Can Fingers Be the Best Pointing Devices?

If laptop screens can be guaranteed to be touch-enabled, touchpads on typical clamshell laptops today will continue to be a necessity. Uka

Touchpads have provided many conveniences, such as being able to perform pointing operations near the home position of the keyboard and scrolling by tracing the edges. However, due to the thinning of the PC body, the left and right buttons have been omitted, and the inconsistency with the touch screen operation has made it more difficult to use than before. It has become an existence that can happen. Although it depends on the vendor, I think that unexpected taps are more likely to occur due to the step between the pad surface and the palm surface, or the lower boundary. It's becoming more and more common for the cursor to jump to the wrong place or focus on the window behind it, even though I'm working hard on writing. Assuming that there is no palm rest, you should be able to type with your palm floating, but it's hard to get rid of the habit of many years.

Does it really matter if you don't have a touchpad? No, there will be many troubles. What should I do to avoid it?

One solution would be to go back to devices like the ThinkPad's TrackPoint, leaving the bare minimum of traditional pointing controls. Most operations can be done with a finger, but tasks such as tapping small buttons or selecting something from a drop-down list are still difficult in Windows desktop apps, which are not touch-friendly in terms of UI.

Another solution is to implement an unobstructed capacitive touch sensor on the left edge of the palm rest (preferably on both sides for left-handed users) and use it for pointing operations. It is to try to do Most of the operations can be done by touching the screen, so this is really for emergencies. So it doesn't have to be in a prime location in the middle of the keyboard.

Furthermore, there may be solutions such as using a pen, but some users may prefer a mouse rather than holding a pen.

The more I think about it, the more ideas come to mind. However, I hear that the weight reduction obtained by omitting the touch pad can hardly be expected. There may be a way of thinking that it is okay to have such a weight cost.