Using "extra" mouse buttons (thumb_left, thumb_right): imwheel?

haertig · 03-31-2014, 02:46 PM

What is the current "best way" to use these buttons? I did some Google searching and the program "imwheel" pops up. However, as is sometimes the case when searching for Linux related things, Google hits can pop up some really old ways of doing things when there are newer/better ways available. I am looking to apply this in LinuxMint13/Xfce so any solutions that may be Gnome, KDE, or other-desktop specific won't help me.

It appears that Firefox already maps thumb_left and thumb_right to "back" and "forward". That's fine. What I would like to do is map one of these thumb buttons to <escape> for use in the gThumb image viewer program, and the other thumb button to <F11> (i.e., "toggle fullscreen").

Before I go learning imwheel config (granted, which is probably easy), is there a better (more recent) way to accomplish what I am wanting?

Alternately, anyone have any pointers to some existing imwheel example configs that would cover what I want? Looking through the imwheel manpage I am not seeing an exhaustive list of key mapping names (e.g., is the <escape> key called "ESC", "ESCAPE", etc. in the config file?)

Thanks!

haertig · 03-31-2014, 03:21 PM

Pretty simple at the basic level:

Create the file $HOME/.imwheelrc containing the following:

Code:

"gthumb"
None,   Thumb1, F11
None,   Thumb2, Escape

Run "imwheel"
When done, run "pkill imwheel"

However, the above also kills the "back" and "forward" mappings for thumb_left and thumb_right in Firefox. Which may actually be a bonus for me, since I don't use those, and just get frustrated when I hit them accidentally!

So imwheel DOES work, albeit maybe not the latest/greatest way to accomplish the task. But it does work for what I want. I'd still like to know if there is a "better" way however.