btnx: Send keyboard and mouse combination events with mouse buttons

[dspearing]

Hey, 1st thanks for taking the time to work on this. It looks like it has potential. I'm a recent convert from the Micro$oft world (well not completely just with Ubuntu). I've worked with Redhat before but could never get it to function as well as I would like. So far I'm LOVING Ubuntu 7.1x64. Anyway to the point:

I have a MX Revolution which I use to play WoW (which runs swimmingly on Wine except for some sound issues). Anyway, not all of my mouse buttons were working so I Googled and found btnx. I installed 0.3.3 and 0.2.3 config. The problem I'm having is trying to find a good configuration. Is there perhaps a config file someone has done that I could see so I have a reference point? I looked for this default config file for the MX that I saw referenced several times but I'm thinking maybe it was a previous version that had this because I have no default in my /etc/btnx folder. I'm used to using the uberOptions in the Windows world to set it up, but the configuration here seems foreign to me for some reason. If someone could lend me a hand I'd be most appreciative. Looking forward to being able to utilize all my buttons again.

Side note: I Screwed it up so bad that after rebooting I had to use the keyboard to open btnx to blow away my config. The buttons were all bass ackwards and I couldn't click anything.

[daou]

Hey, 1st thanks for taking the time to work on this. It looks like it has potential. I'm a recent convert from the Micro$oft world (well not completely just with Ubuntu). I've worked with Redhat before but could never get it to function as well as I would like. So far I'm LOVING Ubuntu 7.1x64. Anyway to the point:

I have a MX Revolution which I use to play WoW (which runs swimmingly on Wine except for some sound issues). Anyway, not all of my mouse buttons were working so I Googled and found btnx. I installed 0.3.3 and 0.2.3 config. The problem I'm having is trying to find a good configuration. Is there perhaps a config file someone has done that I could see so I have a reference point? I looked for this default config file for the MX that I saw referenced several times but I'm thinking maybe it was a previous version that had this because I have no default in my /etc/btnx folder. I'm used to using the uberOptions in the Windows world to set it up, but the configuration here seems foreign to me for some reason. If someone could lend me a hand I'd be most appreciative. Looking forward to being able to utilize all my buttons again.

Side note: I Screwed it up so bad that after rebooting I had to use the keyboard to open btnx to blow away my config. The buttons were all bass ackwards and I couldn't click anything.

You can download the old btnx. Inside the source archive, there is a data/defaults directory. It contains the default settings for the mice as used in the old version. Note: you can't use the default configuration files directly. Just look at the keycode and modifier values as a reference. They are also commented with the functionality that the combos provide.

[Akegata]

I'm having problems with the latest version of btnx.
When I try to start the service after installing it, I get the error

Error opening button event file descriptor: No such file or directory

I have /dev/input/event[0-9], so I'm not sure what's going on. Could it be a permission problem?
They permission on the files is 660.

[catsgomoo]

I'm having a bit of a problem. I have read the manual on fixing problems with extra keypresses or commands that go along with buttons, but I'm still unclear on how to fix it.

I have an MX1000 mouse, and I would like to map all my buttons to different keypresses from the keyboard, to help facilitate hotkeying in games. My problem is that although I get all my buttons configured the way I want, and they send the correct keypresses, they still send the other keypresses that Linux was using as well, in the first place.

So instead of my thumb forward button giving "Key_9", as it says in the config, in practice it actually sends "Key_9 and whatever the hell functions as right click."

How do I disable the original shortcuts and functions?

Much thanks in advance for help on this.

Edit: Fixed. It took every single fix that you had on the troubleshooting page. Yikes. I blame Logitech. Lomoco plus lots of monkeying aroudn in Xev (with a drawing made on pen and paper to help map the things out) fixed the issue.

Thanks so much for such a great piece of software!

[-Phi-]

Just wanted to post and say thanks because the buttons on my VX Nano are now working great.
I needed to do the xorg.conf edit to "auto" and other than that it was all straightforward.

- Phi

[francois12]

having a "btnx failed to start" error during boot, but as you mentioned, it's just annoying because everything works fine!

amazing program!!

Daou, you're doing a great job, thanks a lot!

[tehpopa]

Okay... forgive me for not seeing this in here, but searching didn't find me very much. I'm looking to use btnx as part of my solution to get vent working for me. Admittedly I don't even have Ubuntu installed anymore, but I am looking(desperately) to change that. So here's what I'm wondering. Can btnx send these keystrokes directly to a program? IE: Bind my mouses 4th button to ] or something, and have that be echo'd straight to a non-focused window? If not I think I've got another solution using btnx, x2vnc, and ventriloctrl. But it would be nice if I could slim it down a bit.

[francois12]

hi

this picture explains the bug I have when I click on the buttons shown it acts like a left click or a right click
Is there a fix for this? thanks
edit : it's not a "left click", it's a "middle click" (picture)

[SuperAndy]

It does seem that turning the mouse off results in all settings going back to some default. If the mouse is left on, however, its fine. Is this a known bug?

[blazoner]

I got tired of having to look up all of the button configurations from btnx 0.2.x every time I had to start from scratch, so here they are in abbreviated form.

################################################## #########
# !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!READ ME FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
################################################## #########
# This file was used to configure btnx's behavior.
# Lines are commented with # characters.
#
# Basic structure of a button configuration for sending
# keyboard and button events
# -------------------------------------------------------
# Button
# keycode = KEY
# mod1 = KEY
# mod2 = KEY
# mod3 = KEY
# EndButton
#
#
# -------------------------------------------------------
# The configuration field for a button was started by
# a "Button" line and closed by an "EndButton" line.
# The mod[1..3] fields are optional. The fields have the
# following meanings:
#
# mod[1..3]: these are modifier key values. Examples are
# shift (KEY_LEFTSHIFT, KEY_RIGHTSHIFT), ctrl (KEY_LEFTCTRL, ...),
# alt, etc. You can combine up to three modifier keys together with
# a keycode. You can even combine them with mouse button events.
# You do not have to specify any mod keys if you don't need to.
#-----------------------------------------------------------
#-----------------------------------------------------------
# Left mouse button
# NOTE: This is commented out because you probably don't want
# to send extra events when pressing this button!
#Button
#name = Left button
#keycode = KEY_UNKNOWN
#EndButton


# Right mouse button
# NOTE: This is commented out because you probably don't want
# to send extra events when pressing this button!
#Button
#name = Right button
#keycode = KEY_UNKNOWN
#EndButton

# Top wheel scroll down
# NOTE: This is commented out because you probably don't want
# to send extra events when pressing this button!
#Button
#name = Top wheel scroll down
#keycode = KEY_UNKNOWN
#EndButton


# Top wheel scroll up
# NOTE: This is commented out because you probably don't want
# to send extra events when pressing this button!
#Button
#name = Top wheel scroll up
#keycode = KEY_UNKNOWN
#EndButton


#-----------------------------------------------------------
# These buttons were configured for the MX Revolution mouse.
#-----------------------------------------------------------
# Thumb wheel forward.
# Does a Ctrl+Alt+Left, useful for switching workspaces.
Button
name = Thumb wheel forward
keycode = KEY_LEFT
mod1 = KEY_LEFTCTRL
mod2 = KEY_LEFTALT
EndButton


# Thumb wheel back.
# Does a Ctrl+Alt+Right, useful for switching workspaces.
Button
name = Thumb wheel back
keycode = KEY_RIGHT
mod1 = KEY_LEFTCTRL
mod2 = KEY_LEFTALT
EndButton


# Thumb wheel press.
# Does an Alt+LeftMouseButton. Useful for dragging windows.
Button
name = Thumb wheel press
keycode = BTN_LEFT
mod1 = KEY_LEFTALT
EndButton


# Thumb button back.
# Does a Ctrl+PageDown. Useful for moving through tabs
# (Firefox, gnome-terminal, etc.)
Button
name = Thumb button back
keycode = KEY_PAGEDOWN
mod1 = KEY_LEFTCTRL
EndButton


# Thumb button forward.
# Does a Ctrl+PageUp. Useful for moving through tabs
# (Firefox, gnome-terminal, etc.)
Button
name = Thumb button forward
keycode = KEY_PAGEUP
mod1 = KEY_LEFTCTRL
EndButton


# Search key.
# Simulates a mouse-wheel click.
Button
name = Search key
keycode = BTN_MIDDLE
EndButton


# Top wheel right.
# Does an Alt+Right. Ex. Firefox forward
Button
name = Top wheel right
keycode = KEY_RIGHT
mod1 = KEY_LEFTALT
EndButton


# Top wheel left.
# Does an Alt+Left. Ex. Firefox back
Button
name = Top wheel left
keycode = KEY_LEFT
mod1 = KEY_LEFTALT
EndButton


=============================================
Buttons from other default configurations
=============================================
# Play/pause button
# Sends a play/pause key event.
Button
name = Play/pause
keycode = KEY_PLAYPAUSE
EndButton


# Volume up button
# Sends a volume up key event
Button
name = Volume up
keycode = KEY_VOLUMEUP
EndButton


# Volume down button
# Sends a volume down key event
Button
name = Volume down
keycode = KEY_VOLUMEDOWN
EndButton


# Search key.
Button
name = Search key
keycode = KEY_F5
EndButton


=================================================
Default keys from the MX610 with additional notes
=================================================
# Volume up button
# Sends a volume up key event
# NOTE: This is commented out. I didn't need to send this event as kmilo grabs it
#Button
#name = VolumeUp
#keycode = KEY_VOLUMEUP
#EndButton


# Volume down button
# Sends a volume down key event
# NOTE: This is commented out. I didn't need to send this event as kmilo grabs it
#Button
#name = VolumeDown
#keycode = KEY_VOLUMEDOWN
#EndButton


# Volume mute button
# Sends a volume mute key event
# NOTE: This is commented out. I didn't need to send this event as kmilo grabs it
#Button
#name = VolumeMute
#keycode = KEY_MUTE
#EndButton

# Media forward button
# Does a PLAYPause, useful for Amarok
Button
name = Messenger
keycode = KEY_PLAYPAUSE
EndButton


# Media back button
# Does a XF86Mail, opens KMail compose
Button
name = Email
keycode = KEY_MAIL
EndButton


# Browser forward button
# Does an XF86Forward. Ex. Konqueror forward
Button
name = Browser forward
keycode = KEY_FORWARD
EndButton


# Browser back button
# Does an XF86Back. Ex. Konqueror back
Button
name = Browser back
keycode = KEY_BACK
EndButton


# Wheel tilt right
# Useful for Amarok
Button
name = Wheel right
keycode = KEY_NEXTSONG
EndButton


# Wheel tilt left.
# Useful for Amarok
Button
name = Wheel left
keycode = KEY_PREVIOUSSONG
EndButton

I hope this helps, and I suggest that daou should probably link this post in post #1 of this thread.