Any way to use additional mouse buttons?

elcalen · 10-28-2021, 05:37 AM

Am I missing something obvious, or is there no way to map mouse buttons beyond the normal left/right/middle? Seems like a waste of good control potential if that is indeed the case...

mrc999 · 10-28-2021, 09:56 AM

I use a Red Dragon mouse that has multiple buttons and driver software to map the buttons to keyboard keys, I'm presuming most other multi-button mice have similar software? The buttons are mapped to keyboard keys (or key combinations) using the mouse driver software, and I've mapped all of those to various keys, and then in Reaper I've mapped various actions to those same keys too. The buttons then do what would happen if I pressed the keys. Works like a charm!

elcalen · 10-28-2021, 10:32 AM

Yeah, that might work. But I only have two extra buttons on my mouse, though, and they already work well with other software (well, I mainly use them in the web browser). Remapping them on the OS side would mean I'd have to remap them with other software as well, which isn't exactly ideal...

Fabian · 10-28-2021, 10:54 AM

i have a Logitech mouse with two buttons positioned on the left side for the thumb, and I have assigned those buttons to actions. Reaper recognizes these as MediaKbdBrowse+ and MediaKbdBrowse-.

So, the answer is yes, there is a "way to map mouse buttons beyond the normal left/right/middle", at least on Windows.

elcalen · 10-28-2021, 11:50 AM

Hmm, well, I'm on Linux, so it could be an OS thing. Interestingly it seems to be detecting your mouse presses as keyboard events rather than mouse buttons?

Mine is also a Logitech, but from what I can tell the system is only receiving the events as mouse button 8 and 9... Reaper seems to react to them as if I was left clicking. In Firefox they work out of the box as back and forward, though...

Fabian · 10-28-2021, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elcalen

Hmm, well, I'm on Linux, so it could be an OS thing. Interestingly it seems to be detecting your mouse presses as keyboard events rather than mouse buttons?

Mine is also a Logitech, but from what I can tell the system is only receiving the events as mouse button 8 and 9... Reaper seems to react to them as if I was left clicking. In Firefox they work out of the box as back and forward, though...

Yeah, here on Windows these buttons work as forward and back in the browsers. So it seems to be a Linux thing, but probably the devs could solve it, so make a feature request.

I myself apparently had some problems with this same thing eleven years ago https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=55602 How time flies!