My Windows laptop finally entered hospice this week, and apparently Santa Scrivener determined I’d be getting a cross-platform replacement. Have to admit, I’m starting to believe the hype.
Now, if I could only figure out how the damn right-click works.
System Preferences is your friend, and welcome to the club!
For a trackpad:
For a mouse:
Bonus: more ways to “right-click”: cnet.com/how-to/five-ways-t … -trackpad/
The two-finger tap on the trackpad (if set as in nontroppo’s post) is probably what you are looking for.
Alternatively, you can hold down the CTRL key and then single-finger tap on the trackpad…though that can be a little clunky as it involves using two hands, unless you are very dexterous.
As a writer, you might also like…
briarkitesme.com/2015/06/24/dic … amediting/
…
I use a “windows” mouse with all my macs. Left and right buttons and a scroll wheel - luxury (I can’t stand the Apple mice (mouses?)).
Oh, and I’ve never looked back (apart from the rodental issues) from getting a mac. The best thing for me is that they last longer than Win machines. Happy Maccing to you.
Two-finger tap it is. Marvelous. The trackpad on this rig is ridiculously responsive. Even in its heyday, the trackpad on my Windows laptop moved like a rented mule by comparison.
Briar: At first I couldn’t get the look up function working. Turned out I had the Force Click setting activated, so I changed it. Now I’m looking up random words a bit compulsively. Great tip …
Thanks to everyone for your help!
My Macs are ancient. Not lucky enough to have a Force-Click option. Waiting for the next round of updates before I leap into the present. But the swift dictionary access is cool.
Interesting prelude.
Happy writing
…
I was driven out of the Windows world by sheer frustration. I began my PC career with an Apple II, migrated to a dual floppy PC writing auto exec.bat files in edlin to control how it booted. I almost couldn’t say Apple Macintosh with out spitting. But the lousy quality of the PC laptops combined with endless dysfunctional windows updates and bugs, together with an afternoon (two years ago this week) playing with my sister’s iMac 5K and 2011 MBP (that functioned better and faster than my six month old HP Laptop) was an eye opener.
Net result: Both my wife and I have iMac 5Ks and I also have a 15" MBP. They function close enough to flawlessly that the difference between that and perfect doesn’t matter.
We have 4 PCs that are less than 4 years old only one of which sort of still functions.
Did I mention I love my Macs?
Fitch
Ya know, I love my MBA, but my wife still uses my eleven(!) year old Toshiba windows machine. It is buggy beyond belief, but she writes exams on it(teacher) and surfs the net just fine. I never clean it anymore. It has been dropped more times than I can count. I’ve stepped on it several times. It got soaked once. Hardly any battery life left, maybe an hour’s worth, if that. Still, it keeps on ticking. What can I say? In another ten years or so, maybe we’ll donate it to a museum.
My first Mac (G4 Mac Mini) was given to me as an attaboy by a former employer. Since then I’ve had one or another Mac in my collection – for a while my primary laptop was a MBP running Windows Vista SP1 in Boot Camp – but I mostly use Windows. Waiting for Amazon to deliver the used Mac Mini I just bought so I can upgrade to Sierra and clear out the older iMac and Mac Minis I have laying around. It’ll sit on the desk next to my stack of Windows laptops (work, ham radio, personal Surface Pro 3) and share the same KVM.
Multi-platform is good!
Interesting to see this thread. Black Friday the year before I purchased a Toshiba Windows 10 version of a Chromebook. It came with 32 GB storage, 18.8 gigs available. I was somewhat concerned to see the OS already eating half of that. So I purchased a 64 GB SD card. Thought I was safe. Windows 10 ignored the SD card for anything but storing backup files. It repeatedly dinged me for using Firefox vs. Edge. Cortana kept stopping by, trying to set up housekeeping.
It refused to allow me control of the downloads. It sent repeated large file updates, and kept telling me I needed to clear out memory. Try to get Windows 10 to clean out it’s temporary files. At the beginning of the February, I found myself with only 4+ GB. Next update needed at least 8 GB, if I recall. I found myself in a losing battle for control of my laptop. It kept trying to stuff in this download, even knowing there wasn’t enough room. I gave up. Microsoft lost a long time customer.
The Toshiba was a sturdy, otherwise very reliable piece of equipment. It’s only failure was to be tied to a bloated, control-freakish operating system.
Quick searched found a refurbished 13.3" Macbook Pro at an acceptable price. Ordered it Sunday evening, had it Wednesday morning. In excellent shape for an old timer. My first Apple product. I like it very much. Still learning the ins and outs.
For those who have mentioned frustrations with Apple mouses (mice?), I found the switch from the Mighty Mouse (with its pathetic scroll ball) to Magic Mouse was a sigh of relief … until I discovered that there are no buttons! I then discovered an app called BetterTouchTool which allows you to define all your own taps, swipes and gestures to give you what you want. I wouldn’t be without it now, though the price is getting through my (rechargeable) batteries in less than 2 weeks.
