Enabling both trackpad Drag Lock and 3 Finger Drag at once?

Solution 1:

On OS X El Capitan 10.11.1, the following terminal commands seem to solve it for me on the Magic Trackpad (on the built in trackpad I can operate only one dragging mechanic at a time) :

# Enable "tap-and-a-half" to drag.
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Dragging -int 1
defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad Dragging -int 1


# Enable 3-finger drag. (Moving with 3 fingers in any window "chrome" moves the window.)
defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad TrackpadThreeFingerDrag -bool true
defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad TrackpadThreeFingerDrag -bool true

source: https://github.com/boochtek/mac_config/blob/master/trackpad.sh

Update: dug up a bit more and found the "tap behavior" mouse defaults entry, which requires the "2" preset in order to get "tap to drag" on the built in trackpad

defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 2
defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 2

Solution 2:

I went directly to the preference file for the trackpad to see if one could set both the Three Finger Dragging flag and the Dragging flag (with or without setting the DragLock flag) but though I could set both and the new values remained stable I was not able to get both Three Finger Dragging and Double Tap Dragging to function at the same time. (Actually, there are two preference files: one for the Apple Bluetooth Multitouch Trackpad and one for the Apple Multitouch Trackpad and I tested this with both just in case.) So I believe the answer is No, it can't be done.

Unless my mind is going I'm pretty sure that it was possible to set both types of dragging in an earlier version of OS X and it felt like something had changed but I couldn't say exactly what until I saw this question. Unless there was a conflict that Apple found between the various Three Finger settings or they have a plan for some new function that would require such a change I don't know why this ability would be removed. The preference files are capable of allowing the various combinations of dragging by using separate flags. The way it now exists allows the flags to be set inconsistently with how OS X performs dragging but it's only one part of that preference file that is badly designed; the whole set of prefs looks like they were thrown together without considering an overall methodology and makes the chance of introducing problems as changes are made over time more likely to occur. And having both ways, as the OP said, is convenient at times.