Btnx for full use of Multimedia Mice and Keyboards [Solved]

[me3064]

Hey I just switched to Sabayon and I have to say its just amazing and everything works out of the box. It's truly a next generation distribution with its package management and true rolling release system. It's just so polished and to be honest I think I've finally found the distribution for me, I love bleeding edge but hate having to re-install my OS every time to get some semblance of stability, but Sabayon just works.

I'm a tad disappointed by the general lack of packages though. To be fair though there are still tons and tons available and most are really well maintained. Yet there is one specific program I can't live without, Btnx and its gui, Btnx-config. I know the program is deprecated but it still works in every Debian based and Fedora based distribution (Fedora 14, 15, 16; Kubuntu 11.04, 11.10; Mint 12, LMDE, Open SUSE.) but I just can't find it in our repository and I even contemplated using a Gentoo ebuild but that seems abandoned.

Btnx is basically a method of mapping inputs to specific actions eg. keyboard shortcuts, launch applications or a host of other things. I know evdev has supposed to make the use of multi-button mice better and with my Logitech Performance MX my scroll wheel all work (in chrome, chromium and nautilus the forward and back button work) but the thumb button and zoom button don't (I used thumb to activate activities, and zomm to toggle Cntrl.) Sounds silly but this really radically changes my interaction with the desktop, some people have even more buttons. This works on all mice I've tested. I've used a whole lot of other solutions like xev and xbindkeys but they just don't have the same ease of use. This is just a nifty little program and daemon which I know new users would love.

I have thought of doing it from source but I just can't seem to fulfill all my dependencies and its just getting too messy. I'm not much of a programmer (I know a little python, matlab and mathematica) so I can't really do much. I'll probably taking some advanced classes in C in the fall but that's ages away. Also as much as I've learnt in the last year while using Linux I still don't know much about the true nitty gritty but I am learning so that I can hopefully help contribute back one day. Linux is rocks but Windows does just handle mice and keyboards better and this should really help us getting this up to par (and actually exceeding Windows.)

I love Sabayon way too much for this to be a deal breaker but its nice to have.

Also I know the way we handle packages in a very innovative way and its nice knowing I won't have to re-install ever again but I miss the massive amounts of packages I used to have access to.

Thanks so much to Dev's and senior members. If no one can help me or have the time, I would really appreciate it if you could direct me to some resources so that I can try see if I can get an implementation going over the summer. I really want to start doing more than just donating!

[me3064]

Related things I have found on the forum:

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=26451
*links to*
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-21 ... 0152756f98 (Complicated and doesn't seem to work well.)

Btnx just works for everything, keyboards, joysticks, wheel, everything I used and it was simple hence my interest in it.

[Fitzcarraldo]

It seems btnx is unmaintained and on its last legs (see Comment 30 in Gentoo Bugzilla Bug Report No. 188265). Even the Web site of its author is up for sale.

However, perhaps Easystroke or and/or AutoKey might be of some use to you. I have both installed and use them both regularly.

I can configure Easystroke to do certain things when I move my mouse etc. For example, I can click my mouse's scroll-wheel and draw a 'd' with my mouse on my screen to launch Dolphin, or click my mouse's scroll-wheel and drag the pointer diagonally downwards from left to right to add "---------- Original Message ----------" in an e-mail Compose window, and so on. I can configure AutoKey to do certain things when I press certain keys. For example, when I type "esigw" at the end of an e-mail it is replaced by my work signature, when I type "esigp" at the end of an e-mail it is replaced by my personal signature, and when I press Ctrl-Alt-d the date command is executed and the date and time are typed for me. AutoKey can be configured to run all sorts of scripts.

I have easystroke-0.5.5.1 and autokey-gtk-0.81.4 (the latest versions of both) installed on my machine from a Portage local overlay. If you don't know how to use Portage, I suggest you file a bug report (see link 'Bugs' at the top right of this page) and request the Entropy repository maintainers to build them and add the binary packages to the Entropy repository.

[me3064]

Thanks a ton for the help. It's limited in certain scopes i.e. can't assign a button press to a single modifier i.e. making a button send cntrl command so that when I scroll I zoom but I must admit - a fantastic package. Wish I'd found it before. The gestures are fantastic for use with touch screens, browsing and just all round awesomeness. Thanks so much for the quick and detailed response. Not quite as easy as btnx but has good documentation and is well maintained...

Piece of advice to anybody wandering onto this after me, to use a button and not a gesture just click the one you want and don't move the mouse, a few clicks sometimes does it. Also if it references the wrong button don't worry it will display the right one in a few seconds. Remember to add additional buttons in the one tab! You can run just about anything with this be it scripts, commands, etc. Very versatile. I haven't tested it out with joysticks so if anybody has one around, test it it and drop a comment for future people.

[unexpectedly]

I have easystroke-0.5.5.1 and autokey-gtk-0.81.4 (the latest versions of both) installed on my machine from a Portage local overlay. If you don't know how to use Portage, I suggest you file a bug report (see link 'Bugs' at the top right of this page) and request the Entropy repository maintainers to build them and add the binary packages to the Entropy repository.

Oooooo! You got Autokey to work?! Yes! ok, I'll dig more deeply into figuring this out. I tried but something went wrong. Autokey is supported in that very common OS I just left...

Chris