Sometimes a Rat is better than a Mouse

[richmond62]

I have just bought myself an odd-shaped mouse as am getting some wrist pain:
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RAT.png (26.16 KiB) Viewed 5261 times

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https://www.trust.com/en/product/22885- ... omic-mouse
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and I am very happy with it . . . BUT . . . as usual, the boy wants more . . .

It is currently connected to a machine running Xubuntu in my school.

It has 6 buttons . . .

this:

Code: Select all

on mouseDown MX
   put MX into fld "bn"
end mouseDown

only picks up buttons 1,2 and 3 (i.e. left button, scroll button and right button) but not
buttons 4, 5 and 6.

RawKeyDown picks up the forward and the backward scroll.

Now, to be fair, the system (Xubuntu) seems "a bit dicky" about picking up buttons 4, 5 & 6,
whether macOS 10.14.whatever will do any better when I go home tonight we'll have to see.

Is this a LiveCode-specific problem, or does it depend on the operating system?

[richmond62]

The interesting thing is that, if I click button 4 or 5 on the mouse, the grab bar
at the top of the LiveCode stack flashes in the same way as it does when I
click button 1,2 or 3, proving that LiveCode does, in some way, pick up the
button click.

[richmond62]

Tangentially, this:

Code: Select all

on rawKeyDown RKD
   put RKD into fld "RAWK"
end rawKeyDown

on keyUP KUP
   put KUP into fld "KEE"
end keyUP

on mouseDown MX
   put MX into fld "bn"
end mouseDown

does not work properly insofar as the rawKeyDown and the keyUp are NOT
"seen" by LiveCode: obviously the mouseDown somehow interferes with that.

This is, actually, a pain-in-the-barbeque-sauce!

If one changes mouseDown to mouseUp it makes not difference.

[richmond62]

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The documentation (9.0.3) as, as is so often the case, hopelessly out of date.

[richmond62]

So, it's the weekend round these parts, and I'm messing around with my 6 button mouse
on my machine running macOS 10.14.5 beta 2 and getting NO MORE JOY out buttons 4,5 & 6
that I did on the Linux box in my school, either inwith LiveCode or elsewhere.

[FourthWorld]

Does this device ship with driver software?

[richmond62]

Does this device ship with driver software?

No, it doesn't, and, although I know I look as green as a cabbage looking
I have spent donkey's ages p*ssing around with just about everyone else's
driver software to get "somewhere" . . .

. . . currently experiencing a "love in" with ControllerMate:

http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

However, as "we all know" (don't you just hate it when people write that?)
a USB's device's buttons DO send signals to the merry CPU . . .

For the sake of argument, my Belkin Nostromo 52 currently works as a sort of
cockeyed keyboard, and TextEdit (on a Macintosh) picks up letters from its keys.

[FourthWorld]

Does this device ship with driver software?

No, it doesn't...

Beyond my pay grade. If it doesn't map it's hardware signals to standard keyboard/mouse inputs, and also doesn't provide software to interpret unique signalling, I can't imagine how it works.

[richmond62]

ControllerMate does pickup buttons 4 & 5 of the Trust wonky mouse.

SteerMouse sorts thing out very simply:

http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/

and this is FREE:

https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net/

[FourthWorld]

ControllerMate does pickup buttons 4 & 5 of the Trust wonky mouse.

SteerMouse sorts thing out very simply:

http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/

and this is FREE:

https://sensible-side-buttons.archagon.net/

Yes, I would imagine specialized software would be needed to handle specialized input devices. Looks like they've done a fine job with that. Is that what comes bundled with the device?

[richmond62]

Nothing whatsoever comes bundled with the device and the website is less than helpful. . .

https://www.trust.com/en/product/22885- ... omic-mouse

BUT . . . this is not my point . . . my point has to do with LiveCode's ability
or inability to recognise input from external devices.

[FourthWorld]

Nothing whatsoever comes bundled with the device and the website is less than helpful. . .

https://www.trust.com/en/product/22885- ... omic-mouse

BUT . . . this is not my point . . . my point has to do with LiveCode's ability
or inability to recognise input from external devices.

The two are related. We've had this conversation enough times that I'm surprised we're still doing it.

[[-hh]]

Your mouse has only three OS-Buttons: 1,2,3 as usual.

One more is for switching its resolution from 1000 to 1600 dpi.
And the two thumb buttons are for navigating forward/back in an ordinary browser.

So LC recognizes what it can: mouse buttons 1,2,3 (pressing the scroll wheel is button 3).

[richmond62]

One more is for switching its resolution from 1000 to 1600 dpi.
And the two thumb buttons are for navigating forward/back in an ordinary browser.

Indeed . . . but as those 3 other buttons don't work on macOS, Linux OR Windows for what
they are supposed to do, I thought it might not be a bad thing to leverage them for something
else.

[[-hh]]

The dpi switch probably requires real hardware (not a virtual OS) and the browser thumb buttons probably send menu events to the MS Edge engine.
TMHO, LC can pass through only system events it can understand. Everything else will be ignored.