Score:0

Ubuntu

How to reprogram mouse button

Ancient

10/21/22, 2:29 PM

Running 20.04.2 LTS, using a Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000. The thumb button (left edge of mouse) functions as "forward" and I want to change it to "back". Any tips?

1 + 2

microsoft-mouse

Pedro Maimere

10/21/22, 2:44 PM

Have you tried `xev` to identify the button and then remapping it?

Ancient

10/21/22, 2:54 PM

Pedro: Not until you just mentioned it. I'm new to this. I used xev -event mouse and found that it's button 9. Now what?

Score:0

Ubuntu

Pedro Maimere

10/21/22, 4:37 PM

First, identify your mouse's id through the command xinput. In this example, what we are looking for is the id=9:

$ xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ PIXART USB OPTICAL MOUSE                  id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]

Now, let's discover all the buttons available on your mouse and their order, using the command xinput --list <id>, substituting <id> for your mouse's id found earlier:

$ xinput --list 9
PIXART USB OPTICAL MOUSE                    id=9    [slave  pointer  (2)]
    Reporting 7 classes:
        Class originated from: 9. Type: XIButtonClass
        Buttons supported: 7
        Button labels: "Button Left" "Button Middle" "Button Right" "Button Wheel Up" "Button Wheel Down" "Button Horiz Wheel Left" "Button Horiz Wheel Right"

Now we know how many buttons are supported, and their order, given by "Button labels". In the example, "Button Left" is 1, "Button Middle" is 2, and so on.

I don't know the exact order of the buttons of your mouse, as you should discover it as described above. But suppose your "Back button"'s number is 6 and "Forward button"'s number is 7, and there are 11 buttons supported. Run this command, substituting <id> for your mouse's id:

xinput set-button-map <id> 1 2 3 4 5 7 6 8 9 10 11

0 + 5

Ancient

10/22/22, 2:45 PM

Here's the output I got after running xinput as suggested. No button labels! Microsoft Microsoft Optical Mouse with Tilt Wheel Consumer Control id=16 [slave keyboard (3)] Reporting 1 classes: Class originated from: 16. Type: XIKeyClass Keycodes supported: 248

Pedro Maimere

10/23/22, 1:36 AM

@Ancient it seems the mouse also creates a slave keyboard, however you found out before with `xev` that it also returned a ButtonPress event, and not a KeyPress event, so, there must be a slave pointer linked to this mouse. Please run `xinput list --long | awk '/master keyboard/{exit}1'` and edit your question with the output. This will allow us to check all your pointers.

Ancient

10/23/22, 2:06 PM

I tried to paste the entire output, but this system is saying it's too long by 5686 characters. Is there another way to share it here?

Pedro Maimere

10/23/22, 8:56 PM

@Ancient You may use [Pastebin](http://pastebin.com) or [Paste Ubuntu](http://paste.ubuntu.com).

Ancient

10/24/22, 5:18 PM

Thanks. I'm away from the computer for a day or two. To be continued!

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: How to reprogram mouse button

TH: วิธีตั้งโปรแกรมปุ่มเมาส์ใหม่

RO: Cum se reprogramează butonul mouse-ului

RU: Как перепрограммировать кнопку мыши

VI: Cách lập trình lại nút chuột

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