Customizing a Magic Trackpad using BetterTouchTool

I bought a Magic Trackpad about two months ago and HATED IT! I have three 24" monitors, running Illustrator, Photoshop, PyMol (molecular graphics), InDesign and various other programs. It was not as good as my Kensington Expert Mouse (trackball). It was Killing my shoulder, I thought I tossed away $75! But then I did a Google search for some better software to control the Magic Trackpad and found BetterTouchTool. My life changed overnight!!!!

You can set the trackpad to be totally touch sensitive, no clicking the nonadjustable trackpad feet. What was Apple thinking by not adding click adjustment like they have on the laptops?

The Magic Trackpad is 100 times better then the Kensington Expert Mouse (trackball). I try to go back and use the trackball now and it feels like a boat anchor!!! Can't imagine how I ever used that thing.

The trackpad allows scrolling in all directions in any program, zooming from the trackpad (not using a zoom tool), and three button clicking in PyMol! It's smoking hot at navigating the three screens.

One thing... It took my brain a good two weeks to relearn how to interact with the computer using the trackpad with the BetterTouchTool. There was a learning curve to conquer.

I actually bought a Magic Trackpad today, coincidentally. I notice BetterTouchTool can't, but is there a way to use the Trackpad as a Wacom-style tablet, with the surface mapped 1-1 with the screen?

I'd be happy if someone came out with a way to actually disable drag lock. As it is my Macbook is damn near unusable for me. I don't know how people put up with a 1 second pause between every move they make.

Might take another look, could never get it to work with plex, trying to map an arrow key to a gesture just caused it to keep going wth only one swipe. Tried emailing dev, but got complete ignored, so gave up on it.

That was all i wanted it for because when it comes to other stuff, I can't see how people can remember so many more gestures than what apple have already deployed. Either that or with too many gestures, they all become too similar and you end up doing the wrong thing like 'was that action 4 finger swipe or 5 finger?' , so I'm intrigued as to how people manage that to say they can't live without it!!

Started tinkering after reading this article - so far so good, especially after I told it to ignore my thumb. :-)

I found BTT when I was looking for a way to not have to "click" the magic mouse, but rather just tap. Since then I've added a few gestures to do some things I find handy. It's an excellent tool that hasn't failed me a single time since the day the magic mouse came out.

@John B. - It may be perpetually in beta, but it is solid (you can optionally enable "alpha" release updates, but the beta releases have been of excellent quality. Keep in mind, the vast majority of Google's stuff is in beta for years, but used widely. It's not like online video games or Microsoft products where even released software should be beta!

http://www.macworld.com/article/157058/2011/01/trackpadtricks.html?lsrc=top_2

Posted on Macworld.com on 17 January.

Yea, I'm with Dorv:

BTT is one of the must have apps on my computer. Everything from the customizable gestures to the Windows 7-style window snapping make it just incredibly useful. It is in perpetual beta, but the developer releases updates and fixes all the time and its pretty (read: almost completely) stable.

I've been using BBT solidly since I picked up my Magic Mouse right after its release. It is a "can't live without" piece of software on my MBP.

I've been using MagicPrefs because BetterTouchTool always seemed to be in a perpetual beta (with disclaimers). Maybe I'll have to look at BTT again.

The only thing I really *need* from applications like these is the ability to get the Exposé functionality in my new Magic Mouse, like I had with my old Mighty Mouse. Kind of a shame Apple didn't both include that with built-in driver for the Magic Mouse.