Re: Kensington Orbit two-button trackball and X

["C.M. Connelly" <c@eskimo.com>]

"WD" == Will Dukes <dukeswj0@sewanee.edu> writes:

   WD> For whatever reason, X makes my left mouse button act
   WD> normally but the right button acts as if it's the middle
   WD> button.  Thus, I have no real way to make a right mouse
   WD> click, which is often a useful thing to be able to do.  Is
   WD> there a configuration file anywhere that allows mouse
   WD> buttons to be remapped or is there an option I can give X
   WD> in the XF86Config file that would do the trick?  I assume
   WD> that if the right button worked correctly I could just set
   WD> 'Emulate 3 buttons' and click both buttons for a middle
   WD> click.  I've tried adding the option 'Buttons 2' to my
   WD> mouse section in XF86Config, but that didn't change
   WD> anything.

I have a Kensington TurboMouse (four/five button trackball), and I
had similar problems.  When I start X, the lower-left button is
button1 (left button), the upper-left button is button3 (right
button), and the lower-right button is button2 (middle button).

The only way I've found to work around this problem is to run
`xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap' by hand to switch the buttons around after
I've logged in.  X is supposed to read the .Xmodmap file when it
starts, and it does seem to read the file (I can get it to dump
the contents, for instance), but it doesn't actually change the
mapping.  I currently have the relevant command in the history
list of the MiniCommander applet under GNOME, and I just choose
the command from the menu (usually after I've tried and failed to
copy and paste something and remembered that I need to).

All I have in my .Xmodmap file is the following line:

   pointer = 1 3 2

You could also run this command from the command line, using 

   xmodmap -e 'pointer = 1 3 2'

(If you were left handed, you could switch the buttons around
using

   xmodmap -e 'pointer = 2 3 1')

Since you only have two buttons, your command line might be a bit
different -- you may have to experiment a bit.

Hope that helps, at least a bit.

   CMC

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   C.M. Connelly               c@eskimo.com                   SHC, DS
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