Since you mentioned using a trackball due to carpal tunnel when using a mouse I thought I should share my setup. I don't really suffer from these issues (with the exception of scrolling) but it pays to prevent them.
I only use a mouse when I use many monitors (3+) and the desktop surface area is significant. In all other cases I prefer to use a very customized touchpad setup. I use a business laptop because it has buttons for the touchpad both below and above the touchpad(the buttons for the trackpoint. And I configured it so that all the buttons below are the normal click and a button above is the secondary click. And I disabled tapping because tapping gives you no feedback and prevent you from resting your hand on the touchpad.
The main reason I switched is because I find scrolling on a touchpad (either 2 finger scrolling for short distances or circular scrolling for longer distances) a lot more comfortable than the scroll wheel. Scrolling a lot using a scroll wheel makes my middle finger hurt and middle click auto-scrolling doesn't work everywhere.
This means I can mouse around using either hand in the same way. Most touch pads are configured with buttons (reals or virtual) in the bottom left and right sides for left and right click. This means using the touchpad is different for the left hand than it is for the right hand.
The only other touchpad I found as usable was the Apple trackpad when it still had a button. I clicked with the button and the difference between primary and secondary click was whether I had two fingers on the trackpad.
This is very interesting. Since the trackball worked well for me going back nearly twenty years I stopped looking for other solutions. I coded for 20 hours yesterday and I'm perfectly fine today.
I only use a mouse when I use many monitors (3+) and the desktop surface area is significant. In all other cases I prefer to use a very customized touchpad setup. I use a business laptop because it has buttons for the touchpad both below and above the touchpad(the buttons for the trackpoint. And I configured it so that all the buttons below are the normal click and a button above is the secondary click. And I disabled tapping because tapping gives you no feedback and prevent you from resting your hand on the touchpad. The main reason I switched is because I find scrolling on a touchpad (either 2 finger scrolling for short distances or circular scrolling for longer distances) a lot more comfortable than the scroll wheel. Scrolling a lot using a scroll wheel makes my middle finger hurt and middle click auto-scrolling doesn't work everywhere.
This means I can mouse around using either hand in the same way. Most touch pads are configured with buttons (reals or virtual) in the bottom left and right sides for left and right click. This means using the touchpad is different for the left hand than it is for the right hand.
The only other touchpad I found as usable was the Apple trackpad when it still had a button. I clicked with the button and the difference between primary and secondary click was whether I had two fingers on the trackpad.