ELAN Touchpad: disable bottom buttons, allow two finger click on entire pad (like a Macbook V5-571P

remaker
remaker Member Posts: 13

Tinkerer
edited February 2021 in Legacy Laptops and Netbooks
I don't think this is possible, but I will ask.

I have an ELAN 0504 touchpad on an Aspire V5 with Windows 10 and the Windows 10 drivers. I want the touchpad to work like a Macbook: Two finger touch for right click everywhere. As it is, the lower third seems permanently set to be a left and right click. With a Synaptics, you can disable that area and allow it to operate as a double-click zone. The ELAN drivers don't seem to have that option.

Alternatively, I'd like both of the bottom parts to act as left click. It seems like with the 2013 Acer drivers you can customize the virtual "buttons" at the bottom, but not set two-finger right click. With the Windows 10 drivers, you can set two-finger right click, but can't change the virtual left and right buttons at the bottom. In my perfect world, those buttons go away and just become part of the pad where I can do two-finger right click.

Looks like this is not an option. Nothing I can find in the registry, either.

This is a V5-571P is that matters.

Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,679 Trailblazer
    edited February 2021
    I know Windows 10 allows you to change the function of three and four finger gestures through the touchpad settings, but I don't know of any easy ways to change one and two fingers. It would likely have to be third party software that overrides the Windows settings, not really a function of the Elan drivers, which just pass the info to the OS.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • remaker
    remaker Member Posts: 13

    Tinkerer
    The ELAN drivers for that unit are still Windows-7 style and do not use the Modern Ui Settings app. ELAN provides an app, which has attendant registry settings but seems to reset any ones that you manually set that aren’t part of what you can set though their UI.

    Tap will work they way I want, but Click seems to always reserve the left and right click regions at the bottom. 

    The old drivers let you customize those virtual buttons but didn’t allow two finger click. The Windows Update allows two finger click but doesn’t let you configure the click buttons.

    Maddening. Looks like there is no workaround.
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 31,679 Trailblazer
    Yeah, not without source code to the old Elan drivers and app... And even then it'd likely be a painful port to understand the code well enough to be able to have it do what you want in a modern OS. :(
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • remaker
    remaker Member Posts: 13

    Tinkerer
    Yeah, I figured so much. I was just seeing if someone found a newer driver that worked with that hardware. I had no luck. Even that driver only appears in Windows Update. 

    This machine will probably end up being demoted to using external keyboard and mouse, or only operate in tablet mode. Frustrating choices by the ELAN team, but that's life.

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