[Tails-ux] Default right-click method for touchpads [Was: Op…

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Autore: intrigeri
Data:  
To: Michael Gerstacker
CC: Tails list for early testers, Tails user experience & user interface design
Oggetto: [Tails-ux] Default right-click method for touchpads [Was: Opinion about Tails 4.0beta1]
Hi Michael,

>>>> In 3.15 i can click on the bottom right part of my touchpad like i do in
>>>> Windows or hit the touchpad anywhere with two fingers (that was completely
>>>> new for me).
>>>> In 4.0 i can not click on the bottom right part of my touchpad anymore.
>>>> The only way to do a right-click is hitting the touchpad anywhere with two
>>>> fingers.
>>>> The left click is still working the same in both versions and the same
>>>> like in Windows. Either click on the bottom left part of my touchpad or hit
>>>> on the touchpad with one finger.


>> Wow, indeed it sounds like a serious problem if the way to do
>> right-click in Windows doesn't work in Tails.


I've tried to reproduce on 2 laptops that have a touchpad:

1. One that has separate physical buttons below the touchpad, outside
of the area that can be used for tapping/dragging/etc..

These buttons work as expected. No behavior change since Tails 3.x
⇒ out of scope.

2. One that has no visible physical buttons, but the touchpad is
hinged at the top and the bottom left & right areas can be
depressed, providing physical feedback similar to a button.
That is, a Mac-style touchpad, which is becoming the norm on recent
hardware, because it increases the surface that can be used for
tapping/dragging/etc., compared to separate physical buttons.

The only way to produce a right click is to do a two-fingers tap.
The somewhat-physical buttons produce a left click.

I can revert to the previous behaviour by running any of these two
commands:

     gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad click-method areas
     gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad click-method default


Michael, can you please try these commands and tell me if any of
them fixes the problem you've been experiencing?

This change in the default settings was made on purpose in GNOME 3.28
and announced in the release notes:
https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.28/#device-support

The corresponding upstream commit is:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gsettings-desktop-schemas/commit/77ff1d91d974b2aaebbf7d748f1cd904bc75330b

There's been some discussion (and controversy after the fact) there,
which gives some context and arguments in favor & against this change:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=757255

Technically speaking, we can easily revert this GNOME change and go
back to the same behaviour as Tails 3.x. Each choice we can make has
UX pros and cons: some users/hardware will benefit form the GNOME
change, some others will suffer from it. So I believe the decision
belongs to our UX designers ⇒ I'm moving this discussion to our UX
mailing list and setting the Reply-To accordingly.

Cheers,
--
intrigeri