Using a sensitive touchpad

If you have a touchpad on your laptop, it can be very easy to click when you don't mean to.

It's usually possible to change the settings to turn off clicking the touchpad just by touching it, or decrease the sensitivity.

While playing Go with a sensitive touchpad, it's very easy to place a stone while you're in the process of moving the cursor, which makes for some strange moves.

So, if possible, don't use a sensitive touchpad.

Phelan: Hmm, I don't see why this is a bad habit... You present a problem (touchpad sensitivity and "touch to click" might lead to misclicks), and a solution (reduce sensitivity, or turn the "touch to click" option off). Did I misread what you wrote?

You can't always change those settings, and even if you do it requires a fair amount of coordination to hold your aiming finger steady while you hit the button. -- WillerZ

Phelan: Not really, I do it everyday on my laptop, and I'm not a very coordinated person. Guess it's a matter of practice. I haven't played many fast games lately, but when I did I had very few misclicks.

Anonymous: I can't really change the sensitivity on my touchpad. There are settings, but... the touchpad (and laptop) is plastic and the static electricity often sends the mouse pointer flying all over the screen.

Phelan: That's happened to me as well. Don't remember what I did at the time, but a few minutes after everything was fine.

Manu?: My touchpad was making typing impossible because suddenly the cursor would end up somewhere else on the screen, so I eventually just put tape over it and using an external mouse! Works really well for me.

Calvin: A number of Go clients support some kind of anti-slip mechanism which helps with flaky mice, not just touchpads. But it is easier to use a high-quality mouse.

Isildur Yeah, if I'm using my laptop to play online, I usualy use a little travel mouse or I turn off "Tap to Click". Sometimes (particularly if it's humid or my hands were even slightly sweaty) I have no choice but to use the mouse, because my touchpad can go crazy for a while (sliding down the pad sensitivity slider helps, but usually doesn't fully solve the problem when this happens to my laptop).