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Ask HN: Suggestions for Additional Touchpad

1 points by gala8y ↗ HN
I need to start using mouse less. I had a broken right wrist in childhood and using mouse a lot gives me some RSI symptoms recently. I am trying to be more keyboard oriented (using Vimium in browser for example), but I still need to move pointer around. I have a laptop with Mint, but I always use external, mechanical keyboard and a G502 Logitech mouse and external monitors. A friend of mine, using laptop for dev, suggested that additional touchpad could be a solution. What touchpad would you suggest, do you use a similar setup (ext. keyboard, ext. monitors, additional touchpad)?

8 comments

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ofalkaed
I also have occasional wrist issues from a long ago broken wrist, touch pads don't help a great deal, better than a mouse but not great. I find a trackball to be much better, I like the Kensington Expert, as long as I use the wrist support which comes with it I never have any wrist issues. The Thinkpad trackpoint is also quite good but if you are set on a mechanical keyboard I am not sure that will work for you, I doubt any of the keyboards with trackpoints are mechanical.
gala8y
Hi, thanks for the reply. The Kensington Expert trackball you mention looks interesting as it is not tilted toward vertical plane, like many trackballs. I always thought it would be strange to kind of reach over the device when taking hand back to the keyboard and never considered using a trackball. I looked at it and wrist support looks oddly designed for me, with this bump in the center of it.

Anyway, seems like you talk from your own experience regarding touchpads vs. trackballs. Thanks again for you reply, will really think about buying a trackball.

Yeah, I'm used to have ext. keyboard, so Thinkpad trackpoint is not an option. Maybe I should consider using wrist support for keyboard, too.

I also noticed that using smartphone for too long adds to the problem a lot, so I try to avoid/limit it a lot.

ofalkaed
The wrist support on the Kensington does look weird and uncomfortable but it is quite nice, I left it in the box when I first got it but found the trackball very awkward to use so I gave it a go. That hump sits in the natural contour your hand forms when using the trackball. Without the wrist pad you have to keep your arm floating or end up with your hand tilted backwards all the time which bothers my wrist quickly. Keeping your arm floating is not bad for occasional use and is what I do when I just need to move the cursor a bit but when I am doing cursor heavy work I am quite glad to have that wrist support.

The more common type of trackball you see these days I find awkward and terrible for fine control with the small trackballs they have.

You can get external trackpoint keyboards, just unlikely to find ones with mechanical switches. Lenovo makes a few different USB and wireless keyboards with trackpoints.

gala8y
I think I will go with a trackball. I will research some more, but the one you use looks interesting (horizontal positioning I mentioned before). I hope I will be able to map 4 keys under Linux Mint with Piper or something.
ofalkaed
The 4 buttons are just mouse buttons 1-4 so many applications can handle mapping them to different uses themselves. I did change them globably when I first got it and I was figuring out how I wanted it, think I just used a Xorg.conf but don't remember, used something X and it was not difficult to manage.
brudgers
Twenty odd years ago (I can't believe it's been that long), trackballs were one of the first things I tried and I used one for a few years.

But over the years, I have come to approach ergonomics in terms of full body.

Hand pain is a symptom of more than what my hands touch.

How my legs and feet and shoulders and back feel changes how I sit and that changes where and how my hands are positioned. If my back is aching I shift my body, my shoulders and neck compensate, and that changes my elbows, wrists, and hands.

gala8y
One trackball per one broken wrist. :) Take care!
brudgers
I use the touchpad on my laptop and put the laptop in my lap and my ass in a comfy chair.

Haven't had hand/wrist pain in more than three years.

Back when I used mice and keyboards on desks, a big source of pain was small radius and/or sharp corners on the edge of the work surface. So I used work surfaces with large radius edges.

Obviously, the laptop in my lap made that moot.

It's not that I don't like mechanical keyboards and mice.

For me, their pleasures aren't worth the pain.

YMMV.

Good luck.