How to get mouse side buttons working - in everything!

DGF · #1 23rd October 2005, 12:50 AM

Hi everyone.

Here's the scoop. Getting Firefox to utilize mouse side buttons isn't all too hard. Getting them to work in Epiphany and Nautilus requires a bit more work. Why? I have no idea. I'm pretty sure gnome could support mouse side buttons, without having to resort to lots of ridiculous text editing and the installation of third party hacks like imwheel. But I digress.

Anyhow, to begin, if you want to edit everything with a nice text editor and not something overly terminal-ish, you can simply just type:
su
[root password]
gedit

ONE
First, open your xorg.conf file. It should be:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Now, scroll down to the section that looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"
EndSection

This is how your config file should look if you have a typical 5 button mouse (I use a logitech mx1000 laser and this works fine). The reason it says "Buttons" "7" is because your scroll up and scroll down also count as buttons. Make sure "Protocol" is set to "ExplorerPS/2" and "ZAxisMapping" is set to "6 7"

Now save! We're all done with that file. Gedit automatically creates a backup in case you screw up, xorg.conf~

TWO
Now you need to create a new file. Copy and paste exactly what you see here into it:

#!/bin/sh
# /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/mouse.sh
# Required for the configuration of a 5-button mouse
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"

If you're going to go the extra mile and get Epiphany / Nautilus to work, then you also need to add one additional line here:

imwheel -k -b "67"

Either way, you then need to save the file as mouse.sh in the folder: /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d
Okey... now, if you did not include the extra line and only want the side buttons to work in firefox, you're done. Simply restart. Your side buttons should work fine and dandy now.

THREE
If you went the extra step above and included the extra line, then you need to install imwheel. Imwheel is a third party program that can take button presses from your mouse and send it to gnome/kde/whatever as if you were pressing certain key combinations on your keyboard. This can make Epiphany and Nautilus go back and foward (try pressing Alt + L + left or Alt + L + right and see for yourself).

Click here to download it (thanks to fnxweb). Just double click it in nautilus to install (or type the whole rpm command out in a terminal if that's your thing).

Once it's installed, you have one more text file to create (we're almost done

). This time you do not need root access. Just fire up text editor from Applications > Accessories. Copy and paste what you see here:

".*"
None, Up, Alt_R|Left
None, Down, Alt_R|Right

Save this as ".imwheelrc" in your home directory.

Now you should be all done. Just restart. Side buttons should preform as back and forward buttons in Firefox, Epiphany, and Nautilus now.

HippieCat · #2 8th November 2005, 02:30 AM

Cant get it to work for FC4 and Opera.

Anyone know the way?

Thetargos · #3 17th December 2005, 02:14 AM

Opera should work just fine with the regular xmodmap (I had it working with 8.0, dunno about 8.5, though)

axelseap · #4 17th December 2005, 05:45 AM

side buttons still work fine in 8.5

ferd · #5 17th December 2005, 03:14 PM

Brilliant, thanks so much. Works just as shown.

Thetargos · #6 17th December 2005, 06:02 PM

Now why doesn't Fedora devs add an option for 5+ mice during system setup and simply put in place such an easy to compose script? Sure they'd have to figure out a way to configure a generic 5 button mouse from an MS Intellimouse Explorer from a Logitech MS, but a generic 5 button mouse xmodmap should work with said mice too... Even the "tilting wheel" on newe MS mice which makes the mouse to be a 9 button mouse instead of only 7 with a generic 5 button config you get the side buttons working just fine.

ferd · #7 17th December 2005, 07:25 PM

I don't know. Fat, old, dumb and happy.

kris1351 · #8 8th April 2006, 05:43 PM

I have gone through this process about 5 times now and it still doesn't let the scroll and side buttons on my MX1000. Anyone have this working on FC5?

ferd · #9 8th April 2006, 10:12 PM

Sorry Kris, I've moved on to SuSE10. In SuSE10, I'm not able to get the side buttons to work, but everything else works so well, I don't care.

Mystinar · #10 24th July 2006, 07:46 PM

Okay, this is weird. The side buttons on my mouse don't work at all. But with the scroll wheel, scrolling up does nothing, while scrolling down causes firefox to browse forward. Here's what my xorg.conf, mouse.sh, and .imwheelrc files look like:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Mouse0"
	Driver      "mouse"
	Option	    "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
	Option	    "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
	Option      "Buttons" "7"
	Option	    "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"
EndSection


#!/bin/sh
# /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/mouse.sh
# Required for the configuration of a 5-button mouse
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"
imwheel -k -b "67"


".*"
None, Up, Alt_R|Left
None, Down, Alt_R|Right

I got the whole thing to work with FC4, but it was broken when I upgraded to FC5, and then I had to remove IMWheel and revert xorg.conf back to its original state.

gconnery · #11 23rd August 2006, 10:24 PM

Doesn't work for me. FC5 on a Dell Precision M70 laptop. Its got a synaptics pad as well as the external Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer 2.0 hooked up via USB, but the Intellimouse section looks just like the above.

With the default setup, the left, right, and middle (paste) buttons work, as well as the scroll wheel:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

If I change this as suggested, i.e.:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Intellimouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

then the forward/back buttons on the left side of the mouse do nothing, and the wheel becomes forward/back, at least in Firefox.

I also tried xmodmap as suggested (meaning interactively at the shell), and it produces an error:

>xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"
xmodmap: commandline:1: bad number of buttons, must have 12 instead of 7

Not sure why it thinks I have 12 buttons, when I clearly told it there were 7. Changing this to:

>xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5 8 9 10 11 12"

avoids the error but appears to do nothing. The existing Firefox window, or a new one launched after, behaves the same as before.

I have run xev and the buttons on the mouse look like this:

left click = 1
right click = 3
scroll wheel click = 2
forward button on left side = 9
back button on left side = 8
wheel forward = 6
wheel forward = 7

Given this I have tried other obvioius combinations of buttons (9 and 12), as well as different xmodmap lists and nothing seems to change anything.

Does xmodmap not work interactively, do I have to issue it before x-windows starts?
x

gconnery · #12 28th August 2006, 10:01 PM

Wow,

That works perfectly (for my Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer hooked up to FC5 via USB). Thanks very much. Didn't realize all this stuff was supported inside the xorg software all by itself. This is much easier than all the other/previous methods (aside from the fact that it works!)

Glenn