MacBook Pro: How to assign middle-click on trackpad?
June 3, 2011 4:00 PM   Subscribe

MacBook Pro: How to assign a simple trackpad middle-click?

When I bought my new MacBook Pro (Mac OS X 10.6) a couple of months ago, I was flabbergasted to find that I can't assign a simple two-finger tap to "middle-click" on URLs. It's such a basic shortcut -- even my crappy little Dell Mini 10 will do that.

I've tried BetterTouchTool. As far as I can tell, it lets you assign every gesture in the universe except the two-finger tap.

I've also tried MagicPrefs. It lets you assign the two finger tap, but takes away the ability to "double-tap-and-drag." Even worse, it disables the Mac's built in "Ignore accidental input when typing" setting.

Any suggestions? I swear, this seems like such a simple thing.

- aj
posted by Alaska Jack to Computers & Internet (6 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Have you tried this? MiddleClick for Snow Leopard

I have no experience with it.
posted by sharkfu at 4:35 PM on June 3, 2011


Just tested out MiddleClick (OSX 10.6.7) on a macbook pro and it works fine!
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 5:17 PM on June 3, 2011


Response by poster: Holy moley I am going to try that out THIS MINUTE. - aj
posted by Alaska Jack at 5:21 PM on June 3, 2011


Response by poster: ARGH. Middleclick does indeed make a link open in a background tab. But:

It also opens the link in the current tab!

(Unless I turn off "tap to click" in the "Trackpad" control panel. Then it works fine. But then I lose the ability to single-tap on anything!)

Am I just cursed here or what?

I wonder if it is because I'm running 10.6.6, not 10.6.7. I will try upgrading, and see if that works.
posted by Alaska Jack at 7:10 PM on June 3, 2011


floam: three finger click and tap can be assigned to middleclick with BetterTouchTool.
posted by davar at 1:58 AM on June 4, 2011


I have tried with both jitouch and middleclick, and they had their own idiosyncrasies that I didn't care for.

Then I found bettertouchtool and never looked back. I've assigned a three finger tap to middle click, and it works a charm. I can't imagine using a MacBook without it now.
posted by iamcrispy at 6:47 AM on June 4, 2011


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