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5 <!ENTITY % English
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12 <author>&Mike.McBride; &Mike.McBride.mail;
</author>
13 <author>&Brad.Hards; &Brad.Hards.mail;
</author>
14 <!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
17 <date>2004-
10-
09</date>
18 <releaseinfo>3.03.00</releaseinfo>
21 <para>This is the documentation for the
&kde; &kcontrol; module that configures mice and other pointing devices.
26 <keyword>KDE
</keyword>
27 <keyword>KControl
</keyword>
28 <keyword>mouse
</keyword>
35 <para>This module allows you to configure your pointing device. Your
36 pointing device may be a mouse, a track ball, a touch-pad, or another piece
37 of hardware that performs a similar function.
</para>
39 <para>This module is divided into several tabs:
40 <link linkend=
"mouse-general">General
</link>,
41 <link linkend=
"cursor-theme">Cursor Theme
</link>,
42 <link linkend=
"mouse-advanced">Advanced
</link> and
43 <link linkend=
"mouse-navigation">Mouse Navigation
</link>.
44 There may also be one or more additional tabs if you have a Logitech mouse
45 or trackball, providing access to special features.
48 <sect2 id=
"mouse-general">
49 <title><guilabel>General
</guilabel></title>
53 <term><guilabel>Button Order
</guilabel></term>
55 If you are left-handed, you may
56 prefer to swap the functions of the
<mousebutton>left
</mousebutton> and
57 <mousebutton>right
</mousebutton> buttons on your pointing device by choosing the
58 <quote>Left handed
</quote> option. If your pointing device has more than two
59 buttons, only those that function as the
<mousebutton>left
</mousebutton> and
60 <mousebutton>right
</mousebutton> buttons are affected. For example, if you have
61 a three-button mouse, the
<mousebutton>middle
</mousebutton> button is
67 <term><guilabel>Reverse scroll direction
</guilabel></term>
69 With this checkbox selected, the scroll wheel (if any) will work in the opposite direction (so that if rolling the top of the scroll wheel towards you previously causes a scroll down, then it will now cause a scroll up). This may be useful to handle a unusual setup of the X server.
75 <term><guilabel>Double-click to open files and folders (select icons on first click)
</guilabel></term>
77 <para> If this option is not checked, icons/files will be opened with a
78 single click of the
<mousebutton>left
</mousebutton> mouse-button. This
79 default behavior is consistent with what you would expect when you click
80 links in most web browsers. If checked however, icons/files will be
81 opened with a double click, while a single click will only select the
82 icon or file. This is the behavior you may know from other desktops or
83 operating systems.
</para>
88 <term><guilabel>Single-click to open files and folders
</guilabel></term>
90 <para>This is the default setting for
&kde;. Clicking once on an icon
91 will open it. To select you can drag around the icon(s) or
<keycombo
92 action=
"simul">&Ctrl;<mousebutton>Right
</mousebutton></keycombo> click,
93 or simply click and hold to drag it. You can also enable automatic selection of icons using the
<guilabel>Automatically select icons
</guilabel> checkbox, discussed below.
</para>
98 <term><guilabel>Change pointer shape over icons
</guilabel></term>
100 <para>When this option is checked, the shape of the mouse pointer
101 changes whenever it is over an icon.
</para>
103 <tip><para>This option should be checked in most situations. It gives
104 more visual feedback and says, in essence, if you click here, something
105 will happen.
</para></tip>
111 <term><guilabel>Automatically select icons
</guilabel></term>
114 As noted above, if you have
<guilabel>Single-click to open files and folders
</guilabel> selected, you can select icons by dragging around them, or by using
<keycombo
115 action=
"simul">&Ctrl;<mousebutton>Right
</mousebutton></keycombo> click. If you routinely need to select icons, you may want to enable this checkbox, which will allow icons to be selected automatically by pausing over the icon. The
<guilabel>Delay:
</guilabel> slider determines how long is required before the automatic selection takes effect.
121 <term><guilabel>Visual feedback on activation
</guilabel></term>
123 <para>When this option is
124 checked,
&kde; gives you visual feedback whenever you click on something and activate it.
</para></listitem>
130 <sect2 id=
"cursor-theme">
131 <title><guilabel>Cursor Theme
</guilabel></title>
134 This tab allows you to select from a number of cursor themes. A preview of the cursor display is shown above the listbox.
137 <note><para>The features provided by this tab may not be available on some systems. Your system may need to be updated to support cursor themes.
141 If you have additional cursor themes available, you can install and remove them using the buttons below the listbox. Note that you cannot remove the default themes.
146 <sect2 id=
"mouse-advanced">
147 <title>Advanced
</title>
151 <term id=
"peripherals-mouse-acceleration">
152 <guilabel>Pointer acceleration
</guilabel></term>
154 <para>This option allows you to change the relationship
155 between the distance that the mouse pointer moves on the
156 screen and the relative movement of the physical device
157 itself (which may be a mouse, track-ball, or some other
158 pointing device.)
</para>
160 <para>A high value for the acceleration multiplier will lead to large
161 movements of the mouse pointer on the screen, even when
162 you only make a small movement with the physical device.
</para>
164 <tip><para>A multiplier between
<guilabel>1x
</guilabel> and
165 <guilabel>3x
</guilabel> will works well for many systems. With a multiplier
166 over
<guilabel>3x
</guilabel> the mouse pointer may become difficult to
167 control.
</para></tip>
172 <term><guilabel>Pointer threshold
</guilabel></term>
174 <para>The threshold is the smallest distance that the mouse pointer must
175 move on the screen before acceleration has any effect. If the movement
176 is within the threshold, the mouse pointer moves as if the acceleration
177 were set to
<guilabel>1x
</guilabel>.
</para>
179 <para>Thus, when you make small movements with the physical device (
⪚
180 mouse), you still have fine control of the mouse pointer on the screen,
181 whereas larger movements of the physical device will move the mouse
182 pointer rapidly to different areas on the screen.
</para>
184 <para>You can set the threshold value by dragging the slider button or
185 by clicking the up/down arrows on the spin-button to the left of the
188 <tip><para>In general, the higher you set the
<guilabel>Pointer
189 acceleration
</guilabel> value, the higher you will want to set the
190 <guilabel>Pointer threshold
</guilabel> value. For example, a
191 <guilabel>Pointer threshold
</guilabel> of
4 pixels may
192 be appropriate for a
<guilabel>Pointer Acceleration
</guilabel> of
193 2x, but
10 pixels might be
194 better for
3x.
</para></tip>
199 <term><guilabel>Double click interval
</guilabel></term>
201 <para>This is the maximum amount of time between clicks for
&kde; to
202 register a double click. If you click twice, and the time between those
203 two clicks is less than this number,
&kde; recognizes that as a double
204 click. If the time between these two clicks is greater than this
205 number,
&kde; recognizes those as two
<emphasis>separate
</emphasis>
206 single clicks.
</para>
211 <term><guilabel>Drag start time
</guilabel> and
<guilabel>Drag start
212 distance
</guilabel></term>
217 <listitem><para>click with the mouse
</para></listitem>
218 <listitem><para>drag within the time specified in
<guilabel>Drag start
219 time
</guilabel>, and
</para></listitem>
220 <listitem><para>move a distance equal to or greater than the number (of
221 pixels) specified in
<guilabel>Drag start distance
</guilabel></para>
225 &kde; will drag the selected item.
</para>
230 <term><guilabel>Mouse wheel scrolls by
</guilabel></term>
232 <para>If you have a wheel mouse, use the slider to determine how many
233 lines of text one
<quote>step
</quote> of the mouse wheel will
242 <sect2 id=
"mouse-navigation">
243 <title><guilabel>Mouse Navigation
</guilabel></title>
246 This tab allows you to configure the keyboard number pad keys as a mouse-type device. This may be useful when you are working on a device without another pointing device, or where you have no other use for the number pad.
252 <term><guilabel>Move pointer with keyboard (using the num pad)
</guilabel></term>
255 To enable keyboard mouse mode, you need to select the checkbox labelled
<guilabel>Move pointer with keyboard (using the num pad)
</guilabel>. When you do this, the other settings will become enabled, and you can customize the keyboard pointer behavior further, if required.
258 The various keys on the number pad move in the direction you would expect. Note that you can move diagonally as well as up, down, left and right. The
<keycap>5</keycap> key emulates a click to a pointer button, typically
&LMB;. You change which button is emulated by using the
<keycap>/
</keycap> key (which makes it
&LMB;),
<keycap>*
</keycap> key (which makes it
&MMB;) and
<keycap>-
</keycap> (which makes it
&RMB;). Using the
<keycap>+
</keycap> emulates a doubleclick to the selected pointer button. You can use the
<keycap>0</keycap> key to emulate holding down the selected pointer button (for easy dragging), and then use the
<keycap>.
</keycap> to emulate releasing the selected pointer button.
264 <term><guilabel>Acceleration delay
</guilabel></term>
267 This is the time (in milliseconds) between the initial key press and the first repeated motion event for mouse key acceleration.
273 <term><guilabel>Repeat interval
</guilabel></term>
276 This is the time in milliseconds between repeated motion events for mouse key acceleration.
282 <term><guilabel>Acceleration time
</guilabel></term>
285 This is the number of key events before the pointer reaches a maximum speed for mouse key acceleration.
291 <term><guilabel>Maximum speed
</guilabel></term>
294 This is the maximum speed in pixels per key event the pointer can reach for mouse key acceleration.
300 <term><guilabel>Acceleration profile
</guilabel></term>
303 This is the slope of the acceleration curve for mouse key acceleration.
312 <sect2 id=
"logitech-mouse">
313 <title><guilabel>Logitech Support
</guilabel></title>
316 Some Logitech USB mice support special features, such as switching to a higher resolution, or
317 providing cordless status. If KDE was built with libusb support, then you will get an additional
318 tab for each supported mouse that is plugged in.
322 The supported devices are:
325 <listitem><para>Wheel Mouse Optical
</para></listitem>
326 <listitem><para>MouseMan Traveler
</para></listitem>
327 <listitem><para>MouseMan Dual Optical
</para></listitem>
328 <listitem><para>MX310 Optical Mouse
</para></listitem>
329 <listitem><para>MX510 Optical Mouse
</para></listitem>
330 <listitem><para>MX300 Optical Mouse
</para></listitem>
331 <listitem><para>MX500 Optical Mouse
</para></listitem>
332 <listitem><para>iFeel Mouse
</para></listitem>
333 <listitem><para>Mouse Receiver
</para></listitem>
334 <listitem><para>Dual Receiver
</para></listitem>
335 <listitem><para>Cordless Freedom Optical
</para></listitem>
336 <listitem><para>Cordless Elite Duo
</para></listitem>
337 <listitem><para>MX700 Optical Mouse
</para></listitem>
338 <listitem><para>Cordless Optical Trackman
</para></listitem>
339 <listitem><para>Cordless MX Duo Receiver
</para></listitem>
340 <listitem><para>MX100 Laser Mouse
</para></listitem>
341 <listitem><para>Receiver for Cordless Presenter
</para></listitem>
345 Not all devices support all capabilities (typically cordless devices do not
346 provide resolution switching, and of course only cordless devices support
347 cordless status reporting), so some parts of the tab will not be enabled for
352 If the mouse supports resolution switching, the
<guilabel>Sensor Resolution
</guilabel>
353 radio button group will be enabled, and you can switch from
<guilabel>400 counts per
354 inch
</guilabel> to
<guilabel>800 counts per inch
</guilabel> and back. If you use
355 <guilabel>800 counts per inch
</guilabel>, the same physical movement of the mouse
356 will cause a greater (roughly double) amount of motion of the cursor. This tends
357 to be popular amongst gamers.
361 If the mouse supports cordless reporting, the
<guilabel>Battery Level
</guilabel>
362 and
<guilabel>RF Channel
</guilabel> widgets will be enabled. You can only change
363 the
<guilabel>RF Channel
</guilabel> if your mouse has two channel support.
366 <sect3 id=
"logitech-perms">
367 <title>Fixing permission problems on Logitech mice
</title>
370 Because of the way USB devices work, the code that accesses the current
371 status on Logitech mice needs to be able to write to the mouse. This
372 should be handled by your distribution, but if not, you may need to do some
373 configuration yourself.
377 On a Linux system, you should use the hotplug system to change the ownership
378 and permissions on the mouse entry in
<filename>/proc/bus/usb
</filename>. One
379 way to do this is to create a short script
380 (
<filename>/etc/hotplug/usb/consoleUserPerms
</filename>) that changes the ownership
381 and permissions, as shown below:
389 # /etc/hotplug/usb/consoleUserPerms
391 # Sets up newly plugged in USB device so that the user who owns
392 # the console according to pam_console can access it from user space
394 # Note that for this script to work, you'll need all of the following:
395 # a) a line in the file /etc/hotplug/usb.usermap or another usermap file
396 # in /etc/hotplug/usb/ that corresponds to the device you are using.
397 # b) a setup using pam_console creates the respective lock files
398 # containing the name of the respective user. You can check for that
399 # by executing
"echo `cat /var/{run,lock}/console.lock`" and
400 # verifying the appropriate user is mentioned somewhere there.
401 # c) a Linux kernel supporting hotplug and usbdevfs
402 # d) the hotplug package (http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net/)
404 # In the usermap file, the first field
"usb module" should be named
405 #
"consoleUserPerms" to invoke this script.
408 if [
"${ACTION}" =
"add" ] && [ -f
"${DEVICE}" ]
410 # New code, using lock files instead of copying /dev/console permissions
411 # This also works with non-kdm logins (e.g. on a virtual terminal)
412 # Idea and code from Nalin Dahyabhai
<nalin@redhat.com
>
413 if [ -f /var/run/console.lock ]
415 CONSOLEOWNER=`cat /var/run/console.lock`
416 elif [ -f /var/lock/console.lock ]
418 CONSOLEOWNER=`cat /var/lock/console.lock`
422 if [ -n
"$CONSOLEOWNER" ]
424 chmod
0000 "${DEVICE}"
425 chown
"$CONSOLEOWNER" "${DEVICE}"
426 chmod
0600 "${DEVICE}"
434 The usermap file that goes with this is
435 <filename>/etc/hotplug/usb/logitechmouse.usermap
</filename>, as
442 # script match_flags idVendor idProduct bcdDevice_lo bcdDevice_hi bDeviceClass bDeviceSubClass bDeviceProtocol bInterfaceClass bInterfaceSubClass bInterfaceProtocol driver_info
443 # Wheel Mouse Optical
444 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc00e 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
446 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc00f 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
447 # MouseMan Dual Optical
448 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc012 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
449 # MX310 Optical Mouse
450 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc01b 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
451 # MX510 Optical Mouse
452 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc01d 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
453 # MX300 Optical Mouse
454 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc024 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
455 # MX500 Optical Mouse
456 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc025 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
458 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc031 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
460 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc501 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
462 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc502 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
463 # Cordless Freedom Optical
464 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc504 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
466 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc505 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
467 # MX700 Optical Mouse
468 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc506 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
469 # Cordless Optical Trackman
470 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc508 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
471 # Cordless MX Duo Receiver
472 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc50b 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
474 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc50e 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
475 # Receiver for Cordless Presenter
476 consoleUserPerms
0x0003 0x046d 0xc702 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
482 That should be all that is needed on Linux - just copy the files into
483 <filename>/etc/hotplug/usb/
</filename>, and when the mouse is
484 plugged in, the ownership and permissions should be changed
485 so that the user at the console can access the mouse.