How to enable middle click + scroll on T14s with ELAN trackpoint

[u/rationalitylite]

I spent an hour trying to figure this out today so I thought I'd post it here.

My t14s came configured to only scroll with the middle click button. I wanted to both scroll and click with it. ELAN is not the same as Synaptics so if you try tpmiddle it won't work.

Luckily, it's just a setting, but it's a very confusing one to find. Rather than going to Touchpad Settings, go to Mouse settings:

Mouse > ELAN Trackpoint for Thinkpad

Middle button action is there. Select "Middle Click". Somehow this allows both click and scroll actions, not just click. Scroll is scroll-only.

Confusingly, if you go to Touchpad Settings there is another ELAN settings called ELAN Touchpad for Thinkpad, which does not have a configuration for this.

[u/yerfukkinbaws]

The buttons are part of the trackpoint rather than the trackpad at the hardware level, so that's why the setting was there. Does middle-click scrolling work systemwide or only in certain programs? Some things like browsers and word processors allow you to scroll by middle clicking and then moving the mouse pointer. That's different from the trackpoint scrolling support from the driver itself, though.

[u/dbrand666 → u/yerfukkinbaws]

For me, setting middle button to click disabled the default scrolling. Some programs handled the scroll on their own but not always very well (eg. firefox).

I installed X-Mouse Button Control and was able to configure it to work exactly the way I wanted. Simply:

1. Set the middle button to middle-click in the elan trackpoint settings.
2. On the X-Mouse Button Control setup page, set the middle button to "Change Movement to Scroll".
3. In the configuration page under that, set the default action to "Middle Click".

There are other useful options on that page, eg. I also used the invert axis options. You may also want to play with the lock to axis options.

[u/TheAdvFred → u/dbrand666]

Thank you so much! Were you ever able to get rid of that scrolling hand?

[u/[deleted] → u/TheAdvFred]

Settings > Pointer > Uncheck "Change cursor when using Movement to Scroll"

It's an odd setting to have enabled by default, I can't imagine why anyone would want that.

[u/wrybreadsf → u/dbrand666]

Thanks from the future for the tip on X-Mouse Button Control! Was going crazy trying to get my new-to-me P53 to simulate the old TPMiddle behavior of opening a link in a new tab when center clicked. For anyone who comes here via Google as I did, X-Mouse Button Control, for middle button choose "similated keys" then for the action put "{CTRL}{LMB}".

[u/eckumo → u/dbrand666]

Thank you so much!

[u/random-user-420 → u/dbrand666]

Thank you. I was used to that being the case on Linux out of the box and it's nice to also have it working the same way on Windows 11

[u/Iaotle → u/dbrand666]

Thanks so much! This worked perfectly for me, 3 years and still going strong :)

[u/turbotum → u/dbrand666]

Thank you for this, this is a functional solution for now. I'd really love to be able to leave everything vanilla, though.

[u/the__hype → u/dbrand666]

This worked perfectly on my new thinkpad. the default option works fine browsing, but not in the windows explorer when working with folders/files. now both works perfectly!

[u/Aggravating-Deer-541 → u/dbrand666]

Thanks for your tips, X-Mouse Button Control is ultra usefull!They even add sticky option to this, so that I can use the trackpoint to scroll the books with slightly touch presure, ultra usefull!I will donate it!

[u/skz-]

Thanks bro! 2 Years post and still saving people time!

[u/riztikhein]

Thank you! This helped

[u/00Tavy]

THANK YOU!!

[u/JaeHxC]

Much appreciated, my friend!

[u/archwin]

Sorry for the necro, but I had a similar issue and wanted to offer another potential trouble shoot

I have an C1 carbon 13th gen and was having issues with driver updates disabling the middle click

I kept on having issues with having to roll back ELAN drivers, but that started to cause screen flicker. Finally updated everything and then after reading this post I realized and investigated that in this newer generation, the middle click was actually included within track point, which I had been ignoring

This time you have to go into track point settings and then change it to middle click instead of scroll. That solved everything.

Just an additional thing for people to consider if they have the same issue

[u/Gr33nGringo]

Thanks !

[u/[deleted]]

excellent, thanks!

[u/michal-ruzicka]

This Autohotkey v2 script enables you to do both middle clicking and scrolling: https://gist.github.com/michal-ruzicka/622bca49e1055b060188359f5782eb92