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Grim-Wolf
Participant
February 16, 2026

Mac trackpad navigation does not work correctly inside Painter

  • February 16, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 20 views

Inside Painter, MacBook trackpads only control zoom when two-finger swiping and nothing else. Swiping zooms, spreading fingers does nothing, shift+swipe does nothing.

I would expect it to work the same as the 3D view inside Designer, in which two-finger swiping rotates, shift+swipe pans, and finger-spreading zooms in/out. That’s how all other 3D applications I’m aware of also handle trackpad navigation, so this doesn’t seem like an intentional design choice.

    1 reply

    Cyril Dellenbach
    Community Manager
    Cyril DellenbachCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    February 18, 2026

    Hello Grim,

     

    I’ll give you the same answer I gave you on Reddit:
     

    Unfortunately, nothing to fix. Last year, we did a clean rework of Substance Designer's trackpad navigation. By the way, this change was possible with Mac only, so navigation is still pretty horrible for Windows' trackpad (way worst than Painter to be fair), but it is as smooth as it can be for Mac.

    In Painter we didn't make the same choice. I haven't talk with the team, but I'm pretty sure we have the same issue with windows' trackpad as Designer (considering we're using the same technologies), therefore we're waiting for a full rework instead of a "Mac Only" rework.

     

    Best regards,

    Cyril Dellenbach (Micro) | QA Support Artist | Adobe
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