Windows 10 Trackpad Gestures

[Red Storm]

One of the big reasons why Windows laptops suck with trackpads is that the OS does not take advantage of the trackpad and offer many gesture shortcuts to do things, like you see on Mac OS. One of the most useful gestures on a Mac is being able to swipe left or right on the trackpad to move between desktops. Super easy, super useful, super intuitive. Now, Windows 10 gave us additional desktops which is great! But, I can't swipe between them with the trackpad! Is there a 3rd party tool that can take care of this glaring omission? Or am I blind and not seeing where Windows allows you to set this up?

 

[sweenish]

As far as I know, Windows doesn't. It's up to your trackpad OEM to provide a driver with those features.

Win + Ctrl + arrow (left or right) isn't too awful, though. Not a gesture, but not awful.

 

[Red Storm]

As far as I know, Windows doesn't. It's up to your trackpad OEM to provide a driver with those features.

Win + Ctrl + arrow (left or right) isn't too awful, though. Not a gesture, but not awful.

It's pretty awful compared to just swiping left or right.

 

[sweenish]

What do you mean by swipe?

Generic swipe left or right to change desktop sounds awful, since I would generally want my cursor to move left or right 90% of the time. So I know I'm missing something.

I'm not familiar with the OS X gestures at all.

 

[Red Storm]

What do you mean by swipe?

Generic swipe left or right to change desktop sounds awful, since I would generally want my cursor to move left or right 90% of the time. So I know I'm missing something.

I'm not familiar with the OS X gestures at all.

It's swipe left or right with 4 fingers on the trackpad. Hard to do accidentally.

Microsoft really needs to bake in more trackpad gestures.

 

[sweenish]

Good to know.

They don't control the experience the way Apple does. Like I said, it's up to the OEMs. I think we'll see it sooner than later, though. Two finger scrolling, pinch to zoom, some three finger stuff (three finger flick for alt-tab for example) is already baked in for me.

Lenovo for example has a fantastic scrolling mechanism. It sounds goofy when described, but works wonders. Chiral scrolling. You start by doing the typical scroll from the right edge, but when you hit the top, you just run your finger more to the center and keep it going in a circle, and now you can scroll the whole page/document without ever lifting your finger.

 

[Red Storm]

Good to know.

They don't control the experience the way Apple does. Like I said, it's up to the OEMs. I think we'll see it sooner than later, though. Two finger scrolling, pinch to zoom, some three finger stuff (three finger flick for alt-tab for example) is already baked in for me.

Lenovo for example has a fantastic scrolling mechanism. It sounds goofy when described, but works wonders. Chiral scrolling. You start by doing the typical scroll from the right edge, but when you hit the top, you just run your finger more to the center and keep it going in a circle, and now you can scroll the whole page/document without ever lifting your finger.

That sounds kinda neat. I do think Microsoft should try to leverage their Surface line to push this type of stuff and make them standard Windows features. If they offer it on the Surface, OEMs will have to follow or risk looking worse in the eyes of the consumer.

 

[sweenish]

If you have a touchscreen, there is an app in the store that might give you want you want. TouchMe Gesture Studio.

Something to remember is that Windows is also touch screen friendly. Switching desktops might make more sense as a screen gesture as opposed to a trackpad one.

I still think it will show up on both, though.

And it looks like you may eventually get your wish as well.
http://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-touchpad-gestures
At the bottom of that link it shows how to get to a settings page where you can turn certain gestures on and off. If there's enough demand, I'm sure a change desktop gesture can get added there eventually.