Multi-finger touchpad on Sony Vaio (why isn't anyone talking about this?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkD22bQllHo

I knew nothing of it until I made my icons big by mistake, then I slid my fingers back together and they went back small and I was like .

Pretty cool feature! is this new to the Vaio Laptops?

 

Not really, it's more of a driver feature with the Synaptics touchpads. For instance I have mine working like a MacBook with two-finger scroll and the whole 9 yards. I've seen some windows implementations of multitouch but I'd say how I have mine configured, it's much more fluid than the solutions from HP or the like.

 

how many maximum fingers can it detect/if you were able to customize it like u did!?

 

I think the maximum is 3 fingers. On mine a 3-finger swipe to the left is back and to the right is foward. Two finger tap is a right click and two finger scroll up and down.

 

Wait a minute, so I can do those cool fingering techniques on my Vaio Z?

Where do I read up about all the different gestures that are supported?

 

It depends on which Synaptics drivers you have installed. I'm not sure about support for the ALPS touchpads though. I'm pretty sure the Z series has a Synaptics pad, seeing as how Synaptics are a better touchpad generally. But make sure you have support for "multiple fingers" in your Synaptics control panel and you can pretty much configure it how you like.

 

Nope, the Z has the Alps Touchpad.

I have no idea why Sony went with a Alps on a $2k Z, while even my dad's $500 Acer's got a great Synaptics pad.

 

Looks like a bit of a ball ache watching that video imo.

 

HI,

I have a SR59vg/h and can I enable muilti touch on the pad?
And how do i get about getting the drivers for doing this and how is it done?

 

Ouch. Man I hate ALPS pads! lol.. I know right, my 399 back to school special Acer 3680 has a Synaptics touchpad. They're just great touchpads, and the driver support is every bit as good as it should be.

 

First do you have a Synaptics touchpad? If you do, then try *these drivers*. Also make sure you uninstall your current and reboot, before you install these drivers. Also once you have these installed tell us what your synaptics configuration panel looks like. Seems they're all different in some way.

 

yes it is Synaptics touchpad I will try it now see what happens

 

These drivers are older than the ones i currently have on my system could this be a problem?

 

Yes, they are older, but they've been modified for multitouch capabilities. And no, they shouldn't be a problem. If if doesn't work the way you think it should, then you can always just go back to the version you had before. The trackpad will have basic functionality with or without synaptics drivers.

 

So what's so bad about the Alps touchpads?
Except of course no support for multi-touch.
Build quality and sensitivity seem to be up to the job.

 

Maybe Sony made sure that in the Z they functioned alright, but in most notebooks, they're beyond horrible.

 

Synaptics has an add on called scrybe. It allows some nice customization of the keypad function. http://www.synaptics.com/support/drivers

 

hey i have a new vaio cw, how do i change the configs of my synaptics?

 

laidback: Hit start/all programs/control center and you should see something like pointing devise.

 

When I try to install the driver version linked above I get the following error: "DPInst does not execute on your current operating system."

This is on a brand new VPCCW26FX running Win 7 Home Premium.

How configurable is this anyway? Can you assign anything you want? For instance, I would like two finger tap to be middle click (aka wheel click), three finger tap to be right click, etc. I have an EEE PC and it has great multitouch that I am used to.

 

This driver might not work on the new i3/i5 machines, because the system architecture is different, I'm not sure that the way the touchpad interfaces with the system is the same. Tell me this... when you view webpages through FireFox or IE can you currently pinch to zoom, or do you have ChiralMotion (circle your finger to keep scrolling)?

 

Yep, and old to the Apple laptops.

 

Yes, I downloaded the newest driver (14.0.3.27) off the Synaptics website and it has those features, as well as two-finger scrolling, three-finger gestures, etc. It does about 90% of what I want to do, I had just hoped for a little more customizability (assign two-finger tap, three-finger tap, etc). Maybe none of the driver versions have this.

Overall I'm pretty happy...it'll just take some getting used to.

By the way, thanks for all the help you've been providing people!

 

Im still hoping for a two finger tap right click and three finger tap middle click.

They have a three finger tap function, but confusingly limited it to just launching applications.

 

Try *this* program. It's a straight .exe in a zip folder. It's been developed for multitouch control and personalization options. Before you run this program, go into the Synaptics control panel and turn off pretty much all gestures, but leave the box checked for multi-finger support. Also before you first launch this program, place it in your "My Documents" folder so that it'll be out of the way so you won't accidentally delete it and wonder where your scrolling went... Upon first run this is the screen you'll see...
Make sure to check the box for run on windows startup, so you won't have to mess with it everytime, it'll be in the background.


On this screen you can select your scrolling type. I'd suggest "Smooth" because I haven't found much change really between the modes and "Smooth" provides a GREAT experience in Firefox. Google Chrome and Safari AFAIK don't support "smooth scrolling" so if you want a more "Mac Like" experience go with this option and Firefox 3.5+. Also with the scrolling speed, it depends on your tastes. But for me, I have a UMBP with the big "glass" touchpad, and these are the closest settings I could get to mimic the Mac.


Lastly... Two Finger Tap to right-click. You can enable that here, along with three finger features.