For my personal computer, I use a keyboard that has a
built-in touchpad. It is more efficient than using a
mouse
separate from the keyboard (hand moves less distance
between keys and the cursor-control).
For some reason keyboards with touchpads were quite
popular for a few years (about
15 years ago), and then
mostly disappeared. You can still find old models on
eBay
and other places, if you want one. And, of course, the
huge majority of laptop computers have touchpads near
the keyboard.
It happens that while I greatly appreciate the basic
things
about touchpads ("no moving parts!") there is a
particular
"feature" of touchpads that I dislike intensely. This is
the
"tap to click" feature. The problem is, you have to
TOUCH
the touchpad in order to move the mouse-cursor, but if
you touch it just a touch too much, then the device
sends
a "click" signal to the computer, and undesirable things
tend to happen as a result (suppose you were trying to
move the mouse-cursor AWAY FROM a "delete data"
button?).
Depending on the "driver" software for a touchpad, its
"touchiness" can be adjusted somewhat, to make it less
likely that a touch gets registered as a click, and
sometimes the touch-to-click feature can be disabled
entirely. Except for one thing! Because the keyboards I
have are old, the drivers are old, too. They don't
properly
work with today's versions of the Operating System!
(And
the touchpad technology has itself changed so much that
new drivers don't work with old touchpads.)
Now let's consider Posting an Idea here at the Half-
Bakery.
You click the "add" link, and the browser obliging opens
up
a window in which you can type text like you are reading
right now. Every now and then you make a typographical
error, and need to use the Backspace key to fix it.
Meanwhile, because the mouse-cursor is covering up
some
of the text you are writing, and you need to re-read that
text to maintain the writing "flow", you have moved it
away
from
the main text-editing area. If you clicked the mouse-
button, the overall browser window would be selected,
not
the text area in which you are writing. GENERALLY, this
is
not a problem.
However! Remember the need to use the Backspace key
occasionally? Sometimes when I am in a bit of a hurry
and
am typing madly, part of my arm brushes the touchpad
hard enough to register as a "click". Because of the
physical location of the touchpad, the probability of that
event is increased when I reach toward the Backspace
key.
So, after typing a nice long and brilliant Idea for an hour,
the following events can happen Very Quickly:
1. I make a typographical error.
2. I reach for the Backspace key.
3. My arm brushes the touchpad and a "click" is
registered.
4. The main browser window becomes selected. It will
receive the next input that I give it.
5. I press the Backspace key.
6. The browser obligingly closes down the "add Idea"
page, and goes Back to the previous Web Page.
All that work is lost!!!!
I try not to be a violent person, but I am quite willing to
scream from mental agony when that happens.
PLEASE, Let Me Have A Way To Disable The Browser's
Connection Between The Backspace Key and the "Back To
Previous Web Page" functionality!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The browser still offers a "Back Button" on the screen,
and I'm perfectly willing to use that to go to the previous
page, when that is what I want to do. I'm sure they
created the connection between the Backspace key and
the "Back" browser-feature because using the keyboard
IS more efficient than moving the hand over there where
the mouse is. But I have a nice efficient keyboard-with-
a-touchpad, remember?!?! For me, it is so easy to move
the mouse-cursor that I have no need of that
"shortcut to disaster" connected to the Backspace key.