Integrate "extra buttons" in mouse properties

[David Prieto]

Binary package hint: gnome-control-center

I have just realised in Ubuntu Brainstorm (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/120/) that a program called BTNX can help users who have a mouse with additional buttons get the most of their mice.

The interface to it, however, is quite complicated and not as simple as we would like for a Gnome app. It is quite undiscoverable, too, just because a user trying to configure their mouse is naturally going to look in system → preferences → mouse.

I think having a simplified frontend to BTNX in the mouse preferences menu would be the perfect solution. I have made a quick mockup, although I don't own one of these mice myself and thus I might be leaving out something.

[David Prieto (frandavid100-gmail)]

As you can see, the interface is heavily influenced by the keyboard shortcut menu. The idea is, you hit "detect a button", then click the button you want to configure; then you can give it a name, an effect -key combination or command- specify the input for it.

[Data (ubuntuaddress)]

Just for reference: Bug #146160 is the corresponding packaging request for btnx.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

That's similar to http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=140279

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

This will be fairly important to have working for input-hotplug support

[James Hall (james-hall-01)]

I would say that this is a definite necessity. It's pretty much accepted that mice should "just work" but they can't really be said to "just work" if not all buttons work.

Ideally I think that ubuntu should should ship with a sane set of defaults such as side buttons being forward and back. Obviously this wont suit everyone so perhaps a graphical configurator should be added to the present Mouse dialog under preferences. Maybe it should have a series of "Button 1" , "Button 2" etc widgets that "light up" when the corresponding button is pressed and drop down boxes with common actions such as forward, back, left click, right click and finally an option for a keyboard combination. That should probably launch a pop-up that would just take whatever keys are pressed.

[Christophe Olinger (olingerc)]

Hi people,

I have a logitech MX sometthing (400 I think) and configuration would be great.

Will kubuntu get this also?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

this is a request for a new feature, and we're now past feature freeze for intrepid; marking 'wontfix' as this doesn't appear to be blocking any of the pre-existing use cases for mice with hotplug.

[David Prieto (frandavid100-gmail)]

Will it be changed back for Jaunty?

[PDK (pierredekat)]

If this has been marked "wontfix", does that mean that we need to file a new bug report?

Because btnx will not work on Intrepid.
http://www.ollisalonen.com/btnx/

So if people want to configure extra buttons on a mouse, they are going to have to create an fdi file and place it in their /etc/hal/fdi/policy directory.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config#Input%20Configuration%20with%20HAL

Unfortunately, creating an fdi file -- with precious little documentation on how to do such a thing -- is pretty much going to rule out most of us "human beings", for whom Ubuntu was supposedly created.

[David Prieto (frandavid100-gmail)]

We've gone through a complete cycle. Should I open this once we're again before feature freeze in the Karmic cycle?

[Asif Youssuff (yoasif)]

I've been hanging out in #ubuntu a bit since the Jaunty release, and this is something that many users are requesting -- users coming from Windows want their mice to work as they did in Windows... adding this feature in some way would be very nice.

[Daniel cardenas (daniel-cardenas)]

I wrote the following for bug : http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=140279

If a user has several mouses wouldn't they potentially want to customize each
mouse differently?
Questions:
1. Is gnome-mouse-properties still the best place for this enhancement?
2. Is gpointing-device-settings the right place to introduce this enhancement?
3. Or should the two apps be somewhat merged?

I'm thinking option 3. User doesn't want to guess which app is appropriate for
mouse or pointing device customization.