MX500/MX700 & Mozilla HOWTO (Answered)

[spam_bank]

Hi all,

After spending the better part of Thanksgiving trying to configure my new MX700, I want to share with you how to get all the buttons (except the program switching one) to work.

First, you need to install imwheel. You can get it at: http://jcatki.no-ip.org/imwheel/.

Next, add the following to /etc/X11/XF86Config
[code:1]Section "InputDevice"

# If the normal CorePointer mouse is not a USB mouse then
# this input device can be used in AlwaysCore mode to let you
# also use USB mice at the same time.
Identifier "MX500"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection
[/code:1]
and modify the InputDevice line of the ServerLayout section to:
[code:1] InputDevice "MX500" "CorePointer"
[/code:1]
At this point, X knows that you have a 7 button mouse. However, none of the special buttons will do anything. We will use imwheel to map those button functions.

Now add a new file "mx500" to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/
Place in this file the following lines:
[code:1]xsetpointer MX500
xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"
killall -9 imwheel
/usr/local/bin/imwheel -k -b "67" &
[/code:1]
do a chmod +x on the file

What this does is to remap the mouse buttons so that the scroll wheel and the "up" and "down" fast scroll buttons work properly.


Finally, create a ~/.imwheerc and put the following into it:
[code:1]".*"
None,Left,Alt_L|Left
None,Right,Alt_L|Right

"(null)"
None,Left,Alt_L|Left
None,Right,Alt_L|Right
[/code:1]
This tells imwheel to map the "forward" button to alt+left and the "back" button to alt+right. Since these are the keyboard shortcuts for "forward" and "back" these buttons now work!

Restart X, login, do a ps to make sure imwheel is running and everything should work!

Problems:

If the buttons don't work, make sure imwheel is still running. Sometimes, imwheel will crash and leave a pid file that can't be deleted by anyone except root. One way to get around this is to SUID imwheel but that's not very secure. I have not found a satisfactory solution to this problem.

[wonder]

just a question...

is that program only made for Mozilla or could he work for others applications?

[lamb]

How would I go about doing this on FC2? I dont have an XF86Config and when I go to install imwheel it points out that Im not using XF86Config

[Harryc]

Originally posted by lamb
How would I go about doing this on FC2? I dont have an XF86Config and when I go to install imwheel it points out that Im not using XF86Config

I have the same question. I've been unable to configure the thumb buttons on an MX700 mouse in xorg. Most of the web tutorials talk to XF86config. The answer is not just do the same thing to xorg.conf...doesn't work.

[eXoR]

The following howto should be valid for xorg.conf aswell: click.

I will be trying it aswell, after I've got my alsa sound working again.

[Harryc]

Originally Posted by eXoR

The following howto should be valid for xorg.conf aswell: click.

I will be trying it aswell, after I've got my alsa sound working again.

I gave it one more shot. I can get it working, but can't get it to start automagically with Gnome. If you get this working please list your steps after installing imwheel , editing imwheelrc, and editing xorg.conf.

[Shadow Skill]

Where exactly do I go in fc2 to vonfigure my mouse...Fedora seems to detect it off and on and I just want to force it to think my mx900 bluetooth mouse is a generic 3 button mouse. What file do I have to edit?

[Harryc]

/etc/X11/xorg.conf (this works for an MX700 (USB) acting as a regular wheel mouse. I don't know if you need to do anything special for bluetooth. )

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"

[Da_Pipe]

I don't know if this thread is obsolete or not, but I had this problem and here is the solution I used if anyone else needs it.

Fedora Core 3 uses X.Org not XFree86. I'm not sure about core 2. In their documentation section they have a Mouse Support section. I used the MS IntelliMouse Explorer example to configure my mx 700. The only thing I had to change is the xmodmap string to

xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"

and then added the xmodmap line to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc-common. Seems to work for me.

For those who want the quick fix:
edit (as root) /etc/X11/xorg.conf change the mouse section to this

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

change "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2" to "Protocol" "usb" if your mouse is usb or you can try "Auto"
Save.
then (as root) add

xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"

to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc-common
Save.
logout and re-login.

* - The scroll wheel works everywhere. The thumb buttons work in firefox/mozilla for forward and back. Seems to scroll left to right in everything else.

[dfxshadow]

I have been wondering the same thing, Seems that my mx710 thumb buttons only make mozilla return to the home page, and do all kinds of strange things. is there a cross program configuration for FC3, I would really like to map my crouch to my thumb button in Counterstrike, much like i have it in windows.

(cedega rocks)

[KeDruff]

I have crouch mapped to Mouse2 in Wolfenstein. I have a MS Optical Intellimouse on which I have all five buttons working in Firefox, ET, etc. All you have to do is make your Xorg.conf mouse section look like this:

Section "InputDevice"
# Identifier "USB Mouse"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "6 7"
# Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

And then run (as root)

xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 4 5"

After you have done this, the thumb button will work as back and the pinkie button will work as forward in Firefox. Further, in Wolfenstein, thumb button can be mapped as Mouse4 and the pinkie button can be mapped as mouse5. Mouse 1&2 are the left and right buttons and mouse3 is the scroll wheel clicked.

KD

[klingon]

Any way to get mx700 side buttons to go back/forward in Nautilus?