The reason I ask this question is that I do face to face teaching of Darktable and I am surprised how many students either do not own or avoid using a mouse. Personally I would be lost without a mouse when editing images and drawing masks etc. I am just wonder what the opinion of other DT users or developers is. Is there anyone on this forum who doesn’t use a mouse and finds the touchpad sufficient? Thanks.
I mostly work on a laptop and very seldom use a mouse.
Drawing masks etc is somewhat easier with a mouse, but I can normally do what I want with the touchpad.
I mainly use RawTherapee, but I use a mouse for everything — using the keyboard would mean having to remember all sorts of different shortcuts (no chance; I still can’t remember my own phone number), and the deafening ‘clickety-clack-clack-clack’ from my tactile blues (when working on my processing profiles at 4 am) would likely wake the dead.
Having said this, I’m equally happy using a touchpad on a laptop — before a had my desktop, I used RawTherapee like that for years.
I suppose, with practice, you could use just about anything (after all, John Wick killed three men in a bar with a pencil — with a flippin’ pencil! 
).
I use a mouse. Couldn’t do without it.
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Re: Trackpad, I’ll steal, misuse and abuse Glenn’s reply to a totally unrelated topic
Can’t stand the things…I’ll keep my mouse, thanks!
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You can but it’s not easy (at least for me). I once forgot to take a mouse on holiday…tried doing without. Do-able but caused high blood pressure. As it was a short break I gave up trying until I got home.
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I do a lot of things with the keyboard and I think it’s great how this is supported by Darktable.
But I guess the question was more mouse vs touchpad.
I think that’s a habit thing that affects young people who work primarily with notebooks. If I have to, I can get by with the touchpad. But when I have a choice, I use the mouse. I believe that others would also be more likely to use the mouse once they got to know the advantages.
But what surprises me even more: Touchpad means an open notebook. And an opened notebook means no external monitor. Unless it’s a high-end notebook, that means working with a screen that probably can’t do sRGB.
Yeah, but when on the move, a second screen isn’t very feasible, regrettably.
(On the move often necessitates trying to save battery - which again means reducing the brightness of the screen. I’ve tried, though, to comfort myself by that such reduction also apply to the tone of the Color Assessment frames, but I’ve been wondering though, if I’m really off in color …)
I was in doubt about this. But right now I am sitting in the train from Vienna to Hamburg. Unfortunately I didn’t had a tripod with me to get some nice shots yesterday evening… Anyhow after working with dt for 1-2h without a mouse, my answer to the question is clear: yes, you need a mouse for efficient editing.
Regarding students at the university I was quite surprised. Many of them bring a mouse to my lectures. I a mot teaching photography but some bachelor courses in engineering and they say they need a mouse for CAD etc. So this little thing is not threatened with extinction :).
I’ve used external monitors with open (low end) notebooks for years. My current laptop is a relatively cheap Acer and I use a monitor with it’s screen open.
IMO trackpads are better than nothing (and better than the other non-mouse alternatives over the years) but still vastly inferior to a true mouse. I never attempt anything beyond the trivial and temporary with a trackpad.
I thought @Terry was referring to using darktable with nothing but the keyboard. I couldn’t do that at all.
Using the Trackpoint on my Thinkpad works fine. A mouse is better, sure, but not by much. Mostly it’s the lack of a scroll wheel that can be a bit annoying.
I tried using it with a stylus for a while. It does barely work that way, but especially the right-click is very sorely missed. With finger-touch, it really doesn’t work at all.
But you can scroll with the touchpad.