Mousewheel emulation - bscroll

[Banshee]

diddy app I wrote that emulates mousewheel on a two button mouse. Basically I bought a mogo and didnt like the software they supplied to do this, it was kinda hacked and bloaty - pointix - and of course, it wasnt portable!

So I wrote one that does the same (the scrolling part), is small, portable, with no dependancies, no reg writes and in the future the options will sit in an ini file in the same directoy.

It is VERY beta at the mo, just a single exe that drops an icon in your systray. Then when you press and hold the right mouse it drops an invisible anchor, move the mouse up or down to scroll the active window up or down, further you move, faster you scroll.

I need to know:

a) is it any good
b) will anybody use it so that
c) it is worth developing further.

Initial thoughts are to allow the user to control the acceleration ratio and also include a hotkey that disables the scroll while the key is down (so you can right-click + drag an icon for example to move it instead of copy).

Anyhoo, let see what happens:

http://www.portalis.org/development/bscroll

*Above URL edited due to site move*

[Baas]

Check out Wheel Here in this post. Might be helpful source.

[appsuser]

This worked better than expected. I'm using a laptop touchpad (no scroll wheel) and sometimes portable dock programs or hidden start menus near the scroll bars will get in the way, so an emulated scroll wheel is convenient. I noticed, however, that the right mouse button key still retains its other functions, such as selection, in addition to scrolling. It would be nice if you had the choice of the program working like the normal scroll button, placing a visible anchor and just scrolling, or retaining the right mouse button's selection functions in addition to scrolling.

[Buatdldoang]

Maybe it would be better if the right-mouse-button becomes scroll only after users move the mouse (so, it becomes scroll only if user press r-button and then move the mouse). Or make an option for it, it activates based on mouse movement or based on time.

And maybe it would be good if there is an option to disable it by using mouse gesture in addition to hotkey, like: hold R-button + L-button, or would be better if customizable as users need.

Good luck and thanks for the useful app.

[Banshee]

Check out Wheel Here in this post. Might be helpful source.

Thanks, will take a look.

As for the other comments:

At the moment it emulates the mouse wheel, I am already working on a version that emulates a middle-mouse click, this effectively drops a visible anchor but has the disadvantage that is then only works for programs that are middlemouse click friendly (there are plenty which aren't).

So a sort of hybrid would be good where a hotkey maybe could switch between the two modes (click or scroll)?

Since the trigger is initially a right click event, although the scroll function takes control of the mouse event queue the initial action is still registered by windows - I am not sure at the moment how to get round that....

As for when it kicks in, at the moment the user must hold the mouse down for 250ms before the software takes over the button functionality, I could make this movement dependent and also, of course, make it user adjustable.

Mouse gestures are a bit more complex to capture, but will look into that also.

But, thanks for the great feedback it seems worthwhile putting some more effort into this and since there is enough interest I'll get on with it!

Thanks.

Banshee

[Buatdldoang]

So a sort of hybrid would be good where a hotkey maybe could switch between the two modes (click or scroll)?

For me, I would prefer an application that could work on all applications' windows without the need to switch modes. When I work with many windows, I work quite fast and I won't be able to remember which windows work with middle-click and which don't. So, if I browse between windows and need to switch modes, it won't be productive. Unless, you make the application to autoswitch-mode based on the application. However, still, I prefer a solution that would work for all windows. But, that's my opinion.

Perhaps MouseImp could be used as reference. It works on most windows, but unlike yours, it has no autoscroll.

Since the trigger is initially a right click event, although the scroll function takes control of the mouse event queue the initial action is still registered by windows - I am not sure at the moment how to get round that....

Perhaps you could use hook the mouse just like what CAFE does.

In CAFE, if user double-click on the registered file-manager, it will hold the second click, and do the script. The second-click is not registered. Maybe you could take a look at the CAFE source code to see how to make the click to be not registered, with a help of online translator as the comments are in French. CAFE uses AutoHotkey (AHK), I read AHK is better to handle mouse than AutoIt. But, if you want AutoIt, search for "Func _LLMouseProc($iCode, $wParam, $lParam)" in Google.

Hope it could be useful.