Comment 8 for bug 479878

I also believe that improved control of touchpads in laptops/netbooks etc is necessary.
But NOT disabling the trackpad/touchpad completely! Here are a few reflections and suggestions:

1) In my opinion the most logigical move is "automatic disabling the touchpad while typing" with a user-defined TIME DELAY. If the delay is long then the disabling is also effective for users that wish a complete disable, but has the advantage of returning automatically to full functionality. If the user continues typing the trackpad is simply disabled during that time plus the delay.

2) This could be extended by the option of disabling the touchpad if and only if an external pointing device is present.

3) But I dislike permanent disabling of the trackpad since it is eventually useful for very few but may create many problems for a majority of users! WARNING: Once you click and confirm the disable trackpad option, then the user would have no pointing device! This type of "disable all" option probably creates problems for users that learn by actively experimenting with settings.

4) These GUI functions should be integrated into gnome-settings and not handled by separate packages

5) Automatic installation of relevant packages on laptops etc would be very good.