Trackpad drag and drop woes

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Help!!!!

I am returning to Mac after a 15 year absence due to my profession which was PC-centric (I'm now retired)

I love the Mac but the drag and drop behaviour of the trackpad is driving me crazy.
When I go to drop something after dragging it takes about a second after I lift my finger from the trackpad before it drops. My experience with many PC trackpads is they release the drag the instant you lift your finger.
Is this a standard "feature" of the Mac trackpad? Or is there some way of turning it off?
I am using Leopard 10.5.5 with "Dragging" on and "Drag Lock" off.
I have searched unsuccessfully on the web for similar complaints. Am I the only one experiencing this phenomenon?
 
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Which Macbook trackpad are you using? The new aluminum macbook with the "no button" glass trackpad, or a previous gen Macbook with a regular trackpad and button?
 
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My MacBook Pro is an early 2008 model with one button at the bottom of the trackpad.
 
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Hmmm that's weird. Do you use the button to start the drag, or do you "tap-hold"?

If it's the latter, try seeing if it still happens when you use the button...
 
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When I go to drop something after dragging it takes about a second after I lift my finger from the trackpad before it drops.
You have to tap once to release.

The procedure is
1. Position pointer over the item to be dragged
2. Do a "tap and a half" (Down-up-down and hold)
3. Without lifting your finger, move the item to the destination.
4. Lift up and tap once quickly to release.
 
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After experimenting I'd say you either need to wait a moment for dragging to be released, or you need to tap quickly as technologist says.

I've always used the button to drag, as I've found tapping to be a bit finicky for that kind of thing to be honest.
 
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It sounds like you are confirming that this behaviour is "normal" for the Mac which disappoints me.

The saving grace is that the mouse drag and drop seems to be the same as with a PC. As soon as you release the button, it drops.

What are the chances of this "feature" of the trackpad being optional in future releases of the "Trackpad Preferences"? I'm guessing somewhere in the code there is an instruction to delay the release by "x" tenths of a second. It would be nice to be able to select 0 to 9 in this case.

What do you think?
 
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It's that way so that you can reposition your finger mid-drag and keep on dragging if you run out of room.

As you discovered through your searches, I've never heard of anyone having any difficulty with tap-to-release in the 13 years that Apple's trackpads have supported dragging, so I'd guess you're on your own on this one.
 
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It sounds like you are confirming that this behaviour is "normal" for the Mac which disappoints me.

The saving grace is that the mouse drag and drop seems to be the same as with a PC. As soon as you release the button, it drops.

What are the chances of this "feature" of the trackpad being optional in future releases of the "Trackpad Preferences"? I'm guessing somewhere in the code there is an instruction to delay the release by "x" tenths of a second. It would be nice to be able to select 0 to 9 in this case.

What do you think?
I don't think this will be changed anytime soon...

But it should only happen when you're tapping - not when you're actually physically pressing the button.
 
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I realize the purpose of the delay is to allow lifting your finger momentarily when you run out of room on the trackpad and yes, it only happens when tapping, not when the button is used.
It seems to me the user should have a choice.
There is always an extra tap to accomplish something that shouldn't require a tap.
If there is a possibility of running out of room, then using the button would be the obvious choice instead of using tapping.

I guess it's not a perfect world quite yet...
 
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It's still better than windows-based laptops. Except for the new Alienware, which owns all Apple laptops pretty hard.
 
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I have the same thing happen to me with my new MBP and it's definitely Mac specific. I just had to learn to be a bit more patient. ;)
 
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I would really suggest trying the drag lock where you double click to be able to drag and then click to release I have always loved it that way.
 
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it's inefficient

I have to lend my support to those pointing this out. I can't stand it and I have to use both windows and macs on a regular basis. So there's no getting used to it. And it certainly doesn't sound like good mac philosophy to impose an extra click for nothing. The explanation given that people can then reposition their finger and continue dragging is a bit lame - I've never run out of drag space on the touchpad - it's huge anyway!

At the very least it should be configurable - unless it's just a way for apple to make us get their nice expensive mice...
 
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well just let u know u are not on your own. i find this very anonying to me too. i have no idea why they apply a drag delay!!! if you used to click to release.that's what the drag lock for!

if anyone know any hack to change the delay. pls let us know!
 
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With a trackpad and button go to > System prefs > Trackpad
Deselect dragging.

Click and hold with the button Drag using one finger on the trackpad.
ie thumb on the button index finger on the trackpad :D. No Tapping, and drops instantly.
 
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This is awful, I really like to lift my finger and expect the drop function to be executed immediatly. We need a hack, if you find any, come back here to post it for us!
 
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This is awful, I really like to lift my finger and expect the drop function to be executed immediatly. We need a hack, if you find any, come back here to post it for us!

What we need is for people to read the thread properly and completely. Unfortunately, there is no hack for that.
 
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What we need is for people to read the thread properly and completely. Unfortunately, there is no hack for that.

I have just came from the Linux world, where there is hack for every little thing, and I just cant belive that my expensive new computer cant be hacked... I going to look better for it and find a solution.

Edit:
[sometime later]
I think this hack will be impossible until they release the trackpad driver source code. :(
 
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Just bought a brand new macbook pro i5, and immediately noticed this problem - my first thoughts were that there was a fault with the tracking pad! Anyone else noticed an almost identical delay when using 'tap to click' as well?
Very frustrating, wish Apple would pick up on this problem and release a simple OS update to fix, or at least make the delay user-definable.
 

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