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Any way to customise trackpad gestures?

Nikhil

New Member
Is there any way to customise the trackpad gestures on the surface book?

For example, a 3 finger tap opens Cortana (or action center if you wish), but can I change it to act as a middle click?

Can I use a two finger swipe back to go back a page in Edge?

Or a three finger drag to move windows around (like in OSX)?

Is there any way (even third party extensions) to achieve this?

Thanks so much for your help!
 

agt499

Member
Hi - Autohotkey will let you alter taps (and keyboard mappings) quite easily, and runs with a low overhead.
You can make the three finger tap do middle-click (which is my preferred option and works really well), and the remapping for Autohotkey for that is
+#^F22::mouseclick, middle
You can also to things like binding SHIFT+two-finger-tap to browser back, but unless you're a pianist too, the convenience is lost!
If you've not used Autohotkey before, see the crash course in a prior post over here

I haven't found a way to customise swipes, but I do find the three-finger swipe-up = task switcher to work quite well.
For browser back/forward, I have gotten very accustomed to ALT+LEFTARROW or ALT+RIGHTARROW, which only require small move of your fingers off the touchpad.
 
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Nikhil

New Member
Hi - Autohotkey will let you alter taps (and keyboard mappings) quite easily, and runs with a low overhead.
You can make the three finger tap do middle-click (which is my preferred option and works really well), and the remapping for Autohotkey for that is
+#^F22::mouseclick, middle
You can also to things like binding SHIFT+two-finger-tap to browser back, but unless you're a pianist too, the convenience is lost!
If you've not used Autohotkey before, see the crash course in a prior post over here

I haven't found a way to customise swipes, but I do find the three-finger swipe-up = task switcher to work quite well.
For browser back/forward, I have gotten very accustomed to ALT+LEFTARROW or ALT+RIGHTARROW, which only require small move of your fingers off the touchpad.

Hey agt499, thanks heaps for your help!

It is unfortunate that MS does not allow you to customise swipes, but the middle click trick using autokey worked like a charm!

My browsing has sped up immensely thanks to you, so thanks again for the help!
 

agt499

Member
You're welcome Nikhil - glad I could help.
You're right that a first party setting to customise swipes would be great, and we can keep hoping (and discussing).
Last week's change to allow better customisation of the pen buttons is one of an occasional but very welcome series of moves that makes me think that Microsoft are now paying real attention to some issues sometimes.
 

Px455

New Member
Hi - Autohotkey will let you alter taps (and keyboard mappings) quite easily, and runs with a low overhead.
You can make the three finger tap do middle-click (which is my preferred option and works really well), and the remapping for Autohotkey for that is
+#^F22::mouseclick, middle
You can also to things like binding SHIFT+two-finger-tap to browser back, but unless you're a pianist too, the convenience is lost!
If you've not used Autohotkey before, see the crash course in a prior post over here

I haven't found a way to customise swipes, but I do find the three-finger swipe-up = task switcher to work quite well.
For browser back/forward, I have gotten very accustomed to ALT+LEFTARROW or ALT+RIGHTARROW, which only require small move of your fingers off the touchpad.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Is there any way that a 4-finger tap can be reprogrammed to go forward?
 

fractaloctopus

New Member
Three-finger middle click option is coming up in the Creator's update. (All options are Nothing, Search with Cortana, Action Center, Play/pause, and Middle mouse button.) I opted for the Windows Insider program and it's been in the last few builds. Currently the same options are what is available for four-finger taps.
 

clouds5

New Member
I just installed the creators update on my surface and there are actually loads of customizable trackpad gestures now. You can now configure each 3 or 4 finger swipe individually (up, down, left, right) and assign many functions like forward/back, volume controls etc. (there are 10+ functions) any way you wish. And as the guy above already mentioned the 3/4 finger clicks have more options as well, including middle click.
Just disabled all my autohotkey macros :) no need for them anymore.
 
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