Mouse buttons

[rich1812]

Hello, I use a run of the mill cheap mouse on my Mac day in and day out. In the center of mouse, it has
a wheel to scroll and another button, both the whell and the button make a click noise, (inside there are two buttons) I had never bother to figuer out what they can be used for since I hardly use more than left click and right click and scroll. Are they the buttons can be configuered on Mac to add certain functions?
Thanks.

 

[for this]

Yes, by using a key/button remapping utility.

If your OS is older than Sierra, then try Karabiner which I think is the best in this field. It includes ready-made settings you can use. And you can also remap a key/button to almost any key/button including key combinations by writing your own setting. You can set it to be active on all or only certain mouse or keyboard. Even when you have multiple identical input devices, you can designate the remapping to only one of them using its location ID. Each application can have its own unique remapping, etc. And it's free.

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

If you're using Sierra. The only compatible utility I could find that has mouse button remapping is Flamingo. I've not tried it yet.
https://openfibers.github.io/flamingo/

PS. Karabiner Elements, the stop-gap solution that's compatible with Sierra currently doesn't do mouse button remapping.

 

[rich1812]

Thanks for the tip. I have a question, is it possible to assign the middle wheel button to command S to click and save a TextWrangler document?

 

[for this]

Thanks for the tip. I have a question, is it possible to assign the middle wheel button to command S to click and save a TextWrangler document?

Yes, by copying the text below into the private.xml file, save it and reload it. The instruction is on the page: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/document.html.en, in "How to add your own settings" section.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
<item>
<name>Change Middle Click to Command S</name>
<identifier>private.middle_click_to_command_s</identifier>
<autogen>__KeyToKey__ PointingButton::MIDDLE, KeyCode::S, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
</item>
</root>

If you want to limit it to TextWrangler only:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
<item>
<name>Change Middle Click to Command S</name>
<identifier>private.middle_click_to_command_s</identifier>
<only>TEXTWRANGLER</only>
<autogen>__KeyToKey__ PointingButton::MIDDLE, KeyCode::S, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
</item>
</root>

BTW, I don't use TextWrangler. So I can't be sure the wording "TEXTWRANGLER" will work. For example, for Chrome, you have to use "GOOGLE_CHROME", not just "CHROME". While for Adobe Photoshop, it has to be only "PHOTOSHOP", not "ADOBE_PHOTOSHOP". Try looking in Activity Monitor's Process Name and follow that.

 

[Fishrrman]

You should also try each of these:
- USB Overdrive
- SteerMouse
Both are free to download and try out.
SteerMouse seems to have an edge on extra mouse buttons...