Use middle mouse button?

[rookworm]

Got a T42
Is it possible to assign the middle trackpoint button to act as a middle click instead of a scroller? If so, how?

Also, is it possible to use the touchpad excluivelt for scrolling somehow? That would be sweet.

[christopher_wolf]

You can define "Scroll Zones" for the TouchPad, I know you can disable the Middle Button Scrolling, but I don't know if you can reassign it to the Middle Mouse Button; you can, however, define a "tap zone" on the TouchPad for the Third Button

[Kenn]

Yes, you can. If you go into the trackpoint utility and select "Neither" for the middle button (as in neither scroll nor magnify), it will act as a 3rd mouse button.

The wording for that feature is horrible, as it makes it sound like the button will become functionless. Thankfully, that's not the case.

[haroldbingo]

I have a Thinkpad T41p. When I first received the laptop, I used to press the middle mousebutton (the one with the blue border in between the two red bordered ones) in the trackpad section and then point the red stick in the middle of the keyboard. This would do 2 things:
1. Allow me to magnify the text within MS Word
2. Scroll up and down the page of all other apps (ie, Firefox / IE / Acrobat reader)

One day I noticed I didn't have this functionality anymore. I usually use an external USB mouse that offers these capabilities, so it's not a problem.

However, now I am working without said mouse, and feel about 50 times less productive.

Is there a place where I can change my settings to restore the previous wonderful functionality?

I've already tried Start > Control Panel > Settings > Mouse > Ultranav to no avail.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[davidspalding]

Tried the UltraNav wizard? You may see a button for it on the UltraNav tab of your Mouse control panel.

As far as using the scroll button for a middle mouse button ... I don't see anything in the Ultranav settings to support it. Sounds like a niche that a third party driver could fulfill.

[haroldbingo]

Thanks for your reply; I actually had tried run the UltraNav Wizard repeatedly, but kept getting an error message saying

'IBM ThinkPad Ultranav driver is not detected. IBM ThinkPad UltraNav driver must be installed to run IBM ThinkPad UltraNav Wizard.'

It looks like I had to reinstall my UltraNav driver; I did this, and now I'm back in business (as long as the install doesn't disrupt anything else that was functioning properly )!

To anyone else out there is having the same problem, please refer to the following link at the IBM site:

UltraNav driver for Windows 2000/XP - ThinkPad R40, R50/p, R51, R52, T30, T4*, Z60m, Z60t
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... R-42487#ii

Happy scrolling!

[christopher_wolf]

MMmmmmmm, I used to get that error a few times. Also, when buying a Mouse and installing it, DO NOT install the Mouse Drivers. That willl blow away the UltraNav Drivers. I found this out the hard way with the latest Microsoft IntelliExplorer optical mouse. A bit of really good news though, you really don't need all the drivers on the mouse, not even for the forward and back buttons on the side. Apparently, they are already recognized by WinXP; it is also possible that the Forward/Backward Keys on the Thinkpad may also help this out. I rarely, if ever, install the drivers for Mice.

[davidspalding]

Always nice having a holiday bbs forum posting buddy....

I installed IntelliPoint 5.4 with my Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse 6000 (what a mouthful). I was afraid of Intellipoint, as I'd enjoyed 4.1, with it's "enable program-specific settings" button ... which went away with a later version. It's back. And though I'm not thoroughly happy with the eensy weensy tiny scroll wheel (almost impossible to use for double-click), the thumb button has nice uses (like MAGNIFY, which is helping me see the text in this box at the moment).

And ... it doesn't blow away the UltraNav driver. The tab in the Mouse control panel is there, and the UltraNav wizard works fine.

YMMV with other meeces. I love some of Logitech's hardware, but sniffed at the very cool looking Logitech notebook mice, since I've seen time and again how Logitech DOES take over mouse drivers, and further, makes it difficult to use a conventional Microsoft mouse in one instance(say, a USB optical mouse with a ThinkPad Dock), and then a Logitech portable un-docked.

[christopher_wolf]

Interesting; I rebooted, uninstalled the MS Mouse drivers several times, rebooted again. No luck, had to use R&R to get the UltraNav Drivers back. Then again, I could really care less about mouse drivers. IMO, all they do is add a tiny bit more functionality for more system resources used. If 90%-100% of the mouse works when you plug it in, you need not install the drivers. It adds system cruft which I detest. Plus, either Logitech or Microsoft, I have yet to see a truly *useful* driver set that is designed to co-habit with the UltraNav drivers without me going to extreme lengths to keep the two of them from conflicting.