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Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
Fri, 02 Jan 2004
Expose and Intellimouse Explorer
Today I finally got around to hooking up my Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro. Now I have to relearn how to type. The Powerbook is sitting on my desk right in front of the 21" CRT. So I have an unusual multiple monitor setup where the secondary display is below the primary display. I've been typing on the Powerbook keyboard, and it's been making me slightly batty - it's not a Thinkpad keyboard, for one, and it's at the wrong typing height for me. To make matters worse (for my hands an back), the Natural Keyboard Pro is sitting on a nice keyboard arm that is slung under the desktop, which puts the keyboard in a perfect typing position for me (and almost no one else because I'm small). I've been feeling it in my arms and back. So today while waiting for one of my stress test cases to run, I dug out an old Microsoft Natural Keyboard and a really old PS/2 Intellimouse, plugged them into the television, er, Windows box, and plugged the Natural Keyboard Pro into the PowerBook. Quick test to make sure the Windows box is happy (it is), and on to the Powerbook. I put the Intellimouse Explorer back onto the keyboard arm platform and plug it into the Natural Keyboard Pro, and download MS IntelliType 5.0 for OS X. Everything works great. The OS X drivers have sensible binding for all the media function keys that I never used, (and can't reliably find from the home row).
I'm really in power work mode now, and I've got lots of windows open -- 20 across 4 virtual desktops, and I don't have the window happy WingIDE running at the moment -- add 4 or 5 for that. I've got tons of XChatAqua windows, everything. I really need Expose, and I've started to use it -- by using the activation corners, but it seems a long reach to get there. I don't want to take my hands off the home row, but I have to take my right hand off to use the mouse to get the right window out of the pile. This makes the default F8 - F10 binding useless, because the hand that pushes those keys should be on the mouse to fish out the window. What I really want is to use a shifted mouse key (like the side forward/back buttons plus command or option) to invoke Expose. But I couldn't figure out how to do it with my setup. Is there anybody out there that's made this work? Maybe using USB Overdrive?
[22:17] |
[computers/operating_systems/macosx] |
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6 Comments |
Hi Ted,
I've bound whatever F9 defaults to for Expose to wheel mouse click and I've found after about a week of using this it works well except for the occasional odd times I click the wheel mouse when scrolling but I've been getting better at not doing this. However if you're working in X11 this might be a little lousy as you lose your middle mouse button.
I've also become a left handed mouse user and this frees up my right hand to hit the other Expose keyboard commands and that's helped.
Posted by Al Hoang at Sat Jan 3 05:44:48 2004
I've bound whatever F9 defaults to for Expose to wheel mouse click and I've found after about a week of using this it works well except for the occasional odd times I click the wheel mouse when scrolling but I've been getting better at not doing this. However if you're working in X11 this might be a little lousy as you lose your middle mouse button.
I've also become a left handed mouse user and this frees up my right hand to hit the other Expose keyboard commands and that's helped.
Posted by Al Hoang at Sat Jan 3 05:44:48 2004
Al,
Middle mouse is getting plenty of duty elsewhere (like X), plus that's only one key, and I'd really like 2.
I think my muscle memory is too old to switch to left handed...
Posted by Ted Leung at Sat Jan 3 10:45:04 2004
Middle mouse is getting plenty of duty elsewhere (like X), plus that's only one key, and I'd really like 2.
I think my muscle memory is too old to switch to left handed...
Posted by Ted Leung at Sat Jan 3 10:45:04 2004
Howdy,
After I posted this I decided to look in the Expose settings in the Preferences or whatever you call it and I noticed you can hold down shift, Cmd, or alt while in any of the mouse buttons you can do (shift | cmd | alt) + (RMB | MMB). I tried binding show all to shift RMB and am experimenting. You can also do this with any keypresses which is handy. I wish they had something like shift + ctrl but alas not yet.
I'm not sure if you looked in there already but that's a pretty nifty feature. Thanks for prodding me into looking.
Posted by Al Hoang at Sat Jan 3 10:59:52 2004
After I posted this I decided to look in the Expose settings in the Preferences or whatever you call it and I noticed you can hold down shift, Cmd, or alt while in any of the mouse buttons you can do (shift | cmd | alt) + (RMB | MMB). I tried binding show all to shift RMB and am experimenting. You can also do this with any keypresses which is handy. I wish they had something like shift + ctrl but alas not yet.
I'm not sure if you looked in there already but that's a pretty nifty feature. Thanks for prodding me into looking.
Posted by Al Hoang at Sat Jan 3 10:59:52 2004
I did try those, but I can't actually get any of them to engage. Are you actually getting it to work? What kind of mouse are you using? Maybe there's a conflict with one of the other drivers that I'm using..
Posted by Ted Leung at Sat Jan 3 11:11:03 2004
Posted by Ted Leung at Sat Jan 3 11:11:03 2004
Oops, I forgot to specify my hardware config. I'm actually using a USB MS Wheel Mouse rather than the Intellimouse you are referring to. I've not installed any drivers for the mouse as most of its base functionality works for me.
I also have a Dell-branded USB keyboard I've plugged into my TiBook but I've done no configuration of the keyboard and just use it as is.
Expose definitely works with the shift + mouse click modifiers for my configuration.
It definitely sounds like some sort of driver configuration issue which from my experience can lead to hours of tracking down where it is going wrong. Can you use the TiBook keyboard + mouse to activate Expose? That might give you an idea if it's the keyboard or the mouse.
Since I've gotten my Mac, I've been sticking with getting native USB hardware just in case...
Posted by Al Hoang at Sat Jan 3 11:36:24 2004
I also have a Dell-branded USB keyboard I've plugged into my TiBook but I've done no configuration of the keyboard and just use it as is.
Expose definitely works with the shift + mouse click modifiers for my configuration.
It definitely sounds like some sort of driver configuration issue which from my experience can lead to hours of tracking down where it is going wrong. Can you use the TiBook keyboard + mouse to activate Expose? That might give you an idea if it's the keyboard or the mouse.
Since I've gotten my Mac, I've been sticking with getting native USB hardware just in case...
Posted by Al Hoang at Sat Jan 3 11:36:24 2004
I uninstalled the intellimouse driver and installed USB Overdrive, and I can use the unshifted/chorded forward and back buttons to drive Expose now. This is still bad because in Safari and Firebird, I rebound those buttons to browsers forward and back like the should be.
If someone knows how to pass shifted/chorded mouse button 4 or 5 clicks to Expose, I'm all ears...
Posted by Ted Leung at Mon Jan 5 13:26:34 2004
If someone knows how to pass shifted/chorded mouse button 4 or 5 clicks to Expose, I'm all ears...
Posted by Ted Leung at Mon Jan 5 13:26:34 2004
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