Re: tap-to-click feedback
Incidentally, I think it's important to distinguish between "palm detection" and "tap to click". In my experience, most users who are used to tap to click, expect it -- and get frustrated when it doesn't work. On the other hand, I've been using a litl webbook with tap to click enabled since leaving OLPC -- and I can't say I've *ever* had it click when I didn't mean to. The tap gesture just doesn't occur accidentally. But we *do* have the palm-detection turned on, which prevents the "I accidentally brushed the touchpad while typing" behavior, which seems to be the real cause of most of the complaints. In any case, discussion would be more constructive if participants were careful to use the proper terminology --- "tap to click" and "palm detection" -- and carefully distinguish which they like/dislike in their comments. --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
illusion (Re: tap-to-click feedback)
Dear Edd, Ed McNierney escribió: > Tuukaa - Thanks for your prompt reply, although it doesn't address the points of our report. We'd appreciate another one that did. Meanwhile, your reply demonstrates more general problems in the OLPC project, which would be worth solving as well. > I don't quite see how you can make statements like "the OLPC project > is not in close contact with the field". How do you know that? We *do* > get many reports from deployment teams that represent hundreds of > thousands of children, and try to collect and communicate that feedback > effectively. In fact, I'm going to meet with the head of one of them in > 15 minutes. To answer your first question, you can read and quote what we wrote: >> It's very easy to tell: the OLPC project is not in close contact with >> the field. In this thread, we can observe the illusion that the >> hundreds of thousands of children would report to you if there was >> something suboptimal with their laptops. And there have been multiple >> reports, and yet "there is no consensus". Key word: illusion. Further, the deployment teams *cannot* represent the children. They should strive to, but there is no substitute for going out on the field and seeing with your own trained eyes. We also suggest you reconsider what level of indirection in an organizational hierarchy you call "close". > There have actually been very few reports of problems with this > touchpad behavior. We don't know why that is, and I don't think you do, > either - although we can both speculate all day and fill the list > archives. We do get plenty of reports of other problems, so I don't > think there's a fundamental failure in our ability to get input from the > field. We can always hope to do better, of course. We can't be sure and we could discuss, but we start to get the feeling that we do have a better idea than you do, and yet you're not willing to present your side and discuss. > Having a small number of users on the devel list report their own > personal experiences and preferences just isn't helpful in determining > what the best course would be. Offering a configuration option would be > nice, although we would still need to know how to advise deployments on > which default to choose. If it wasn't clear, we weren't reporting our personal experiences or preferences. > The device in question is a standard Synaptics touchpad, which comes > configured in tap-to-click mode by default. It's used in plenty of other > laptop machines. Surely that's at least circumstantial evidence that > this behavior isn't universally despised. Used in laptops for use by unprivileged kids in developing countries, or in laptops irrelevant to this discussion?-) > As for your assertion that the problems with the old-style touchpad > are less important than this problem, there are those in the field who > would most firmly disagree with you. That's one bit of evidence as to > why I think a shouting match on the devel list is a rather unhelpful way > to approach a solution. We weren't shouting, were we? We were giving you a direct report from the field as a response to the call for "seeking consensus". Of course the list can only take it as one piece of evidence, but you act as if there still was no evidence. If you have some towards the opposite conclusion, please share. > We have a globally-accessible, open, trouble-reporting database at > http://dev.laptop.org - have you reported this problem? Has anyone else > reported this problem? Searches for "tap-to-click" and "Synaptics" > return a few tickets reporting various items, and one from Martin > Langhoff (#9775) mentioning the ability to disable tap-to-click. But > please don't claim we're not listening if you aren't willing to use the > public trouble-reporting system we rely on. "Globally-accessible". We might say "Internet-enabled". Do you appreciate the fact that Internet access is a scarcity in the developing world? We haven't engaged here before, and maybe we still shouldn't have. All your message is about how you shouldn't ask the children but they should report to you (as if!), yet when we take our time from helping the kids and their teachers and try to do our best in communicating their situation to improve it, even that's not enough to you. We suppose you'd rather this big issue was buried in Trac. If you re-read our message, we mention some imperfections in how this issue has been handled from the beginning in the OLPC project. Please take them as a suggestion on how to improve your organisation for the future, as well as on what to do to fix the current issue. Yes, there's something *you* could do! > - Ed Sincerely, Tuukka and Kaisa > On Apr 15, 2010, at 1:24 PM, Tuukka Hastrup wrote: > >> Hi everyone, >> >> Ed McNierney escribió: >>> No, you're quite right - it's hard. And it's hard to tell whether most >>> users are silent because they're happy with it, or they're silent >>>
Re: tap-to-click feedback
Hi everyone, Ed McNierney escribió: > No, you're quite right - it's hard. And it's hard to tell whether most > users are silent because they're happy with it, or they're silent > because they don't even realize that they have a choice. It's very easy to tell: the OLPC project is not in close contact with the field. In this thread, we can observe the illusion that the hundreds of thousands of children would report to you if there was something suboptimal with their laptops. And there have been multiple reports, and yet "there is no consensus". 0. Of course the kids don't realise that they have a choice. 1. They can't write (a letter). 1. They don't have Internet. 2. They don't speak English and the web sites are in English. 3. Even western kids don't know their feedback counts or how to send it. 4. Same applies to teachers and most other people on the field. We'd really like to see a *memo* about the *decision* that was made to change the default functioning of the touchpad to tap-to-click! Someone recognized the change in time, someone didn't assign enough importance to it to fix it in time. Others haven't documented this problem so that it could be evaluated, reassessed, and fixed at some point. Now, "there is no consensus" even, although the issue is obvious. We didn't know about this before we assisted in a training week for the teachers in Satipo, where we saw that some machines had the new-style touchpads and the teachers were having problems with those. Despite all our explanations, many weren't able to learn to avoid the unintended clicks during the 40 hours of training. This means a lot of the only training they got was wasted. To us it seems obvious that tap-to-click is a bad idea on the XO: It's a complication. It's not very useful to anyone (as you can always click the button instead...). It's very harmful to some (as it makes the functioning of the mouse unpredictable). Did you first make sure that all mouse clicks in all software and all web sites are well-visualised and undo-able ?-) In these third-world conditions, reliability is far more important than small performance tweaks. We all know there's big problems with the old-style touchpads as well, but they are *less* important on the field. Why? Because the child with sweaty hands (try to avoid that here in the tropics!) can keep trying to point the mouse at the correct location until successful, *then* click the *button* and be done. With tap-to-click they aren't able to do this, and there's no solution for them, is there? Without an Internet connection and the knowledge on how and whom to contact, there's no-one listening to them. Greetings from Pucallpa, Tuukka and Kaisa > - Ed > > On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:42 AM, Sebastian Silva wrote: > >> Hi Ed, >> Our friends and volunteers Tuukka and Kaisa are currently in Pucallpa >> working >> with the teachers and kids. They probably havent seen this thread but >> this issue >> has popped up often here too and I wonder what you might think constitutes >> "consensus from deployments". >> >> Also, the larger issue of how to get the "silent majority" to speak up >> is something >> we are constantly working hard from the field to improve. Its hard, >> any suggestions >> on where exactly to aggregate info from the field, in a way that is >> not merely >> anecdotal, is welcome. >> >> Sebastian >> >> 2010/4/15 Ed McNierney mailto:e...@laptop.org>> >> >> Paul - >> >> This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 >> months or so (judging from my email archives). It is not at all >> clear to me that there is indeed a "consensus from deployments"; >> some like it, some don't. We tend to (unsurprisingly) hear little >> or nothing from the people who think it's working just fine, and >> it is very easy for a local group in which a few folks think the >> behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude that it's >> wrong. We've deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since >> this change, and I don't think we've seen hundreds of thousands of >> complaints. >> >> I don't have a strong opinion and I don't know the answer, but we >> should be very careful about ignoring the silent majority, if >> there is one. >> >>- Ed >> >> >> On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:18 AM, Paul Fox wrote: >> >> > daniel wrote: >> >> On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff >> mailto:martin.langh...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> >>> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva >> >>> mailto:sebast...@fuentelibre.org>> >> wrote: >> BTW how do you disable it? >> >>> >> >>> Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? >> >> >> >> (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver >> which >> >> introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to >> >> resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread. >> >> >> >>
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 10:54 AM, Daniel Drake wrote: > On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva >> wrote: >>> BTW how do you disable it? >> >> Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? > > (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver which > introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to > resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread. > > The most realistic quick-fix option I can think of is adding a small > hack into the psmouse driver in the OLPC kernel, which sends the > single command needed to disable tap-to-click. Last time I looked at > this code I remember thinking that this would be quite easy, since the > more-powerful synaptics driver doesn't actually change the mode of the > mouse, it just takes advantage of a whole load of non-standard > commands. See http://cscott.net/Projects/Synaptics/ Enjoy! --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: illusion (Re: tap-to-click feedback)
Hello OLPC! Glad to have your attention! Now while we do, it might be a good time to discuss ways to improve the way we can provide feedback. Please don't let our past and constant frustration with OLPC taint the very fact that we are volunteers trying to help OLPC's mission. It is no secret that OLPC has had trouble getting feedback from the field in Peru from the official "deployment team". Its understandable that you cannot be in the field with us. But we are here for you, so please, when we do provide feedback, with all the difficulties that this entails in our circumstances, do not act as if we're personally attacking you. This would be a good start. > "We *do* > get many reports from deployment teams that represent hundreds of > thousands of children, and try to collect and communicate that feedback > effectively. In fact, I'm going to meet with the head of one of them in > 15 minutes." I would have problems with this statement on so many levels, its practically impossible for me to answer constructively. The problem is, at least here, that these "heads of deployment teams" fail to "represent", or even listen to us, in the field, much like you do, to whom shall we direct our concerns? > We do get plenty of reports of other problems, so I don't > think there's a fundamental failure in our ability to get input from the > field. We can always hope to do better, of course. The feedback that you do get, is too little, too late. We are reporting now, and provide you with a window of oportunity to actually look at the field. If you do care, maybe you could use the oportunity to ask more questions? We would be more than happy to try to answer them. Please consider this, when you actually act on your hope. -- Sebastian Silva ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: illusion (Re: tap-to-click feedback)
tuukka wrote: > > Further, the deployment teams *cannot* represent the children. They > should strive to, but there is no substitute for going out on the field > and seeing with your own trained eyes. while your point is well taken, the fact remains that no one but the deployment teams is in a position to represent the children. i'm not sure how big an organization you imagine OLPC to be, but it's not nearly big enough to spend enough time in the field to allow replacing feedback from the deployment teams. (which isn't to say that we don't make field visits. we do.) > > There have actually been very few reports of problems with this > > touchpad behavior. We don't know why that is, and I don't think you do, > > either - although we can both speculate all day and fill the list > > archives. We do get plenty of reports of other problems, so I don't > > think there's a fundamental failure in our ability to get input from the > > field. We can always hope to do better, of course. > > We can't be sure and we could discuss, but we start to get the feeling > that we do have a better idea than you do, and yet you're not willing to > present your side and discuss. let's remember that this conversation started with a discussion of how we might go about changing the tap-to-click behavior. again, OLPC has limited resources, and we certainly don't want to make mistakes in applying them. it would be a real shame if we went to the effort of removing tap-to-click only to find that there was a large group of users that was perfectly happy with it, and who, in fact, like it. my personal opinion is that the existence of such a group is unlikely, but ed is right to say that we should be sure. > We haven't engaged here before, and maybe we still shouldn't have. All on the contrary -- we of course welcome your (constructive) suggestions, and, in this case, your feedback directly from the field. the system (such as it is) seems to be working. > If you re-read our message, we mention some imperfections in how this > issue has been handled from the beginning in the OLPC project. Please truly, in terms of mistakes made by OLPC, this one is probably pretty low on the severity list. richard has addressed this, but in case it wasn't clear: the touchpad hardware change was partially involuntary on the part of OLPC -- it was largely due to a supplier issue, but it had the side-effect of eliminating the huge issues we were having with the previous pad. the new h/w happened to coincide with a major s/w release -- in fact, i believe that it turned out to be the last major s/w release OLPC did for the XO-1. at the time, enabling the synaptics driver in the kernel (which would have let us disable tap-to-click) caused other problems which were far, far worse, so we decided not to do so. this seemed reasonable since the _only_ downside of not doing so was the tap-to-click issue. given the huge problems we'd been having (and still have!) with the previous touchpad, i think tap-to-click seemed very minor by comparison. in any case, i guess we should put your votes in the "please disable it" column. thanks for letting us know. :-) paul =- paul fox, p...@laptop.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On 04/15/2010 01:52 PM, Ed McNierney wrote: >> We'd really like to see a *memo* about the *decision* that was made >> to change the default functioning of the touchpad to tap-to-click! >> Someone recognized the change in time, someone didn't assign enough >> importance to it to fix it in time. I did. Please re-read my previous email. -- Richard A. Smith One Laptop per Child ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
Tuukaa - I don't quite see how you can make statements like "the OLPC project is not in close contact with the field". How do you know that? We *do* get many reports from deployment teams that represent hundreds of thousands of children, and try to collect and communicate that feedback effectively. In fact, I'm going to meet with the head of one of them in 15 minutes. There have actually been very few reports of problems with this touchpad behavior. We don't know why that is, and I don't think you do, either - although we can both speculate all day and fill the list archives. We do get plenty of reports of other problems, so I don't think there's a fundamental failure in our ability to get input from the field. We can always hope to do better, of course. Having a small number of users on the devel list report their own personal experiences and preferences just isn't helpful in determining what the best course would be. Offering a configuration option would be nice, although we would still need to know how to advise deployments on which default to choose. The device in question is a standard Synaptics touchpad, which comes configured in tap-to-click mode by default. It's used in plenty of other laptop machines. Surely that's at least circumstantial evidence that this behavior isn't universally despised. As for your assertion that the problems with the old-style touchpad are less important than this problem, there are those in the field who would most firmly disagree with you. That's one bit of evidence as to why I think a shouting match on the devel list is a rather unhelpful way to approach a solution. We have a globally-accessible, open, trouble-reporting database at http://dev.laptop.org - have you reported this problem? Has anyone else reported this problem? Searches for "tap-to-click" and "Synaptics" return a few tickets reporting various items, and one from Martin Langhoff (#9775) mentioning the ability to disable tap-to-click.But please don't claim we're not listening if you aren't willing to use the public trouble-reporting system we rely on. - Ed On Apr 15, 2010, at 1:24 PM, Tuukka Hastrup wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > Ed McNierney escribió: > > No, you're quite right - it's hard. And it's hard to tell whether most > > users are silent because they're happy with it, or they're silent > > because they don't even realize that they have a choice. > > It's very easy to tell: the OLPC project is not in close contact with the > field. In this thread, we can observe the illusion that the hundreds of > thousands of children would report to you if there was something suboptimal > with their laptops. And there have been multiple reports, and yet "there is > no consensus". > > 0. Of course the kids don't realise that they have a choice. > 1. They can't write (a letter). > 1. They don't have Internet. > 2. They don't speak English and the web sites are in English. > 3. Even western kids don't know their feedback counts or how to send it. > 4. Same applies to teachers and most other people on the field. > > We'd really like to see a *memo* about the *decision* that was made to change > the default functioning of the touchpad to tap-to-click! Someone recognized > the change in time, someone didn't assign enough importance to it to fix it > in time. Others haven't documented this problem so that it could be > evaluated, reassessed, and fixed at some point. Now, "there is no consensus" > even, although the issue is obvious. > > We didn't know about this before we assisted in a training week for the > teachers in Satipo, where we saw that some machines had the new-style > touchpads and the teachers were having problems with those. Despite all our > explanations, many weren't able to learn to avoid the unintended clicks > during the 40 hours of training. This means a lot of the only training they > got was wasted. > > To us it seems obvious that tap-to-click is a bad idea on the XO: It's a > complication. It's not very useful to anyone (as you can always click the > button instead...). It's very harmful to some (as it makes the functioning of > the mouse unpredictable). Did you first make sure that all mouse clicks in > all software and all web sites are well-visualised and undo-able ?-) In these > third-world conditions, reliability is far more important than small > performance tweaks. > > We all know there's big problems with the old-style touchpads as well, but > they are *less* important on the field. Why? Because the child with sweaty > hands (try to avoid that here in the tropics!) can keep trying to point the > mouse at the correct location until successful, *then* click the *button* and > be done. With tap-to-click they aren't able to do this, and there's no > solution for them, is there? Without an Internet connection and the knowledge > on how and whom to contact, there's no-one listening to them. > > > Greetings
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Richard Smith wrote: > Who are the ones that like it? I don't remember any good feedback. +1 m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
Sebastian - No, you're quite right - it's hard. And it's hard to tell whether most users are silent because they're happy with it, or they're silent because they don't even realize that they have a choice. - Ed On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:42 AM, Sebastian Silva wrote: > Hi Ed, > Our friends and volunteers Tuukka and Kaisa are currently in Pucallpa working > with the teachers and kids. They probably havent seen this thread but this > issue > has popped up often here too and I wonder what you might think constitutes > "consensus from deployments". > > Also, the larger issue of how to get the "silent majority" to speak up is > something > we are constantly working hard from the field to improve. Its hard, any > suggestions > on where exactly to aggregate info from the field, in a way that is not merely > anecdotal, is welcome. > > Sebastian > > 2010/4/15 Ed McNierney > Paul - > > This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 months or so > (judging from my email archives). It is not at all clear to me that there is > indeed a "consensus from deployments"; some like it, some don't. We tend to > (unsurprisingly) hear little or nothing from the people who think it's > working just fine, and it is very easy for a local group in which a few folks > think the behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude that it's wrong. > We've deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since this change, and I > don't think we've seen hundreds of thousands of complaints. > > I don't have a strong opinion and I don't know the answer, but we should be > very careful about ignoring the silent majority, if there is one. > >- Ed > > > On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:18 AM, Paul Fox wrote: > > > daniel wrote: > >> On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff wrote: > >>> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva > >>> wrote: > BTW how do you disable it? > >>> > >>> Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? > >> > >> (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver which > >> introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to > >> resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread. > >> > >> The most realistic quick-fix option I can think of is adding a small > >> hack into the psmouse driver in the OLPC kernel, which sends the > >> single command needed to disable tap-to-click. Last time I looked at > >> this code I remember thinking that this would be quite easy, since the > >> more-powerful synaptics driver doesn't actually change the mode of the > >> mouse, it just takes advantage of a whole load of non-standard > >> commands. > > > > that's a good idea. > > > > if such a thing were to be introduced, and if it could be made > > run-time or boot-time controllable, i take it the consensus from > > deployments is that tap-to-click is more confusing than helpful, > > and it should be disabled by default. correct? > > > > (i know that i myself find it annoying. the XO is annoying > > enough to type on, without having my windows flip out from under > > me because i have careless thumbs.) > > > > paul > > =- > > paul fox, p...@laptop.org > > ___ > > Devel mailing list > > Devel@lists.laptop.org > > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > > > > -- > Sebastian Silva > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
Hi Ed, Our friends and volunteers Tuukka and Kaisa are currently in Pucallpa working with the teachers and kids. They probably havent seen this thread but this issue has popped up often here too and I wonder what you might think constitutes "consensus from deployments". Also, the larger issue of how to get the "silent majority" to speak up is something we are constantly working hard from the field to improve. Its hard, any suggestions on where exactly to aggregate info from the field, in a way that is not merely anecdotal, is welcome. Sebastian 2010/4/15 Ed McNierney > Paul - > > This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 months or so > (judging from my email archives). It is not at all clear to me that there > is indeed a "consensus from deployments"; some like it, some don't. We tend > to (unsurprisingly) hear little or nothing from the people who think it's > working just fine, and it is very easy for a local group in which a few > folks think the behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude that it's > wrong. We've deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since this change, > and I don't think we've seen hundreds of thousands of complaints. > > I don't have a strong opinion and I don't know the answer, but we should be > very careful about ignoring the silent majority, if there is one. > >- Ed > > > On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:18 AM, Paul Fox wrote: > > > daniel wrote: > >> On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff > wrote: > >>> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva > >>> wrote: > BTW how do you disable it? > >>> > >>> Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? > >> > >> (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver which > >> introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to > >> resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread. > >> > >> The most realistic quick-fix option I can think of is adding a small > >> hack into the psmouse driver in the OLPC kernel, which sends the > >> single command needed to disable tap-to-click. Last time I looked at > >> this code I remember thinking that this would be quite easy, since the > >> more-powerful synaptics driver doesn't actually change the mode of the > >> mouse, it just takes advantage of a whole load of non-standard > >> commands. > > > > that's a good idea. > > > > if such a thing were to be introduced, and if it could be made > > run-time or boot-time controllable, i take it the consensus from > > deployments is that tap-to-click is more confusing than helpful, > > and it should be disabled by default. correct? > > > > (i know that i myself find it annoying. the XO is annoying > > enough to type on, without having my windows flip out from under > > me because i have careless thumbs.) > > > > paul > > =- > > paul fox, p...@laptop.org > > ___ > > Devel mailing list > > Devel@lists.laptop.org > > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > -- Sebastian Silva ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
Richard - I have a specific recollection of folks in Rwanda "liking it". But my bigger concern is that we've shipped an awful lot of these with very few reported complaints. I just don't know what that means. It may well be that most folks don't like it, but I don't think we know. As they say in some courts of law, "Not Proven". We can certainly make an effort to inquire specifically about this and attempt to get good input from existing users. - Ed On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:35 AM, Richard Smith wrote: > On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Ed McNierney wrote: >> Paul - >> >> This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 months or so >> (judging from my email archives). It is not at all clear to me that there >> is indeed a "consensus from deployments"; some like it, some don't. > > Who are the ones that like it? I don't remember any good feedback. > >> We tend to (unsurprisingly) hear little or nothing from the people who >> think it's working just fine, and it is very easy for a local group in which >> a few folks think the behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude >> that it's wrong. We've deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since >> this change, and I don't think we've seen hundreds of thousands of >> complaints. > > When we first started testing the new pads this issues came up and > because it was a change in behavior from the way ALPS worked. I > remember the end result was to disable it. The problem is that its on > by default in the hardware. You have to turn it off. To turn it off > you have to run the synaptics driver. Running the synaptics driver > caused many regressions. We had too many other things to work on > rather than the synaptics driver so it shipped with it enabled. > > -- > Richard A. Smith ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Ed McNierney wrote: > Paul - > > This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 months or so > (judging from my email archives). It is not at all clear to me that there is > indeed a "consensus from deployments"; some like it, some don't. Who are the ones that like it? I don't remember any good feedback. > We tend to (unsurprisingly) hear little or nothing from the people who think >it's working just fine, and it is very easy for a local group in which a few >folks think the behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude that it's >wrong. We've deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since this change, >and I don't think we've seen hundreds of thousands of complaints. When we first started testing the new pads this issues came up and because it was a change in behavior from the way ALPS worked. I remember the end result was to disable it. The problem is that its on by default in the hardware. You have to turn it off. To turn it off you have to run the synaptics driver. Running the synaptics driver caused many regressions. We had too many other things to work on rather than the synaptics driver so it shipped with it enabled. -- Richard A. Smith ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
Paul - This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 months or so (judging from my email archives). It is not at all clear to me that there is indeed a "consensus from deployments"; some like it, some don't. We tend to (unsurprisingly) hear little or nothing from the people who think it's working just fine, and it is very easy for a local group in which a few folks think the behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude that it's wrong. We've deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since this change, and I don't think we've seen hundreds of thousands of complaints. I don't have a strong opinion and I don't know the answer, but we should be very careful about ignoring the silent majority, if there is one. - Ed On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:18 AM, Paul Fox wrote: > daniel wrote: >> On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff wrote: >>> On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva >>> wrote: BTW how do you disable it? >>> >>> Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? >> >> (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver which >> introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to >> resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread. >> >> The most realistic quick-fix option I can think of is adding a small >> hack into the psmouse driver in the OLPC kernel, which sends the >> single command needed to disable tap-to-click. Last time I looked at >> this code I remember thinking that this would be quite easy, since the >> more-powerful synaptics driver doesn't actually change the mode of the >> mouse, it just takes advantage of a whole load of non-standard >> commands. > > that's a good idea. > > if such a thing were to be introduced, and if it could be made > run-time or boot-time controllable, i take it the consensus from > deployments is that tap-to-click is more confusing than helpful, > and it should be disabled by default. correct? > > (i know that i myself find it annoying. the XO is annoying > enough to type on, without having my windows flip out from under > me because i have careless thumbs.) > > paul > =- > paul fox, p...@laptop.org > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
daniel wrote: > On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva > > wrote: > >> BTW how do you disable it? > > > > Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? > > (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver which > introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to > resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread. > > The most realistic quick-fix option I can think of is adding a small > hack into the psmouse driver in the OLPC kernel, which sends the > single command needed to disable tap-to-click. Last time I looked at > this code I remember thinking that this would be quite easy, since the > more-powerful synaptics driver doesn't actually change the mode of the > mouse, it just takes advantage of a whole load of non-standard > commands. that's a good idea. if such a thing were to be introduced, and if it could be made run-time or boot-time controllable, i take it the consensus from deployments is that tap-to-click is more confusing than helpful, and it should be disabled by default. correct? (i know that i myself find it annoying. the XO is annoying enough to type on, without having my windows flip out from under me because i have careless thumbs.) paul =- paul fox, p...@laptop.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
I have an old HP laptop with tap-to-click turned on by default when there's no external mouse. It is annoying to be typing text and have your thumb accidentally brush the touchpad and suddenly you're typing in a totally different location in the text, wherever the mouse pointer happened to be aimed.Perhaps adding a touchpad lockout delay that momentarily disables tap-to-click for 1 second, or whatever, after a keyboard key is pressed would help, something like "debouncing" a switch contact in a driver. A control-panel parameter should be provided to adjust the lockout period -- some kids might need more than a 1 second lockout. On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 7:40 AM, Martin Langhoff wrote: > On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva > wrote: > > BTW how do you disable it? > > Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? > > > > m > -- > martin.langh...@gmail.com > mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect > - ask interesting questions > - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first > - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff wrote: > On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva > wrote: >> BTW how do you disable it? > > Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver which introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread. The most realistic quick-fix option I can think of is adding a small hack into the psmouse driver in the OLPC kernel, which sends the single command needed to disable tap-to-click. Last time I looked at this code I remember thinking that this would be quite easy, since the more-powerful synaptics driver doesn't actually change the mode of the mouse, it just takes advantage of a whole load of non-standard commands. Daniel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva wrote: > BTW how do you disable it? Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds? m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
BTW how do you disable it? There is a thread about the subject currently on OLPC-Uruguay. http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-uruguay/2010-April/002075.html Sebastian 2010/4/15 Sebastian Silva > We saw this issue in our work with the Cantagallo comunity school > here in Lima. Tuukka and Kaisa saw it in the teacher training they > attended, it seems to be very confusing for new users, who have > never used a touchpad before (they tend to touch the pad gently > and briefly, obtaining a click instead of moving the pointer). > > I think more testing should have gone into this before > deploying it! > > Cheers > Sebastian > > 2009/10/22 Daniel Drake > > Just wanted to communicate an experience from the deployment here: >> >> A while back, we (OLPC + community) discussed the behaviour of the new >> XO touchpads which have tap-to-click on by default. We debated >> including the fairly large software changes to be able to disable this >> functionality with the interest of retaining the behaviour of the old >> touchpad. We decided against it and shipped software with tap-to-click >> enabled, in hope that it wouldn't cause problems and users would >> adjust. >> >> Well, in my 3-4 months here in Nepal I've heard repeated cries for >> disabling this, since it is causing confusion for children and >> teachers in the schools. Really I think the biggest issue is that they >> press it by accident while typing or making other motions and have no >> idea why the screen has changed significantly (they don't understand >> that it's because they clicked, or that their hand was near the pad). >> >> Do other deployments share the same experience? >> >> Daniel >> ___ >> Devel mailing list >> Devel@lists.laptop.org >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel >> > > > > -- > Sebastian Silva > > -- Sebastian Silva ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
We saw this issue in our work with the Cantagallo comunity school here in Lima. Tuukka and Kaisa saw it in the teacher training they attended, it seems to be very confusing for new users, who have never used a touchpad before (they tend to touch the pad gently and briefly, obtaining a click instead of moving the pointer). I think more testing should have gone into this before deploying it! Cheers Sebastian 2009/10/22 Daniel Drake > Just wanted to communicate an experience from the deployment here: > > A while back, we (OLPC + community) discussed the behaviour of the new > XO touchpads which have tap-to-click on by default. We debated > including the fairly large software changes to be able to disable this > functionality with the interest of retaining the behaviour of the old > touchpad. We decided against it and shipped software with tap-to-click > enabled, in hope that it wouldn't cause problems and users would > adjust. > > Well, in my 3-4 months here in Nepal I've heard repeated cries for > disabling this, since it is causing confusion for children and > teachers in the schools. Really I think the biggest issue is that they > press it by accident while typing or making other motions and have no > idea why the screen has changed significantly (they don't understand > that it's because they clicked, or that their hand was near the pad). > > Do other deployments share the same experience? > > Daniel > ___ > Devel mailing list > Devel@lists.laptop.org > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > -- Sebastian Silva ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 10:46:30AM -0700, John Gilmore wrote: > There seems to be something wrong with general Linux mouse behavior. I felt this as well on Debian in the past few months ... I couldn't fix it easily, ended up disabling the new kernel based input feature. I *think* this is all I did: xorg.conf: Section "ServerFlags" Option "AutoAddDevices" "False" EndSection -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On Oct 22 2009, at 13:10, Chris Ball was caught saying: > Hi, > >> so: to eliminate tap-to-click, someone needs to build a new >> kernel with the synaptics driver enabled (maybe just the module >> can be built), then they need to figure out how to make it all >> work well. > > I might be wrong, but I think we just need the X driver -- yum install > xorg-x11-drv-synaptics. Xorg drivers are generally not layered on top > of kernel drivers, outside of the case of DRI. I recalled that I poked at this last year and there is a series of bugs I opened in trac around synaptics issues. See http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/9101. ~Deepak ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
> teachers in the schools. Really I think the biggest issue is that they > press it by accident while typing or making other motions and have no > idea why the screen has changed significantly (they don't understand > that it's because they clicked, or that their hand was near the pad). Ubuntu Karmic has a Gnome "Mouse Properties" setting that lets you disable the touchpad while you're typing. Presumably either this is upstream, or can be ported to Fedora. (Of course, you don't want to have the kids switch to Gnome, fix the touchpad, and switch back to Sugar, so it's all more complicated.) John ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
> we tried the synaptics driver initially (when we got the new > touchpads) but by itself it caused extremely erratic (perhaps not > erratic, exactly, but just way-too-fast) mouse cursor behavior. There seems to be something wrong with general Linux mouse behavior. Even on ordinary optical mice (like the HP I'm using now), the mouse works fine about 98% of the time; then it jumps to the top of the screen inappropriately. (Running Ubuntu Jaunty with 2.6.28-11-server kernel.) I'd noticed this with touchpads and assumed it was a buggy touchpad, but it seems to be a more generic bug somewhere in Linux. The latest Ubuntu (karmic beta) disables tap-to-click by default, which is a regression (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/+bug/378391 with it's more-than-a-dozen duplicates and see also #441013). It turned out that there was a lot of complicated interaction behind the scenes that would make it work, fail, work, fail, ... with different versions of various packages. John ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
2009/10/22 Chris Ball : > I might be wrong, but I think we just need the X driver -- yum install > xorg-x11-drv-synaptics. Xorg drivers are generally not layered on top > of kernel drivers, outside of the case of DRI. Didn't work for me: http://www.mail-archive.com/devel@lists.laptop.org/msg20268.html I think Paul is right but I have not confirmed. Daniel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
Hi, > so: to eliminate tap-to-click, someone needs to build a new > kernel with the synaptics driver enabled (maybe just the module > can be built), then they need to figure out how to make it all > work well. I might be wrong, but I think we just need the X driver -- yum install xorg-x11-drv-synaptics. Xorg drivers are generally not layered on top of kernel drivers, outside of the case of DRI. - Chris. -- Chris Ball One Laptop Per Child ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
benjamin m. schwartz wrote: > Daniel Drake wrote: > > Really I think the biggest issue is that they > > press it by accident while typing or making other motions and have no > > idea why the screen has changed significantly (they don't understand > > that it's because they clicked, or that their hand was near the pad). > > Normally, Synaptics touchpads use logic that (1) ignores large-area > contact, assuming it's an accidental touch with the palm, and (2) disables > the touchpad while the keyboard is active. If those measures are not in > place, there will be a problem regardless of tap-to-click. > > I don't know where in the stack this logic lives. If that logic is > already active, then it sounds like further measures are warranted. i'm not sure where that lives either, but the initial key to the puzzle is that we don't currently use the synaptics kernel driver, which i believe is required for disabling tap-to-click. we tried the synaptics driver initially (when we got the new touchpads) but by itself it caused extremely erratic (perhaps not erratic, exactly, but just way-too-fast) mouse cursor behavior. at the time it seemed like we were going to need more changes further up the stack (new X driver? not sure), and since behavior was reasonable with the generic mouse driver (with the minor worry about tap-to-click), we left things as they were. so: to eliminate tap-to-click, someone needs to build a new kernel with the synaptics driver enabled (maybe just the module can be built), then they need to figure out how to make it all work well. paul =- paul fox, p...@laptop.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 02:40:04PM +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote: > > On 22.10.2009, at 14:01, James Cameron wrote: > > > I can only relate personal experience ... yes, it caught me by > > surprise > > quite a few times in the past few days. > > Me too - e.g., in TamTamMini it's easy to accidentally touch the pad > while hammering on the keys. Sorry to say "me too", but, yeah. I manage to spuriously click about 5% (well, maybe that's harsh) of the time. > - Bert - Martin pgpSBv3yWVxl4.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
Daniel Drake wrote: > Really I think the biggest issue is that they > press it by accident while typing or making other motions and have no > idea why the screen has changed significantly (they don't understand > that it's because they clicked, or that their hand was near the pad). Normally, Synaptics touchpads use logic that (1) ignores large-area contact, assuming it's an accidental touch with the palm, and (2) disables the touchpad while the keyboard is active. If those measures are not in place, there will be a problem regardless of tap-to-click. I don't know where in the stack this logic lives. If that logic is already active, then it sounds like further measures are warranted. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
On 22.10.2009, at 14:01, James Cameron wrote: > I can only relate personal experience ... yes, it caught me by > surprise > quite a few times in the past few days. Me too - e.g., in TamTamMini it's easy to accidentally touch the pad while hammering on the keys. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: tap-to-click feedback
I can only relate personal experience ... yes, it caught me by surprise quite a few times in the past few days. -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
tap-to-click feedback
Just wanted to communicate an experience from the deployment here: A while back, we (OLPC + community) discussed the behaviour of the new XO touchpads which have tap-to-click on by default. We debated including the fairly large software changes to be able to disable this functionality with the interest of retaining the behaviour of the old touchpad. We decided against it and shipped software with tap-to-click enabled, in hope that it wouldn't cause problems and users would adjust. Well, in my 3-4 months here in Nepal I've heard repeated cries for disabling this, since it is causing confusion for children and teachers in the schools. Really I think the biggest issue is that they press it by accident while typing or making other motions and have no idea why the screen has changed significantly (they don't understand that it's because they clicked, or that their hand was near the pad). Do other deployments share the same experience? Daniel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
