My beloved Microsoft Trackball Explorer mouse died recently and I was amazed to find that the price increased from about $70 to $600 (new) and $190 (used). I like the mouse, but not enough to shell out that kind of dough.
So, after 10+ years of using the same mouse (my friends call it a relic) I had to find a replacement. I decided on the Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman mouse. While it is not as comfortable as the Microsoft Trackball Explorer it is close enough and only about $50.
Since I do the un-human thing and work at a computer all day I have to optimize the amount of clicking and typing I do. I also have a repetitive stress injury from playing too much bass in high school that flares up if I spend too much time clicking.
So, to limit the amount of clicks I do, I have configured one of the buttons on my mouse to execute a double-click command. It issues a double click to my computer, but I only have to click it once. It has saved me a ton of clicks over the years so I thought I’d share how I do that and possibly save you from a repetitive stress injury.
For the Microsoft Trackball Explorer it’s easy. You just go into the mouse properties and set the top left button to Double-click.
But for the Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman that option doesn’t exist. The only option for the top left button is right click.
After doing a couple of searches I discovered the X-Mouse Button Control application. It’s a great little utility lets you override all your mouse buttons.
It lets me override the “right button” which maps to the “top” button on my Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman
When you are using this application you should be aware that you can turn all its overrides off by checking the box: “Bypass ALL Actions when SCROLL LOCK is ON”. This is very important if you are using a laptop, because when the mouse isn’t connected it will still override the right click behavior on your laptop’s mouse pad.
Another thing that took me a while to figure out is how to map the 4 & 5 buttons (those are the two buttons on the left side of the mouse above the left click (big) button)…which I use for “right-click” and “show desktop”.
The trick is that you have to set 4 & 5 to “Generic Button” in Logitech SetPoint and then in X-Mouse Button Control you use “Mouse Button 4” and “Mouse Button 5” to set them to whatever you want. You have to do this because SetPoint doesn’t allow you to configure those buttons to anything. They limit you to what they think is best.
Hope this helps you configure your mouse and save you some clicks.
Jon