Using Thinkpad Trackpoint USB Keyboard with MacBook Pro, Air, Retina (with pictures)

This thread is very old, but if anyone stumbles across it and is wondering how to get the fn-lock and middle click button to work:

GitHub - unknownzerx/tpkb: Utility for 'ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard with TrackPoint' (0B47189) for OSX

I am attempting to use the Thinkpad usb keyboard with red nubby and my Macbook Pro.

I will use either keyboard for most activities. But for developing, my group has used the thnkpad keyboard and we love keeping our keys on the keyboard and still use the mouse and button and the middle scroll. It's awesome and hard for us to give up.

I was able to get the center mouse button scroll to work by installing USB Overdrive. You select "middle button" and change it to "move to scroll"

That's one key thing.

For me, I use a lot of Control-key combinations and I like having control on the left and the right. On my macbook, I have "command" on the left and right. So either I want the command to change to control and all my hotkeys can be control combos, or, maybe even better, map the control key on my thinkpad keyboard to the command key. I think If I could do that then I would have most of what I need.

I would love to map the home and end keys too, but I can live without that.

I hope others will chime in with suggestions.

Hi, thanks for sharing this. I found this page because I just bought exactly the same keyboard to use with my mac 🙂 I really like your idea of putting the keyboard on top of the mac as well, smart thinking.

I was just wondering, I've basically just plugged my keyboard in, but I've noticed already that a lot of keys don't work out of the box - almost none of the keys above the number row for instance. Do you know how to get them working? Also I was wondering if you'd experimented with KeyRemap4Macbook and had any ideas about remapping keys 🙂 Thanks!

Thanks. Smart Scroll also works and has more powerful features, but the developer makes you wait after every OSX revision for a couple of days. It gets annoying.

Think I'm moving to USB Overdrive.

Anyone know how to adjust trackpoint sensitivity under OS X? I've been looking this for a long long time. Thanks in advance.

Jacky, I found I could adjust trackpoint sensitivity via the "mouse" settings on the MacBook while using the Thinkpad keyboard/trackpoint. And btw I am quite happy to know this is an option--thanks Bill for initiating this discussion.

I also welcome tips on remapping keys. For example I'm so used to Ctrl-X to cut, Ctrl-V to paste etc. I'd like to retain that consistent behavior, but default makes me use the Windows key instead of the Control key for cutting/pasting/etc. Any advice on easiest way to remap - ideally affecting only the external thinkpad keyboard and not the built-in MacBook keyboard's mapping.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the thread Bill. It may be 'fringe' as you say, though you are not alone.

Over thirty odd years of computing I have used most - PC, Mac, Linux, etc - and I still come back to my IBM keyboards. The Mac touch pad is indeed one of the best (if not THE best) though it comes down to personal preference and I still prefer the little red button.

I am in the process of upgrading and looking seriously at a MB Air or Pro. Keyboard layout was something I was considering as I do a lot of typing / writing, though now it appears I need not worry, thank you.

I have a problem that is my bluetooth wireless thinkpad keyboard 's middle key doesn't work. I cannot scroll the screen. I try to install UsbOveride. And change some settings following the topics. But, nothing changed. At the status tab, I even cannot find my bluetooth keyboard. Could you give me detailed steps on middle key of wireless bluetooth keyboard?

Thank you very much for this very helpful thread. I am a disabled user and use a mouth stick held between my teeth to control the mouse using a trackpoint on my PC. I would like to use a MacBook Pro, but without the ability to control the mouse with a trackpoint a MacBook Pro would be useless. Now I know it is potentially possible with this keyboard. The only issue left is that I need to be able to reprogram one of the keys on the Lenovo to hold the mouse down so that I can drag items on the screen. This is usually referred to as Mouse Keys, but I have this Bluetooth keyboard and have practiced with my Mac mini and the Mouse Keys don't work correctly. With Mouse Keys on you should be able to control all the functions of the mouse using a numerical keypad (which this keyboard doesn't have) or the 7,8,9,u,i,o,j,k,l,m, and . keys. For some reason I can't get the latter to work. Does anyone know if any of the programs mentioned can reprogram the keys on this Bluetooth keyboard to create an alternative? Or could one of you see if you can turn on Mouse Keys and see if you can get Mouse Keys to work properly with this keyboard?

I have the exact same setup as your original post, the latest retina MacBook Pro and Thinkpad Trackpoint USB Keyboard (55Y9003). I've used Karabiner to configure it exactly the way it had been when I was using my X220 with Linux Mint KDE, hotkeys to preference and middle button configured for scrolling (does not work out of the box).

Unfortunately, the mouse will freeze up after 5-10 min of use, sometimes unplugging/replugging fixes it, sometimes I need to force quit the application that triggered it, and sometimes a hard reboot is required. I tried using other software to handle middle-click scroll (this usually triggers the freeze, but dragging events sometimes do too) such as USB Overdrive, but the problem persists.

What software did you use to configure your keyboard? If there is no way to fix these events, I'm thinking of switching to the newer bluetooth version (0B47190), since you say middle click scrolling works out of the box and it generally responds much better.