Tips for Scroll Wheel Mice in X-Windows.
To get my scroll wheel on my PS/2 Logitech mouse to do anything useful in X-Windows I had to do the following:
- Add the following to your XF86Config file (Slackware: /etc/XF86Config) in the "Pointer" section.
- Changed my protocol from PS/2 to imps/2
- I discovered deep in XFree documentation that I really should be
using MouseManPlusPS/2. I had major mouse hangs using the
IMPS/2 setting with my Logitech mice.
(Both corded and cordless) See:
http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/mouse6.html
- Added a line: ZAxisMapping 4 5
- This line is for apps unaware of the scroll wheel. It simulates
mouse buttons 4 and 5, so that you can program apps to respond to
buttons 4 and 5. Up to 5 button mice are supported in X. Of
course, this means you can't run an intellimouse with 5 buttons
on it and be fully functional.
- Then press CTRL-ALT-BackSpace to kill X and it should automagically restart.
Here is my .Xdefaults file to enable the scroll wheel
functions on non-aware apps. Save this to your $HOME directory as .Xdefaults.
It is case sensitive and dont forget the dot!
Now these apps should be scroll wheel aware / functional:
- Netscape
- Mozilla (natively)
- Any GNOME app (natively)
- XTerm from XFree86 3.3.4 or better (natively)
- WordPerfect Office 2000 (natively)
- Nedit
- Unreal Tournament [great for weapon switching]
Any QT based app doesn't seem to be aware. I am using QT 1.44 libraries that
come with Slackware 7. So KDE is a bust... :-(
I got help from this site in France:
Colas Nahaboo X mouse wheel scroll page
AMF - Johnny O
- 3/31/2000