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Mouse/Trackpad Scroll Options Not Independent

I'm using 10.7 on a MacBook (late 2008 Unibody).


I am getting used to "natural" scrolling with the trackpad (slide up/page down) with Lion, and understand the reasoning behind it (to match iOS--I have an iPhone, so I'm already familiar the the slide up/page down scrolling). However, because of the behavior of scroll wheels on many computers I encounter frequently and habit, I want to keep my scroll wheel with the traditional setup (scroll wheel down/page down).


When I go into System Preferences->Mouse and uncheck the "Move content in the direction of finger movement when scrolling or navigating" box, the mouse returns to traditional scrolling (down/down). Unfortunately, my trackpad now starts behaving in the same manner (down/down), even though the "Scroll direction: natural" box in the remains checked under the Trackpad pane (it should operate up/down with that setting, but doesn't). If I quit System Preferences and then relaunch it, the "Scroll direction: natural" box is now unchecked, even though I did nothing to it. If I recheck it, and then immediately go to the Mouse pane, the "Move content in the direction of finger movement when scrolling or navigating" box remains unchecked. However, both trackpad and the mouse now use the "natural" (up/down) scrolling, when only the trackpad should. If I quit and relaunch System Preferences, the box in the Mouse pane is now checked, even though I did nothing to it.


It seems that the scroll preferences for the mouse and trackpad should and were meant to be separate and independent, since they each have the box under their individual panes, but they are not operating separately. Are there any ways to fix this so I don't have to change the preferences every time I switch from the trackpad to the mouse?

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 9:25 PM

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41 replies

Jul 21, 2011 12:13 PM in response to erik.l

I'm glad to see that someone has already reported this. I saw the two options (one under Mouse preferences and another under Trackpad preferences) and noticed that they were not independent. They seem to both be controlling the same preference. I would prefer to have them be independent so that I can use natural scrolling for the trackpad while retaining the original method of scrolling for the mouse.

Jul 21, 2011 12:21 PM in response to erik.l

Is there any way to officially report this to Apple? This isn't just a simple case of "Hey, my trackpad is backward" or "I don't like the new gestures." This seems like a bona fide bug, especially with the strange behavior between the two panes in System Preference. I can't imagine that they would have put those options under separate panes if they expected them to be weirdly linked.

Jul 27, 2011 6:54 AM in response to Kevin Smith4

done, logged as a bug, did not recieve a defect id, only got the following message:


Thank you for your feedback on Mac OS X.

We cannot respond to you personally, but please know that your message has been received and will be reviewed by the Mac OS X Team. If we need to follow up with you on your ideas for improving Mac OS X, we will contact you directly.

We appreciate your assistance in making Mac OS X better.

Mac OS X Team
Apple

Aug 5, 2011 10:00 AM in response to erik.l

+1 here as well.


I actually called Apple Care about this yesterday, and their response (after a few minutes of "investigation") was:


1. The lack of independence issue between mouse and trackpad scrolling is "as designed". The rep explained that if I wanted to have them independent, I should submit a feedback per the above, which I did.


2. The issue related to the checkboxes only updating after a restart of System Prefs seems to be a bug. The rep filed one on my behalf but also suggested I submit feedback, which I also did.


What I'm now wondering is whether there's a command line we can run in Terminal to update a system setting (com.apple.something...) manually to "fix" the independence issue.


Can anyone technically savvy enough here volunteer to look into this option?


Thanks,

-Marc

Mouse/Trackpad Scroll Options Not Independent

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