# Configuring 5-button mouse with AutoCAD LT 98 (R14)



## norin (Dec 28, 2004)

hello again fellow TSF'ers 

ok so i have a Kensington PilotMouse Optical Wireless Model#72129 (see pic below)









it's the same as above pic just no wire lol. they must have discontinued the wireless one because i can only find the wired mouse on their site kensington.com

anyways. so at my work i swapped out my older mouse for a mouse i had at home, the above mentioned kensington one, i swapped the old one out because it was a ball mouse ( not a trackball ) but the older ball inside the mouse crap.

so anyways, with a regular 3-button mouse i can pick points (left click), zoom in (push middle wheel forward), zoom out (pull middle wheel back), pan around the drawing space (hold middle button down and move mouse to pan project), and clear or repeat last task initiated (right click).

so anyway, i installed the mouse and the software for the mouse, to enable the other 2 bottons, the ones on the side, at home i had them set to back and forward for webpages, quite nifty i must say! so after it was installed, and i restarted i opened ACAD and those zoom and pan functions no longer existed with the scroll wheel. i could only pan (VERY SLOWLY) to the right and left, i could click the middle mouse button and then pan, very slowly, up and down, but i could not zoom with the mouse. very agonizing!

so i uninstalled the mouse software, and restarted, i now have all those functions again, but was curious if, since i have those 2 buttons on the side, could i perhaps map them to certain key commands or functions within AutoCAD? i tried before with the software installed but it was a no go. i was only able to launch ACAD with a click, but the two softwares were not interactive with each other so i could not make it do commands inside ACAD nor could i set up any macros that i saw.

anyone know if i can configure this in ACAD R14 itself? for using those 2 buttons, or since the software is not installed those buttons cannot be used? :4-dontkno

i think i included all the details lol. but please ask if theres anything else you need to know.

i have also looked at the aclt.mns which in the OFFICIAL AutoCAD it would be called acad.mns but my work uses the AutoCAD LT 98 version. which is a slimmed down version with less nifty options  i did not make any changes but saw that i could make some button clicks or customizations but did not know how i could. perhaps someone could shed some light for me.

thanks all

- Doug


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## Sven2157 (Feb 10, 2009)

Hello norin :wave:

I know this may be a bit late, but was wondering if you have found a solution?

I use the Kensington Expert Trackball:









It been awhile since I have used AutoCAD R14, but I know in the "Preferences" you can set the properties of the mouse buttons; though this is pretty limited. Is the Kensington Mouseworks 6.2 available for that mouse? The "Works" offer precision tuning for the button and speeds; both scrolling and movement.


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## norin (Dec 28, 2004)

hey sven, thanks for the reply, you know i too have been looking at that mouse, but idk... indecisive.

anyways, i'm not sure if i posted or not, but when i install the mouse works software ( i believe the 6.2 is available for it ), but when i install the software, it disables my Panning and zoom in and zoom out feature.

i.e. to pan with mouse button i click in on the middle mouse button (scroll wheel) and hold and then i can move the mouse to pan around the drawing space. i can scroll forward with the mouse scroll wheel and zoom in, and i can do the vice versa by scrolling back with the wheel to scroll out.

however when i install the software, it for some reason disables this. not sure why, and the other mouse buttons ( the 2 on the left side ) don't do anything in the program. i have read i can change some properties in a .LSP file but i'm not sure what i'm doing in there.

thanks again for the post. was just curious but perhaps with this new info, and the bump i will get some answers i need  thanks sven, and others.


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## Sven2157 (Feb 10, 2009)

I can fix this for you.... Give me a second, I had to reformat last night, so I am in update HELL! I am on my blackberry right now while Bill Gates is ruinning my computer! :wink: When I reboot I'll post your solution....


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## norin (Dec 28, 2004)

sounds fantastic  i too just reinstalled windows XP pro on my computer, well for the second time this month lol. for some reason, the first install this month went bad i think, because it started eating itself away... at first nothing would start up in the taskbar, not even if i targeted msconfig at them, or put them in the startup folder in the start menu. then after a week went by of having to manually open everything, i lost my context menus for the desktop and folders. i could not rightclick and select new -> folder, i couldn't even right click to copy and paste, good ole CTRL+C and V had my back tho.

so i ended up reinstalling again, but with a botched Slipstream install. it was weird. i did everything right, but for somereason the SS just didn't work properly, so i guess u could say i installed WinXP Pro SP3 3 times this month hahah. but all is well now.

the windows activation center must have me flagged by now hahaha:laugh:


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## Sven2157 (Feb 10, 2009)

OMG!  My new install didn't like the updates! So I had to reinstall, AGAIN! :upset:

Everything is back up and running fine now, though! :grin:

Ok, so....

Here is the deal, and I can only assume that ALL kensington mice/trackballs are the same; as I tried contacting Customer Service about Mouse Works and my $100 trackball not working on Vista, and let's just say that series of correspondence didn't go so well!  My point, they are a bunch of "Shortcut" jerks!

Sorry... Anyway, when I run my trackball without the software I notice my main buttons, bottom left and right are my "normal" left and right clicks, are button 1 and button 2. When I install Mouse Works, these change to button 0 and button 1. Why? I have NO EARTHLY IDEA!

So, when the Mouse Works software installs on your machine, you have to manipulate the software, to do what you want it to do. In the following picture, you will see my trackball, but I bet you see your mouse in your version, and ALL the buttons and lables.










If you click the dropdown, you see a small list of commands, you want to select "Other Options", or something like that; I couldn't get a screen shot because everytime I hit the "Alt" key the dropdown would dissappear.

Even if it is already checked, click it anyway, and you will get this screen:








As you can see, you want to choose "Middle-Click" for your "Scroll Ring Button". From this menu you can also set the "Scrolling" options, etc, etc.

Let me know if I need to go deeper than this... :wink:


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## norin (Dec 28, 2004)

yea, i've tried those after installing the software, as that's what i do after installing the software under normal conditions, but noticing that some of the configuring would have to change cuz of the CAD program i tried manipulating, but to me it almost seems i would need a mouse with macro capabilities or an "on-the-fly" switch where i could configure a button set for "normal" use, a button set for "gaming" use and a button set for "drafting" use. you know?

i know the above macro or whatever i don't think is available for the kensington line, but if any other mouse with atleast 5 buttons (with 2 on the left side) would offer such a thing?


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## Sven2157 (Feb 10, 2009)

In AutoCAD, under preferences, there should be a configuration for the mouse; a whole page I believe. There you can set what the right-click does, scroll ring, etc, etc... (BTW just covering the basics, before we start applying hacks to the user panel :wink

Let me know if that helps...


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## norin (Dec 28, 2004)

thanks, i'll look into it. i'll let u know the results.

EDIT: that's a no go with the custom mouse buttons. did i mention i'm using AutoCAD LT 98? (R14) not sure if they really had support for 3+ buttons back in '98? were there actually anything more than left, right, and middle mouse button/scroll wheel back then?

thanks, let me know if you come up with anything else, i'm going to keep tinkering.

see image to view the Prefs dialog that i get for my AutoCAD


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