trackpoint-daemon-macos

A lightweight macOS menu bar app that makes the ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II work like it does on Windows.

Features

• Middle button scroll — Hold middle button and move the TrackPoint to scroll (non-linear curve, sub-threshold accumulation)
• Scroll direction — Auto-detects macOS natural scroll setting and matches it
• Right Option → F18 — Remap Right Option to F18 for input source switching
• Left Opt ↔ Left Cmd swap — Fix reversed modifier key layout on the Windows-designed keyboard
• Pointer sensitivity — Adjustable 1–9 via settings (BLE-compatible software scaling)
• Scroll speed — Adjustable 1.0–8.0 via settings
• Mouse acceleration disabled — Linear pointer movement while TrackPoint is connected; restored on disconnect
• Auto-activate on connect — All remaps apply when ThinkPad connects, revert on disconnect

Why F18?

macOS uses a keyboard shortcut to switch input sources (e.g. English ↔ Korean). The Right Option key on the ThinkPad keyboard is inconvenient for this. By remapping it to F18, you can assign a clean, conflict-free shortcut:

System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Input Sources → Select the previous input source → press F18

F18 is a safe choice because no app uses it by default.

Why Left Opt ↔ Left Cmd swap?

The ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II is designed for Windows, where the key order (left to right) is:

Ctrl  |  Win  |  Alt  |  Space  ...

On macOS the expected order is:

Ctrl  |  Option  |  Command  |  Space  ...

The physical keys are swapped compared to macOS convention. This setting corrects the layout so muscle memory from a MacBook keyboard works correctly.

Requirements

• macOS 12+
• ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II (VID 0x17EF)
• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install)

Install

git clone https://github.com/hoyaaaa/trackpoint-daemon-macos.git
cd trackpoint-daemon-macos
bash install.sh

Grant Accessibility permission when prompted: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → TrackPointD ✓

If you recompile from source, the code signature changes and macOS invalidates the permission — you must re-grant it.

Uninstall

bash uninstall.sh

Settings

Click the menu bar icon (TP+ when connected, TP- when not, TP! if accessibility not granted) → Settings...

Setting	Description
Right Option → F18	Remap Right Option key to F18
Left Opt ↔ Left Cmd Swap	Fix modifier key order for macOS layout
Pointer Sensitivity	1 (slow) – 9 (fast), default 5. Applied in software, works over BLE.
Scroll Speed	1.0 (slow) – 8.0 (fast), default 3.5.
Press-to-Select	Tap the TrackPoint stick briefly → left click. Off by default.

How it works

Feature	Mechanism
Middle button scroll	Unified CGEventTap at kCGHIDEventTap (earliest level)
Scroll direction	Reads com.apple.swipescrolldirection from NSUserDefaults
Right Option → F18	CGEventTap (HID level, no delay)
Left Opt ↔ Left Cmd swap	hidutil kernel-level key remap
Pointer sensitivity	CGEventSetLocation delta scaling (HID level)
Acceleration removal	IOHIDSetMouseAcceleration(-1.0) on connect, restored on disconnect
Device detection	IOHIDManager matching Lenovo VID 0x17EF

Windows parity

Behavior	Status
Middle button scroll	✓
Scroll direction (matches system setting)	✓
Key remapping (Opt↔Cmd, Right Opt→F18)	✓
Pointer sensitivity (1–9 scale)	✓ (software scaling, not hardware)
Scroll speed adjustment	✓
Non-linear scroll curve	✓ (approximate)
Acceleration curve	✓ (sigmoid 1.0x–2.5x, approximate)
Press-to-select	✓ (tap stick → left click; enable in Settings)

License

MIT © hoyaaaa