Re: Wheeled Mouse

[Niclas Anderberg <nicke ostgota lu se>]

> >ARRRRRGH I hate wheeled mice. They are a fine
> >example of calling limited functionaly a "Feature"

hmm.. please explain.. how can an additional mousewheel
on your mouse become limited functionality?

> >Why not instead of playing catchup with KDE (who is
> >playing catchup with MS), why don't we do something
> >better.

KDE has only support for wheeled mice through a hack
(atleast last i check), i.e. no real support. And this is
not catch up by any means, it's about supporting hardware.
Logitech has mices with wheels also, and logitech has to
be the defacto linux mouse.

> >I used a program for win called (can't remember name)
> >but it turned the middle button of the mouse into a
> >scroll button. (The wheel on the intellmouse can be
> >used as a third button under win -- I don't know how
> >*nix drivers handle it).

You can map the mousewheel to any button you like. The hack
which permits you to scroll some applications is actually
done by sending 4:th and 5:th button signals to the application
which it interprets as scrolling up and down (and this would be
cool if gnome supported). The hack is done in XFree86, and not
the applications themselves, they just interpret the
mousebuttons.

For more information see:

http://www.inria.fr/koala/colas/mouse-wheel-scroll/

> >Clicking the middle button
> >would put a bulls-eye anorched in clicked spot on the screen to let
> >you know that you were in scroll mode.
> >Moving the mouse away from the bulls-eye would change
> >the cursor into one of eight directional arrows. Move
> >a little more and the control under the bulls-eye
> >would begin scrolling in the direction indictated.
> >Move farther, scroll faster. click any button to end
> >scroll mode.

I tried that, and i personally think it sucks (who has time working their 
mouse that way, i only even use it occasionally). But on the other hand,
who cares? Just implement all those stuff so that ppl can choose for
themselves what to do with their buttons/wheels. That is what Linux is
about and what changes it from M$ in the first place.

> I actually feel the wheel is an excellent idea. Now that I've learned to use
> it in Win, it bothers me when it doesn't work in X. Actually, it also
> bothers me when it doesn't work in Microsoft's own Notepad :-)

Oh, it does work (see URL above). I actually got Emacs, netscape, xterm
etc. scrolling with my mousewheel (logitech pilot+), and i must say it
is great when you get used to it.

/Niclas