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One problem for X11 users
Authored by: n8gray on Dec 11, '03 06:52:08PM

I too was very excited when I found that the IM drivers fixed the awful Apple acceleration problem, but then I ran into a (for me) major snag. MS' drivers don't let you assign the middle mouse button to, get this, the middle mouse button. That's right. You can make it minimize your window, activate "Back" in safari, or any number of other things, but you can't make it just be a middle mouse button! This is generally not a big problem in OS X, which was designed around 1 mouse button, but in X11 the middle button is crucial. I use X11 every day so this is a big problem for me.

One (sort-of) work around is to turn on 3-button emulation in X11 and then set up an application-specific mouse layout to generate Alt-click and Cmd-click for right and center mouse clicks in X11. The problem is that you then lose the ability to generate *real* Alt-click and Meta-click in X. Believe it or not, there are applications that use those combos, so this solution is flawed at best.

There is hope, however. I've hacked the generic HID mouse driver so that it has *no* acceleration. I only got it working this morning so I'm not ready to release it yet, but I'll make it available within a week or so. Having used the no-acceleration mouse a bit I'm starting to think that it's too fast at slow speeds and too slow at fast speeds, so a customizable, gentle acceleration curve might be useful. I'll try to implement that before I release the driver.

Note that this driver will work for any USB mouse, not just MS mice.

Finally, there is potentially a much better solution in the long term. Check out:
/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBHIDDriverSafeBoot.kext/Contents/Info.plist

It contains a key called HIDPointerAccelerationTable. I've figured out where this table is read but it's tough to figure out exactly what's being done with it. Somehow it's constructing a piecewise-linear curve. If somebody with hacking skills wants more details, drop me an e-mail. Reverse-engineering this key would mean that we could write a utility to allow anybody to customize this curve without installing any special driver at all.

The moral of this post is: We've got the source. Let's use it! This is what open-source software is all about!



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One problem for X11 users
Authored by: iloatheny on Jan 12, '04 08:30:19PM

While digging around I've found the following sample code that seems to have a similar mechanism for defining acceleration curves:

Link to sample code

My eyes hurt too much at the moment for me to analyse how the thing works. :) If anyone with related experience would like to unravel the mysteries, many people, myself included, would greatly appreciate the efforts.

As a side note, am I the only one who thinks Apple should provide a simple slider that lets the user set the acceleration for their pointing device? Furthermore, would it be wrong to ask of a system-wide mapping of click-and-hold events to ctrl-click / right-click?

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One problem for X11 users
Authored by: ademus on May 30, '04 04:03:53AM

I m totally newbie to the MacOS 's world and the acceleration mouse bothers me.

Have any of you guys, discover how to modify the HIDPointerAccelerationTable?

I Think there would me many people interrester with that.

Thanks



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One problem for X11 users
Authored by: ademus on May 30, '04 05:19:45AM

I just tryed the USBOverDrive, well done but the mouse speed is still too slow :(

How could I increase the speed more?
----------------------

Any of you guys, could say more about the
HIDPointerAccelerationTable

from

/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBHIDDriverSafeBoot.kext/Contents/Info.plist

works?

Thanks



[ Reply to This | # ]
One problem for X11 users
Authored by: ademus on May 30, '04 09:22:24AM

try MacMice at :

http://www.powerbook-fr.com/divers/osx/fichiers/MacMiceMouseCommand.dmg



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