Adam Birney / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is engaged on a brand new menu for customizing the three-finger faucet gesture for touchpads.
- The brand new menu will allow you to set a three-finger faucet to do a center click on, launch Gemini, go dwelling, or view current apps.
- This menu isn’t obtainable but within the newest Android developer preview or beta, however we managed to manually floor it.
The greatest Android tablets are nice not just for watching movies but additionally for getting work finished. In case your work includes a whole lot of writing, although, you’ll need to decide up an honest keyboard cowl to make typing simpler. Though Android has strong help for bodily keyboards and touchpads, there are nonetheless some areas the place it’s missing, particularly within the customization division. Fortunately, Google continues to work on new keyboard and touchpad options for Android, with the most recent characteristic being a menu for customizing three-finger touchpad faucets.
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We found strings for this new menu whereas digging via the Settings app within the second developer preview of Android 16. The strings recommend you’ll have the ability to customise the three-finger touchpad faucet gesture to return, go dwelling, launch Gemini, carry out a center click on, or view current apps. Listed below are the strings in query:
Code
<string title="three_finger_tap_go_back">Return</string>
<string title="three_finger_tap_go_home">Go dwelling</string>
<string title="three_finger_tap_launch_gemini">Launch Gemini</string>
<string title="three_finger_tap_middle_click">Center click on</string>
<string title="three_finger_tap_preference_title">Use three finger faucet</string>
<string title="three_finger_tap_recent_apps">View current apps</string>With a little bit of tinkering, I managed to get the brand new three-finger touchpad faucet customization menu to seem in Android 16 DP2. As soon as it’s stay, it’ll seem below Settings > System > Touchpad & mouse:
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
The “center click on” and “launch Gemini” actions are the one issues new right here, as the remainder of the actions are already triggered by different touchpad gestures. As an illustration, three-finger swipes left or proper already navigate again, a three-finger swipe up goes dwelling, and a three-finger swipe up and maintain reveals current apps. You can even open the notifications panel by swiping down with three fingers and change between apps by swiping left or proper with 4 fingers.
Solely three of those present gestures are proven to you in Android’s new tutorial for touchpad gestures, so I’m curious to see if Google will incorporate this new three-finger touchpad faucet gesture into the tutorial. I’m additionally curious to see if Google ever plans to launch a first-party keyboard cowl accent for the Pixel Pill, particularly understanding that the corporate has cancelled the Pixel Pill 2. These options will profit future Android tablets and Chromebooks operating Android, and it’s doable they had been additionally supposed for the now-cancelled Pixel Pill 2.
