Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on September 03, 2003 10:21 PM
I've always been bothered by the mouse wheel not working either. It is a VERY handy way to scroll through text and such when it works. I'm not sure what you meant by "(back) navigation", but here's what I've done to get the mouse wheel working "almost" like I want (note: I can't get it to work totally like I'd like in many Window's programs either...)
First; you have to keep in mind that these new "desktop environments" like KDE and Gnome are still running on top of the X window system (which is, of course, just running on top of the Linux kernel). The<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/X11/XF86Config file has to be edited and a line added to the mouse description to enable the "Z-axis movement". The buttons on a typical wheel mouse (such as the MS intellimouse) are identified as 1-right button, 2-left button, 3-middle button(wheel pushed down), 4-wheel rotated upwards, 5-wheel rotated downwards. So, buttons 4 and 5 have to identified to the X server as to be used for this "Z-axis movement". Once this is done, and your using the correct mouse driver (the "auto" setting seems to usually work for most PS/2 and serial mouses), then a lot of the newer software developed for the X window system seems to use the wheel. I've even found that I can get most of the older X window programs to use the wheel by just binding the desired motions to buttons 4 & 5 in the appropiate<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/X11/app-defaults/ file.
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About the mouse wheel...
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 03, 2003 10:21 PMFirst; you have to keep in mind that these new "desktop environments" like KDE and Gnome are still running on top of the X window system (which is, of course, just running on top of the Linux kernel). The<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/X11/XF86Config file has to be edited and a line added to the mouse description to enable the "Z-axis movement". The buttons on a typical wheel mouse (such as the MS intellimouse) are identified as 1-right button, 2-left button, 3-middle button(wheel pushed down), 4-wheel rotated upwards, 5-wheel rotated downwards. So, buttons 4 and 5 have to identified to the X server as to be used for this "Z-axis movement". Once this is done, and your using the correct mouse driver (the "auto" setting seems to usually work for most PS/2 and serial mouses), then a lot of the newer software developed for the X window system seems to use the wheel. I've even found that I can get most of the older X window programs to use the wheel by just binding the desired motions to buttons 4 & 5 in the appropiate<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/X11/app-defaults/ file.
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