Laughing Means A Lot To Me

A lot of people find that backward/forward multi-touch gestures in Snow Leopard for Finder, iTunes, web browser like Chrome/Firefox, are not available any more in Lion. I wrote a solution for that in July. Later in August, the solution is not working due to the update of 10.7.1.

MagicPrefs is the software I recommended before, which is free, and gives so many gesture functions for trackpad, Magic Mouse. A few days ago I found another software, jitouch, which shows you the new definition of Multi-touch Gesture. It presents dozens of new gestures that you can define for dozens of functions.

Firstly, solve the backward/forward problem.

I know this is what you came here for. Please follow me, we take MacBook built-in trackpad as example:

1. Download jitouch here and install it.
2. Go to System Preferences - Trackpad. In tab Point & Click, uncheck the box “Three finger drag”. Maybe you would like this on. But it may cause some mis-selecting text in backward/forward action, you can take a try later. Your choice.
3. In tab More Gestures, make sure Swipe between full-screen apps is with the option Scroll left or right with FOUR fingers. It ensures that swipe with 3 fingers gesture is not occupied by system.
4. You can find jitouch setting in the bottom Other group of System Preferences. Click into it. In Trackpad tab, make sure Enable jitouch for Trackpad is checked. In the list box below, find out Three-Swipe-Left/Right. If there’s no, click “+” button to add it. Relate it to Keyboard Shortcut: CMD+[ (for Left)  and CMD+] (for Right) and save it.
5. Make sure there’s no conflict between system and jitouch setting.
6. Open Finder, iTunes, Chrome... and take a try!

Ok, why jitouch?

I feel, compare to MagicPrefs, the sensitivity of jitouch is more accurate. You can see a * . Meanwhile, MagicPrefs could do the same thing and MagicPrefs is FREE! Still, your choice.

And any other tips?

• Don’t make yourself confused by adding too many gestures. Even if you can remember, if you are using different computers in company and at home, relying on so many convenient functions makes u suffer in the other place (esp. Windows. In the mean time, I say, Go Geeks, Go! ).
• The gestures of “n-Fix other-Tab” in jitouch is brilliant, default setting of “Previous Tab / Next Tab” etc. is quite handy. Don’t waste it.
• Cheers for keeping the “Smooth History (Official name: Swipe to navigate)” of Safari (maybe in some other apps too? I’m not sure yet) and “backward/forward” of Chrome together. Yeah!

UPDATE on Sep 15th:

UPDATE on Aug 31st:

IMPORTANT UPDATE on Aug 21st:

After upgrading to 10.7.1, solution below does not work anymore. If you want forward/backward back, try using MagicPrefs. I'm testing. Again, you cannot use 2 fingers swipe of Trackpad (1 finger for Magic Mouse) go back and forth in Chrome, Finder, iTunes, Firefox and so on in 10.7.1 without help of 3rd party software's help.

Just upgraded to Mac OS X Lion. A lot of new features come with some habits you may have to change. For example, the smooth browsing backward/forward experience in Safari together with no functioning of magic mouse's 2 fingers swipe for backward/forward in Chrome/Firefox or other web browser or applications.

You may have same habit with me, on using magic mouse:

• Use 1 finger to scroll around (few webpages scrolls left to right, but they exist)
• Use 2 fingers to go backward/forward
• The 2 habits above apply to all browsers Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera, etc. Oh, and Finder.
• Some other applications may need this too, like in Sparrow, to fold and unfold a mail

When upgrading to Lion, something changed as follows by default:

• Use 1 finger to go backward/forward in Safari. (Yes, it's moving smoothly, nicely, elegantly...)
• Use 2 fingers to move to different desktop in "Mission Control"
• Cannot go backward/forward in other favorite browsers. Oh, and Finder.
• Cannot fold/unfold a mail in Sparrow either.

And here's the solution(with which, you need to give up something):

1. Open Magic Mouse setting in System Preferences
2. In More Gestures tap, click the drop down list under Swipe between pages and choose Swipe left or right with two fingers
3. Uncheck the Swipe between full-screen apps

Now you get your old 2 fingers gesture for magic mouse back, and you give up smooth moving backward/forward in Safari -- you can still move backward/forward in Safari, just not smoothly.

Wait a minute, how about the "Swipe between full-screen apps"? If you really need that and don't mind to use 3 fingers to swipe for this, you can use MagicPrefs, which provides you so many different actions for Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, Macbook Trackpad. You can define a 3 fingers swipe gesture to "Switch Space Left/Right", and it's free, Hallelujah!

For smoothing moving backward/forward in Safari, if only one finger swipe can be applied to it, I have to give it up. One reason is as above, the other is, it may cause some mis-action when browsing. Hope apple could give a update for magic mouse 2 fingers gesture later.