So this isn't a rant about mac's still not natively supporting 5 button mice (though it could be).
I've got an Amazon basics 5 button mouse, and have to use USB overdrive to program all the buttons.
I've got 2 monitors set up, and have a different web browser on each monitor. So i'm frequently switching back and forth between the 2 monitors, and how the mouse works with this is really frustrating. Ideally, there would be some kind of "hover to focus" option, but from what I've seen, that's just not possible on the mac. Ok, fine
Here's where things are weird, (and I'm not sure if this is USB overdrive or the operating system):
I have mouse button 4 programmed to "go back in the browser", ie: "keyboard shortcut back" in usb overdrive.
If I press button 4 on the web browser that has focus (or the active window, I guess), then it goes backward, as expected. If I press button 4 on the web browser that does NOT have focus, then the web browser that DOES have focus goes back. This makes sense, because no matter where the mouse is, the window that has focus gets the "go back" call.
Ok, now, things get weird with the mouse wheel. It works completely opposite. With the mouse wheel, it will cause the browser to scroll up/down the screen, no matter if that window has focus or not. This seems strange to me, since somehow the wheel is able to send a message to whatever window it is hovering over to scroll, even if that window isn't the active window (or has focus, or whatever).
Ideally, I would want all the mouse buttons to work the way that the wheel does ... whatever window the mouse is hovering over, when you push a button, it sends the message to that window to do something.
I don't know if that's possible or not. It seems like it SHOULD be. If the wheel works that way, why can't the buttons?
Or something even more simple, it seems like if you move your mouse to another screen, that screen should automatically become the "active" screen. That would go a long way to solve the issue ... but it doesn't, you have to actually click on the second screen for that screen to become the active one.
Is anyone else annoyed by the way this all works? Are there workarounds?
I've got an Amazon basics 5 button mouse, and have to use USB overdrive to program all the buttons.
I've got 2 monitors set up, and have a different web browser on each monitor. So i'm frequently switching back and forth between the 2 monitors, and how the mouse works with this is really frustrating. Ideally, there would be some kind of "hover to focus" option, but from what I've seen, that's just not possible on the mac. Ok, fine
Here's where things are weird, (and I'm not sure if this is USB overdrive or the operating system):
I have mouse button 4 programmed to "go back in the browser", ie: "keyboard shortcut back" in usb overdrive.
If I press button 4 on the web browser that has focus (or the active window, I guess), then it goes backward, as expected. If I press button 4 on the web browser that does NOT have focus, then the web browser that DOES have focus goes back. This makes sense, because no matter where the mouse is, the window that has focus gets the "go back" call.
Ok, now, things get weird with the mouse wheel. It works completely opposite. With the mouse wheel, it will cause the browser to scroll up/down the screen, no matter if that window has focus or not. This seems strange to me, since somehow the wheel is able to send a message to whatever window it is hovering over to scroll, even if that window isn't the active window (or has focus, or whatever).
Ideally, I would want all the mouse buttons to work the way that the wheel does ... whatever window the mouse is hovering over, when you push a button, it sends the message to that window to do something.
I don't know if that's possible or not. It seems like it SHOULD be. If the wheel works that way, why can't the buttons?
Or something even more simple, it seems like if you move your mouse to another screen, that screen should automatically become the "active" screen. That would go a long way to solve the issue ... but it doesn't, you have to actually click on the second screen for that screen to become the active one.
Is anyone else annoyed by the way this all works? Are there workarounds?