Trackpad issues

[dhampson]

I love gimp, using it off/on for 10 years. I have a very odd issue, for which there is probably a simple solution, but after three hours of google, I've given up.

Gimp works for me with my drawing tablet, but NOT with the trackpad. I have a new Macbook pro, running snow leopard. I've just downloaded the latest stable version available, 2.6.8.

My cursor moves with the trackpad, but I cannot paint. If I choose to make a selection, it does not show up, no matter the toggle state. If I try to move a pasted layer, it disappears after 1px of movement. (actually, the latter happens when I try to move using the pen or tablet mouse as well.) Not one single tool works for me when I use the trackpad. Menu selections, curves, are all fine.

Gimp works for me on my PowerMac, but I have a regular mouse for that machine. Any help, or even pointers to help would be appreciated.

Thanks, Dave

[David Wood]

Did you go into the preferences and under Input controllers make sure the trackpad is under the active controllers? I don't run a Mac to give you much more help.

[dhampson]

I have Pointer, Pen, Cursor, and Eraser listed. I'm not sure about the difference between Pointer and Cursor, but Pen and Eraser work as expected. I have tried turning the other two on and off in various combinations, but to no avail

Thanks, but I don't think that's it.

--Dave

[David Wood]

Go to http://gimp.lisanet.de , they should be able to help out out.

[dhampson]

Been there (it's where I got the latest file in the first place.) I have not come across anyone else having this particular set of problems. I only posted this after about three hours or using google, and reading many dozens of forums across all corners of the Internet.

[dhampson]

Figured it out...... but don't like it

So, I went back to preferences, and disabled Pen and Eraser support, now I have the ability to use my trackpad. I need to disable _both_ of them.

I don't like this solution, because it means I need to choose between using my trackpad, OR my pen. I like being able to use either as the need fits. I assume that my X11 environment is interpreting the trackpad as a pressureless pen. Does anyone else know a way to use both the pen and the trackpad?

--Dave

[illys]

I'm having this issue too, on a 10.6.2 Snow Leopard Macbook pro. It's odd that Xll is confusing the trackpad and the tablets (graphire 4 and cintiq 12), but I'm not actually all that surprised, considering that tablet support is brand-spanking-new for gimp on the mac. Hasn't it been only in the past six months that there's been tablet support?

Anyways, I'm still rather estatic about the Gimp capabilities now. I've been facing Photohop cs2 crashes, and with limited tablet brush options in PS Elements, I have reason to cross my fingers on the Gimp!

*cough* Thanks, dear OS X GIMP developers!

[Meldiriel]

Hey folks, I'm new here...registered because I just switched to MacBookPro from my old Windows XP, and needed some help. I've been using Gimp for several years now with my Wacom Bamboo Fun, but I can't for the life of me get it to work properly with Gimp on this Mac. I decided to look for an existing thread on the matter before posting a new one, and came across this, which sounded similar to my problems...I can't get my trackpad to work completely, either. I understand that tablet support is new to Macs, but I don't get why my trackpad wouldn't work either.

For the trackpad...it won't let me select tools or change color or anything. I can draw just fine with it, and know many of the keyboard shortcuts, and I can use some of my dialog boxes, but it's irritating. I did try disabling the pen and eraser options for input devices, and that seems to have worked, so I can do a lot of work with Gimp, but it's hard to paint. And, the trackpad doesn't seem to be a valid input controller based on the list of options it's giving me.

For the Bamboo, it's got a bad delay in responding, poor sensitivity (though I'm gonna mess with the actual tablet properties more), and it has trouble placing the cursor and outlined brush image. It also won't use color. I can choose any color I like, but as soon as I try to draw, it resets my foreground and background colors to black and white. I'm sure there are more problems I haven't yet discovered, but I've never run into any similar problems on my XP. I checked and compared the input devices/controllers preferences on both computers, and the Mac doesn't seem to even recognize that my tablet is indeed a tablet...

Maybe I'm just too new to Macs, though. The fact that I just recently got this new computer (first time Mac user) is probably compounding my struggles in Gimp, so I'm sorry if some of these issues/questions are pretty basic... I'm just getting concerned that I won't be able to use Gimp like I used to.

Can anyone help out this Mac newbie?

Thanks,
- Meldiriel

[lisanet]

Make sure to use

* the latest X11 version (2.3.5 on Snow Leopard)
* the latest GIMP on OS X version (2.6.10p1 on Snow Leopard)

Activate pen and eraser in the extended input devices dialog.

I'm using a Wacom Bamboo and it works fine.

BTW, you can't use a tablet an a mouse/trackpad. If you try, your tablet will work but your mouse/trackpad won't paint or won't click. Sorry, this is related to X11 and not to GIMP, so I can't fix that issue...

-skl

[ShantaeBaracani]

I'm wondering if there's some sort of adaptor so we can use our trackpad and pen at the same time?

[lisanet]

Nope, the problem is not about hardware, it's about software. Currently X11 on Macs doesn't handle both devices properly at the same time.

-skl

[db3l]

Nope, the problem is not about hardware, it's about software. Currently X11 on Macs doesn't handle both devices properly at the same time.

I found this thread while having the same problem with Gimp (2.6.11) on OSX 10.6.5 (with Apple's X11 2.3.6). Enabling extended input to get the tablet to work disables the mouse (for drawing operations - menus/buttons are fine).

However, on the same system, Inkscape 0.47 works fine with tablet and mouse simultaneously, with the same input device configuration.

So it can't just be an OSX X11 issue can it? Presumably Gimp could do whatever Inkscape is doing (whatever that is)?

-- David