Trackpad: overview

Trackpad makes AutoCAD^® software navigate the way a laptop expects. Two-finger scroll pans instead of stepping the zoom, horizontal scroll pans sideways, pinch zooms smoothly at the cursor, and a flick glides to a stop.

Without the plugin, AutoCAD software reads a two-finger scroll as a mouse wheel and zooms in steps, does not respond to horizontal scroll, and pans with the middle mouse button, which a laptop doesn’t have.

No system variable changes that: ZOOMWHEEL only inverts which way the wheel zooms, ZOOMFACTOR only sizes the step, and MBUTTONPAN is about the middle button.

Two ways to run it

• Ribbon: the Trackpad panel on the MD Automation tab.
• Command line: type MDTRACKPAD.

Either one arms gesture mode; running it again disarms it. The choice is remembered, so AutoCAD software starts the way you left it.

Command reference

Command	What it does
MDTRACKPAD	Turns gesture mode on or off, and remembers which.
MDTRACKPADSETTINGS	Walks scroll direction, pan speed, zoom speed and invert zoom in one pass.

The gestures in detail → · Settings →

The gestures

Gesture	What it does
Two-finger scroll ↕	Pans the view up and down
Two-finger scroll ↔	Pans sideways; without the plugin, AutoCAD software does not respond to horizontal scroll
Shift + scroll	Pans sideways as well
Pinch	Zooms at the cursor: the point you’re pointing at stays where it is
Ctrl + scroll	The same zoom, without the pinch
Flick and lift	The view keeps gliding for a moment, then settles

How each one behaves →

Settings

MDTRACKPADSETTINGS walks each preference in turn, defaulting to its current value, and writes once at the end, so a run you abandon halfway changes nothing.

Setting	Controls	Default
Scroll direction	Reverse: the drawing slides opposite your fingers, the way Figma does it. Natural: the drawing follows your fingers, the macOS sense.	Reverse
Pan speed	How far a given scroll moves the view.	1.0
Zoom speed	How much a given pinch magnifies.	1.0
Invert zoom	Swaps which way pinching and Ctrl+scroll zoom.	No
Gesture mode	Whether gestures are armed at all. Toggled by MDTRACKPAD rather than by the settings command, and restored the next time AutoCAD software starts.	Off

Good to know

• A toggle. Dock the laptop, run MDTRACKPAD again, and the wheel returns to its default behaviour in AutoCAD software.

Not in this version

• No three- or four-finger gestures, and no rotate gesture. Two-finger scroll and pinch are the only gestures.
• No touchscreen support: that’s TOUCHMODE in AutoCAD software, a separate mechanism.
• No auto-detection: the plugin never decides for you whether a trackpad is in use. You arm it with MDTRACKPAD.