Fine-tuning Logitech Marble Mouse Trackball

CodeSplice · 05-26-2004, 11:40 PM

I recently (meaning today) bought a Logitech Marble Mouse (that's actually a trackball). It's the one with the ball in the front center and two large buttons on either side, with two much smaller buttons towards the middle. I was originally hesitant about buying a trackball because I'd be losing my much-loved scrollwheel, but I was relieved to read that the Marble Mouse's two smaller buttons are supposed to act as scrolling devices: one scrolls up, the other scrolls down. But, of course, Logitech didn't consider Linux users in designing the product, so those two buttons don't quite work.

After searching Google as well as the forums here, and doing a bit of research on my own, I've got it set up almost how I want it. The far-left button left-clicks, the middle-left button middle-clicks, the middle-right button enables scrolling (which is accomplished by moving the ball itself). The only issue now is that the far-right button also scrolls, so I am left without the handy-dandy right-clicking ability. This is a big issue. Scrolling is cool, but I need right-clicks.

I've included the applicable parts of my /etc/X11/XF86Config file:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "mouse0"
        Option      "Buttons" "4"
        Option      "Name" "AutoDetected"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "MouseManPlusPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
        Option      "EmulateWheel" "yes"
        Option      "EmulateWheelButton" "3"
        Option      "EmulateWheelInertia" "12"
EndSection

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and, as usual, just ask if you need more info.

Thanks guys (and girls)!

CodeSplice · 05-27-2004, 11:05 AM

I've done a bit more searching on the issue, and found the following XF86Config settings and explanation at http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/?page=271 :

Quote:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Mouse1"
    Driver "mouse"
    Option "Protocol" "MouseManPlusPS/2"
    Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option "Buttons" "5"
    Option "Emulate3Buttons"
    Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
EndSection

This will set up the following behaviour:

Large left button
Acts as "button 1", a standard left click.
Small left button
Acts as "button 4", equivalent to a small scroll upwards on a scroll mouse.
Small right button
Acts as "button 5", equivalent to a small scroll downwards on a scroll mouse.
Large right button
Acts as "button 3", a standard right click.
Chord of both large buttons
Acts as "button 2", a standard middle click.

I'm at work right now, so can't play with the settings at the moment, but I'm wondering if these settings may work. Also, since the trackball has four buttons, why is the Buttons option set to 5?

Bossman just walked by, so I must depart... thanks in advance for any help.

CodeSplice · 05-27-2004, 03:26 PM

And that's still a no-go. Those settings just make my trackball behave like a three-button mouse... True, I've got the right-clickability back, but I kinda got used to my little ghetto scrolling.

I bet this would be a lot easier if I could understand how the buttons were numbers... knowing which buttons I was setting to do what would help a lot. So in addition to straight-up solutions to this issue, I'm also looking for some information on how to figure out how the mouse buttons are numbered.

As usual, help is good. Help me!

320mb · 05-27-2004, 04:25 PM

Quote:

[COLOR=red=]Option "Emulate3Buttons"[/COLOR]

well your telling it to emulate 3 buttons!!
comment this line out and try it..............

CodeSplice · 05-27-2004, 05:01 PM

Well guys (for those interested) I finally got the desired operation out of the trackball.

The trick was to use the Marble Mouse as a PS/2 device (using the Logitech-supplied USB-to-PS/2 adapter). I used the exactly same settings in my second post:

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier "Mouse1"
    Driver "mouse"
    Option "Protocol" "MouseManPlusPS/2"
    Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option "Buttons" "5"
    Option "Emulate3Buttons"
    Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
EndSection

Now, the large left button left-clicks, the large right button right-clicks, the two smaller buttons scroll up and down a few lines at a time (about like a single click on a real scrollwheel), and the two large buttons together function as a middle click.

All is well. Unless, of course, there's a way to make it scroll for as long as I hold the small buttons down, instead of just hopping down a few lines... Such is life, always seeking improvements.

Tim Johnson · 10-30-2004, 02:34 PM

I'm having similar issues and have the same sort of trackball.
On Red Hat 9.0, /usr/sbin/gpm -t help lists the protocols available
and I do not see MouseManPlusPS/2. Will I need to upgrade gpm
to do this?
Thanks
tim

kmoffat · 01-02-2009, 12:30 AM

Here's another option (on Debian 4 sid). This allows marble scrolling vertically when the small left button is held down. Click on small left/right causes left/right scrolling of window. Large left+right is center button click. (I'm using iceweasel, the debian firefox version, but it seems to work everwhere in a quick test. great for f-spot, openoffice, etc).

Added "MarbleMouse" to the server layout section:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "aticonfig Layout MarbleMouse"
Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
EndSection

And this is the appropriate section:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "MarbleMouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "ButtonMapping" "1 8 3 6 7"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelTimeout" "300" #msec
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "6"
EndSection