> If I were using a trackpad, I would have had to (a) move my hand onto the trackpad, (b) select the text, (c) move my hands back to the keyboard to hit Ctrl+c, (d) move my hands back to the trackpad to move the cursor to the input box and click in it, (e) move my hands back to the keyboard to hit Ctrl+v. That's back and forth twice. Just to copy and paste some text.
Well, trackpad only requires one hand, the other one can stay on the left side of the keyboard for those keyboard shortcuts. Certainly can sitll be annoying if you have to actually type something, such as in the address bar.
> As a side note, text selection is something else I've found to be frustrating with trackpads, especially the new "clickpads" which don't have separate mouse buttons. It's hard to press down and move your finger at the same time. This isn't an issue at all with the TrackPoint, though.
Indeed, which is why I emulate the old style and click with my thumb while dragging with a finger - this works fine.
> Perhaps it's because I'm not experienced with trackpads, but I have found that I really have to lift my hand up and move it down, using my arm muscles, to access any trackpad.
It helps that I have big hands.
> Since you're also a Vim user, perhaps you can understand it as similar to the difference between using a plain-old text editor and Vim, in terms of the learning curve and eventual advantages.
I wouldn't be surprised - but I'm not convinced that the result is actually better than a trackpad.
> I don't have much experience with zooming - it really hasn't ever been necessary on a computer for me to use it on a regular basis, so I can't comment on that.
It makes fitting, say, the window with the portion of a PDF document you want to read relatively easy (although PDFs don't scroll and zoom nearly as smoothly as web pages in Safari; ugh).
> As for window management, I've traditionally used XMonad, so keyboard shortcuts are how I get things done with respect to window management.
Me too, actually - I use SizeUp, which lets me move windows to predefined regions of the screen with keyboard shortcuts, and since I also use Cmd-Tab extensively, a keyboard shortcut is superior for me here - but I know many people love their Spaces.
Well, trackpad only requires one hand, the other one can stay on the left side of the keyboard for those keyboard shortcuts. Certainly can sitll be annoying if you have to actually type something, such as in the address bar.
> As a side note, text selection is something else I've found to be frustrating with trackpads, especially the new "clickpads" which don't have separate mouse buttons. It's hard to press down and move your finger at the same time. This isn't an issue at all with the TrackPoint, though.
Indeed, which is why I emulate the old style and click with my thumb while dragging with a finger - this works fine.
> Perhaps it's because I'm not experienced with trackpads, but I have found that I really have to lift my hand up and move it down, using my arm muscles, to access any trackpad.
It helps that I have big hands.
> Since you're also a Vim user, perhaps you can understand it as similar to the difference between using a plain-old text editor and Vim, in terms of the learning curve and eventual advantages.
I wouldn't be surprised - but I'm not convinced that the result is actually better than a trackpad.
> I don't have much experience with zooming - it really hasn't ever been necessary on a computer for me to use it on a regular basis, so I can't comment on that.
It makes fitting, say, the window with the portion of a PDF document you want to read relatively easy (although PDFs don't scroll and zoom nearly as smoothly as web pages in Safari; ugh).
> As for window management, I've traditionally used XMonad, so keyboard shortcuts are how I get things done with respect to window management.
Me too, actually - I use SizeUp, which lets me move windows to predefined regions of the screen with keyboard shortcuts, and since I also use Cmd-Tab extensively, a keyboard shortcut is superior for me here - but I know many people love their Spaces.