no go Junior”. To my surprise the Trackpad worked, event thought I had an external mouse connected.
No sweat. A quick trip to the System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Trackpad settings and enable that “Disable trackpad when external mouse is connected”, right? Well, I was quite surprised to not be able to find the setting in ANY of the settings, neither in the “old” place under Keyboard & Mouse…
nor in the new Trackpad one.
To my surprise I did not find any relevant information about this on the net. Looking over at the Apple Discussion Board did not bring anything up either. Thus, either Apple is unaware of this issue (which I doubt) or no one cares (which I doubt as well). Luckely, I have another “old” MacBook Pro around and thus looked up the settings in the “.GlobalPreferences.plist” (located at UserDir/Library/Preferences).
Just as I thought the GlobalPreferences on the new MacBook Pro is missing the setting for “com.apple.mouse.ignoreTrackpadIfMousePresent” which was present in my old MacBook Pro. So, the obvious thing to do was to edit the file “.GlobalPreferences.plist” and add that setting.
Editing this file should only be done if you know what you are doing! In my case I have had no success in modifying the file with “vi”, “emacs” or “pico” as they don’t read the XML format file nicely. Thus my old and in my opinion best text editor BBEdit came to help. The great thing about it that it comes with a shell extension. Thus opening the file is a simple: “bbedit .GlobalPreferences.plist” (BBedit will give you a error message if you try to open the file otherwise!).
Once the file is open insert the lines:
<key>com.apple.mouse.ignoreTrackpadIfMousePresent</key>
<integer>1</integer>
These line should go right above the line “<key>com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior</key>”!
Now save the file and log out and you should not be able to use the Trackpad anymore when your external mouse is connected.
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About this entry
You’re currently reading “Apple forgot the – disable Trackpad settings – for the new MacBooks and a workaround,” an entry on Razuna Blog
- Published:
- Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
- Author:
- Razuna
- Category:
- Apple
20:27 UTC
“Thus, either Apple is unaware of this issue (which I doubt) or no one cares (which I doubt as well).”
I don’t doubt that nobody cares, or more specifically that Steve Jobs doesn’t care. Isn’t this kind of thing typical in the Apple world? It’s Steve’s way or the highway. They really like their new track pad, so they want to force it on you. The same patterns are occurring in the iPhone world, where developers come up with cool things to improve the device, but Steve says “no, not on my phone” and they block the app from their store.
21:50 UTC
Yes, the machines from Apple are nice, MacOS X is killer, but the attitude that Apple puts forwards to its customers and “the market” is still… well people are still wondering how Apple can survive.
13:24 UTC
I am new to the Mac-world. I like it, but the trackpad can drive me crazy when I write, and I often have some heavy writing to do. I don’t know BBEdit (I use emacs), but I am willing to buy it just to fix the trackpad problem. I hope to fix it without getting entangled in mac-technicalities, and I would really appreciate it if you could answer a couple of very simple questions:
1) I guess the command “bbedit .GlobalPreferences.plist” has to be entered through Terminal. Right?
2) Do the 2 lines
com.apple.mouse.ignoreTrackpadIfMousePresent
1
have to be entered exactly as shown? I mean, is something I must type?
Thanks in advance.
Paul
13:53 UTC
Hi Paul
Welcome to the wonderful Mac-World
You will not regret it.
The file is a XML file and eMacs does not display it very well, but yure you can use any text editor you want. Just be aware that it is a hiffen file, so you can not use a “open” command, except (once again) with BBEdit.
1. Yes, BBEdit comes with Terminal extensions so you can type it like this.
2. You can copy paste it, but again, it has to be entered as shown.
2:42 UTC
Thank you for discussing such an topical article with all of us. I’ve bookmarked your blog will come back for a re-read again. Keep up the excellent work.