Well, actually it's a trackball -- I'm running GIMP on a laptop and can't afford the space for a mouse pad. But trackballs have one serious limitation in GIMP compared to mice:

No scroll wheel.

:(

My trackball does, however, have four buttons. Can I configure my GIMP to respond to buttons 3 and 4 like it does when you mousewheel by a notch?

-- Stratadrake strata_ranger@hotmail.com
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Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.

Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2015 10:33:47 +0800 Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Can I configure my mouse to.... From: ngoonee.talk@gmail.com
To: strata_ranger@hotmail.com
CC: gimp-user-list@gnome.org

Of course, you don't specify what OS you're using.

Oops, yes I did forget to mention that -- running on a Windows platform whose default mouse driver historically does NOT allow you to reconfigure any buttons (beyond general handedness).

-- Stratadrake strata_ranger@hotmail.com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.

Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2015 11:45:49 +0800 Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Can I configure my mouse to.... From: ngoonee.talk@gmail.com
To: strata_ranger@hotmail.com
CC: gimp-user-list@gnome.org

On Windows, at least for Logitech mice, there's a Logitech utility which allows button remapping. Not sure whether it works in the more general case. A quick google search would answer that I'm sure.

Yes, it does. Logitech has "SetPoint" while Microsoft has "IntelliMouse", both reputedly have an expanded selection of functions for extra buttons. X-Mouse is also available.

Testing SetPoint, unfortunately I cannot simply map button 3 to "scroll down" and button 4 to "scroll up" -- the closest it offers is two autoscrolling options (with subtle differences between them). The only complaint here is that both autoscroll modes are toggles and not modifiers.

On an aside, turns out I absolutely never use button 4....

-- Stratadrake strata_ranger@hotmail.com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.

Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2015 11:45:49 +0800 Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] Can I configure my mouse to.... From: ngoonee.talk@gmail.com
To: strata_ranger@hotmail.com
CC: gimp-user-list@gnome.org

On Windows, at least for Logitech mice, there's a Logitech utility which allows button remapping. Not sure whether it works in the more general case. A quick google search would answer that I'm sure.

Just a quick update on my testing with Logitech SetPoint:

- I configured button 3 for "Universal scroll". When I click button 3, moving the trackball up or down causes scrolling in that direction. Unfortunately it is a toggle not a modifier, but I can work with that. - There is also "AutoScroll", in which I can click the button and an anchor cursor appears at the mouse location; moving the mouse relative to the anchor causes scrolling in that direction.

The former scrolling behavior is more intuitive for me personally, however, it doesn't work in all Windows apps (GIMP, Inkscape, and Firefox alike).

Looks like XMouse is the next thing on my test list....

-- Stratadrake strata_ranger@hotmail.com
--------------------
Numbers may not lie, but neither do they tell the whole truth.