How do I restore triple tap to emulate the middle click?

I've upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10 but the ability to tap with three fingers on the touchpad to achieve a middle mouse click has disappeared. When a mouse is plugged in the middle button click works exactly as expected.

I've tried similar approaches to: Swapping the double and triple finger tap actions on trackpad and using $ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse middle-button-enabled true but still nothing works.

I'm using an asus ul-30a which is typically well supported under linux. I'm using gnome-shell but the problem also occurs when using unity.

Could anyone advise how to fix the triple tap please?

EDIT: I've also tried installing the kde package synaptiks and setting the button functions and this also has no effect

Solution 1:

Using gnome-shell on 12.04 (precise), I'm able to restore triple tap middle click support by running the following:

synclient TapButton3=2

This command tells the Synaptic driver to make a triple tap gesture (TapButton3) send a middle click (mouse button 2) event.

However, I'm not sure how to best make this change persistent. I could put it in a script as suggested by this blog post, but that approach seems awkward to me. There's got to be a better way.

Solution 2:

Just found an amazing thing:

Taping on the top right corner of the touchpad is like clicking the middle mouse button. I know it's not the same as the triple click and position accuracy is needed :( but it's the closest I could find to triple click.

BTW, clicking on the lower right corner is like clicking the the right mouse button.

Solution 3:

This shows how to restore middle mouse button emulation by simultaneously clicking with both buttons.