Filed under: Mac 101
Mac 101: Multi-touch Tips
Using Two Fingers
- Scroll -- If you're in a long document, or webpage, you can easily scroll through it by moving two fingers, side-by-side, up and down the trackpad. This feature works in almost any application.
- Rotate -- If you're in Preview.app or iPhoto, you can easily rotate a photo by rotating two fingers (like twisting off a bottle cap). This will work in only a few Apple applications, and may work with some third-party apps.
- Pinch Open and Close -- In Preview.app or iPhoto, you can zoom in on a photo by "pinching" the trackpad using two fingers. This is similar to the way you would zoom a photo on the iPhone.
- You can launch Exposé by swiping four fingers downward on the trackpad. This will allow you to view all open windows as tiles on your screen. This is the equivalent to using fn + F9.
- You can view your desktop by swiping four fingers upward on the trackpad. This will allow you to see everything on your desktop, without the clutter of open windows. This is the equivalent to using fn + F11.
- While reading your email in Mail.app, try swiping three fingers up or down on the trackpad. This will allow you to move to the next / last email without clicking or using the arrow keys.
- While in browsing the web in Safari.app, try the two-finger "pinch" to zoom in on text. You can also use three fingers to swipe back and forth through the recent browsing history.
- If you want more cool multi-touch trackpad features, check the "Trackpad" section of System Preferences.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Chris said 12:21PM on 11-06-2008
A lot of useless information except the last paragraph, maybe you could of just written that, instead of giving us info that we can find easily on our computer.
Also when using the four fingers to the right to bring up the alt-tab like list of applications, you can use two fingers to cycle between them and select the app you want with spacebar.
its your job to make that more coherent
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brian said 3:54PM on 11-06-2008
Whoever has the new MacBook or the MacBook air knows about this be default as it is ridiculously simple.
People....can any one please find a patch/application/program which allows you to have multi-touch feature in the original Macbook Pro??? or is it just impossible....I though this is 2008, why can't any one help?
http://www.livbit.com
teeth weasel said 9:51AM on 11-18-2008
It's impossible to port multitouch back to the old macbook pros - it's a different piece of hardware that doesn't support the same features as the new ones - this isn't just apple saying it, it's been independently confirmed by outside companies as well.
Honestly - you're not missing much in that arena. I have one of the new MBPs and the multi touch support feels extremely tacked on and is actually sometimes a little inconvenient (I perform with my machine so occasionally I wind up in the heat of the moment placing too many fingers on the touchpad and changing applications or popping open expose or something - it can be frustrating.)
egordin said 12:32PM on 11-06-2008
In Adium, you can switch tabs by swiping with three fingers to the right or left.
In Photoshop CS4, you have the same multitouch controls that you do in Preview and iPhoto.
What else is there guys?
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egordin said 12:32PM on 11-06-2008
In Adium, you can switch tabs by swiping with three fingers to the right or left.
In Photoshop CS4, you have the same multitouch controls that you do in Preview and iPhoto.
What else is there guys?
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Luke Bornheimer said 12:58PM on 11-06-2008
Also in the new Mozilla Minefield (currently in Alpha stage) you can use three finger swipe down to get to the bottom of the page and three fingers up to get to the top.
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moo083 said 1:00PM on 11-06-2008
Is it possible (or will it be possible) to use these new gestures on a last generation Macbook Pro? It does have a mulitouch trackpad after all. Is there still some hardware restriction I'm not thinking of?
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oZ said 1:08PM on 11-06-2008
It'd be neat to be able to reconfigure some of it. I'd love to use the four finger left-right swipe to change spaces instead of apps.
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jollyllama said 1:38PM on 11-06-2008
Forget all this and download Multiclutch, which lets you assign multitouch gestures to anything you want on an app-by-app basis. It's silly Apple hasn't included this yet (they've been making multi-touch MBP's for almost a year) but until they do, Multiclutch has you covered.
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Craig said 3:33PM on 11-06-2008
Awesome, I was coming here just to ask for such a feature. Google Earth needs pinch/zoom support asap
paxswill said 2:27PM on 11-06-2008
Another happy user of Multiclutch. I have the 3 finger swipe set up to swap my Spaces around, and when I turned it off to try out the Firefox alpha, I was lost. Multiclutch is amazing.
tobe said 2:01PM on 11-06-2008
use 3 fingers to jump to the next page in preview for mulipage PDFs
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Kai Cherry said 2:22PM on 11-06-2008
the pinch works in safari too...it makes the text bigger or smaller.
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Stephen.4 said 2:23PM on 11-06-2008
In the new Minefield browser by Mozilla (3.1pre-beta2), you can use the pinch to zoom all elements on a page (Pictures, flash, text, etc.).
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Matt said 2:32PM on 11-06-2008
Missing from the list of two fingered gestures is the two-fingered tap on the pad which is the same as a right click on the mouse. Means you don't have to configure a corner of the trackpad for right clicks.
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Stephen Froom said 4:07PM on 11-06-2008
Also missing from the list: three finger swipes left or right in Safari will go back or forward between web pages.
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Oliver said 10:13PM on 11-06-2008
using four fingers to swipe left or write will activate application switcher. when that happens, tap with four fingers to switch to that application
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Techslacker said 10:14PM on 11-06-2008
Too bad you can't customize what the swipes do yourself. I would rather have 4 finger swipes in any direction be config'd for changing Spaces.
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Luigi193 said 10:30PM on 11-06-2008
Isn't there any way to disabale them!?!?!?
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Philipe said 1:08AM on 11-07-2008
I'd love to se the ability to do a 3rd mouse button click with three fingers to open links in new tabs.
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