Since we're in the application posting mood today, I'd figure I'd post some of my other utils/apps here to see if they could benefit anyone. For this post, I am submitting for your review/comments my scrolling app. Originally created for my buddy Kamalot, because of the lack of scroll wheel his Mogo Mouse had. I was in a tabletpcreview forum thread that mentioned this lack of scroll wheel functionality and decided to create a scrolling app.
Title: Mo'Scroll
Description: Adds scrolling functionality to any pointing device.
Instructions:
-Download and run the latest build of the app.
-The MoScroll Icon will appear in the system tray.
-Hold down the right mouse button for x amount of time (by default it's 1 second, but can be adjusted) to get into scroll mode. once in scroll mode, mouse the pointing device up or down to scroll accordingly.
Code - Blademonkey.
Icons - Kamalot.
Testing - Greg, Daryl, Sean Tan, Digital Ruse.
Version: 0.6 Download
Version: 0.7 Download 03/19/2008
New:
-Mouse will be locked vertically in Scroll Mode.
Version: 0.7a Download 03/20/2008
New:
-Hold right mouse button for 3 secs to get into scroll mode.
Version: 0.7b Download 03/26/2008
New:
-Added a timer option (default is 1 second)
-Changed the counter to be a count down.
Version: 0.7c Download 04/08/2008
New:
-Added an option to change how to get to scroll mode in options.
Version: 0.8 Download 04/23/2008
New:
-Changed Lock Scroll Mode counter to progress meter.
-Fixed the Hold Scroll Mode to lock vertical mouse movement.
-Added a method to switch trigger buttons (download INI).
-Fixed system tray icons to change when in scroll mode.
Version: 0.8.0.3 Download 05/12/2008
New:
-Changed Scrolling method (faster and smoother in browsers)
-Changed meter size
-Added Option to Hide "scroll on" text.
Leave feedback in the comments.
Thanks
Posts
82 comments:
Thanks Blademonkey. Will give a go with my Mogo mouse.
Cheers
Great software! Too bad the Mogo people are too idiotic to use it. I'm recommending it on my site.
great idea, but activating the scroll is difficult on a laptop. Maybe simply holding down the right click button could start scrolling automatically or double clicking could activate the scrolling function and scroll with mouse movement. Thanks for the work!
Daryl,
I'll look for the source and see if I can add that as a optional feature.
thanks for your input everyone!
you just revived the project.
Here are a couple of observations after using the program a little bit:
-It would be very nice if the program could filter-out the second mouse click. Because the application being scrolled detects the right click, it can pop-up an unintended right-click menu. In Excel, all I can do is scroll the menu and not the spreadsheet itself.
-It's only possible to scroll one window height at a time, then release, move the pointer to the top of the windows, and scroll down another window height. Would it be possible to perform a smooth, continuous scroll? So that the program detects where the first scroll-start-click was made, and then scrolls faster (up or down) based on how far the pointer moves from the original position?
-I have a weird ergonomic mouse that have the left/right button on a rocker switch, so I can only press one at a time. Would it be possible to configure the program to scroll with either left+right or left+center?
-I don't see a donation link. You should create one -- great work so far!
I just had one more thought. Many programs (Firefox, Office, Internet Explorer) have built-in scrolling if you click the middle mouse button. Would it be possible to re-route near-simultaneous clicking of the left and right mouse button and send a middle button click to the program instead? It wouldn't be universal across applications, but would be great in applications that are middle-click-and-drag aware.
Hey guys. Just wanted to give a quick update. I was able to find a version of the source code. I'm looking at it to see if I can add some of those great recommendations. I will see if I can get a new version for you all by week's end. No promises though. I will see about a donation link, thanks for the suggestion.
ok new version. this should take care of the amount of scrollling that can be done. PLease post feedback on your experience.
thanks!
Wow, that was a fast update! I like the new version and how it enters into scroll mode.
Since I would never click and hold the right mouse button except to scroll, I think it would be better to enter scroll mode faster. Somewhere around 0.4 seconds seems about right. Also, I think it should exit scroll mode immediately upon the right button being pressed.
I think the timer and the on-screen display provide great visual feedback to the user. Maybe a count-down timer be more intuitive than a count-up timer?
Thanks again for the great improvements.
That makes sense, but I think i'll make the default 1 second with the option to change the setting (at the millisecond level).
thanks for the feedback!
to whoever donated to me: THANKS! {= D
I'm struggling with the controls. Have you changed them?
Sorry, I worked it out.
I agree with Greg. Less than a second for holding down the right button is best. Giving us the option would be great. I look forward to your next release, which I hope will be soon :)
I am getting my Mogo Mouse in a few days time.
Another thing, how do I get the app to load at startup?
Sean Tan,
I will try to add the setting sometime this week, no promises though.
you can make it auto start by just putting it (or a shortcut to it) in your startup folder (in the start menu).
Thanks BladeMonkey.
I didn't realise it was that easy to set an app to autostart.
ok guys. Here's a new version. I got some time and decided to work on the timer option, since multiple people were asking for it. As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated and is the main fuel for the updates. Without your comments this app would have been deprecated, so thanks, and enjoy!
I am currently looking for a better application publishing mechanism, as i realize that blogs aren't exactly the best for updates to apps.
I would appreciate any ideas, incites, or comments.
thanks.
Thanks, the timer option works well.
Why not use SourceForge?
Would you be able to add an option to be able to hold down the right button to scroll? I think I prefer it instead of having to turn lock scroll on/off.
I think sourceforge is a little over kill, but i'll look it over again.
let me see if i can work on that right mouse option. no promises yet.
Sean Tan, the best way for me to do that would be to add the option to implement the original scroll mode.
so it won't be just holding down the right mouse button, you'll have to left click hold, right click hold, left click release, and scroll while right-click is still held down.
let me know if that's ok with you, and if you still want that in there.
You can just leave it as it is.
I'm sure many like it in its present form.
Pointix does what I want, so I may just use it for now.
Thanks anyway.
I'll have to see which one I prefer to use once I get my Mogo Mouse.
i think i got it working.
go to option to toggle between new mode "scroll mode lock" and old mode "scroll mode hold". oh and you only have to press the right mouse button.
this is just a test release.
Very impressive updates. I really like the recent changes. The countdown timer and the configurable delay are great for "scroll lock" mode. And I really like that it prevents the right-click menu from popping up in Firefox when entering this mode (it does still pop-up in Excel.)
The "hold to scroll" mode is nice as well, but I'm still getting used to it. The fact that the pointer moves down the screen while scrolling is not what I initially expected.
Would it be possible to optionally link "hold to scroll" to the middle mouse button and the "scroll lock" mode to the right mouse button? That would allow the use of either with no config change. But really, the way the "scroll lock" works now, it's probably all I really would ever need -- I'm just throwing out ideas.
I think it time to contact the Mogo people again!
hey thanks for the feedback, Greg. Good suggestions. Let me think about how i could implement it. The challenge would be to add the usability without taking away from the original application's intent. I don't want to over do it.
I just found a bug. I'm using a custom timer, so maybe this is a contributor. The countdown timer does not reset between right-button clicks. So if you do multiple right clicks, the durations eventually adds up to the threshold and scroll is activated.
Also, the countdown timer switches between 3 digits and 2 digits (0.5 -> 0.45 -> 0.3). I think it would look slightly better if if remained constant, or perhaps even a progress bar. But again, this is not a critical improvement, just something that might "be nice."
Thanks!
Looks good so far. I think the only thing that gets me is when I want to use mouse gestures in FF, or use right click to drag a file in windows.
Someone had mentioned that other software activates a scroll mode when pressing the wheel. Could this same functionality/concept be used except when you press left and right simultaneously?
Sorry for the long silence. I've been working on a 0.8 version with the following updates:
-having a progress bar instead of a counter
-Locking the mouse movement in "old" scroll mode.
can you guys elaborate a little more with the FF settings? I'm using FF beta so there's no middle mouse nav func (maybe that's default with the mouse driver).
let me know. I will try to get as close as your expectations.
oh and as always, your feedback is greatly appreciated. I can't say that enough.
I think the previous poster is talking about the Mouse Gestures plugin in Firefox that allows for "click only rocker gestures." I don't use the plug-in, so I don't exactly understand the complaint. Here is the plug-in:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/39
Others have mentioned the Pointix/Firefox scroll capability, where the scroll rate is dependent on the distance the pointer is moved from the point on the screen where scrolling was initiated. This prevents the need from continually lifting and re-placing the mouse as you scroll down a long document. I'm not sure which option is best. I'm used to the Pointix method, so the MoScroll method was surprising to me at first, but I've gotten used to it now and I'm not sure which is "the best."
I have to say that locking the mouse in "old" scroll mode, is becoming rather challenging.
I am going to focus on a code rewrite for .9 since at this point i've just been "adding" features and not integrating a solution.
.8 will be the band aid solution for now. Keep checking back, no promises on when i'll get it fixed.
as for the other requests, i'll have to postpone working on them. Unless you guys think they are critical.
Greg nailed it.
Since you hold right click and move the mouse the gesture doesn't fire before the scroll activates unless I set the delay really high.
Another issue is when doing the right click drag for files in Windows. The scroll activates and bad times ensue.
I tried using the "04" setting in the ini hoping that it would give me the left+right click function since I can't think of a good reason to hold both down at the same time. Sadly, whatever drivers are used for the mogo doesn't seem to emulate a middle mouse click when you do that. Tried 01+02, but that didn't surprise me when it didn't work. ;)
Other comments are mainly cosmetic.
*Option to hide "Scroll On"
*Option to hide meter
*Option to make the meter smaller
Excellent work on this so far.
awesome, thanks for the feedback. Will definitely work on the progress bar size.
I see what you're saying about the hold mode doing crazy stuff in the explorer window, i think that's because as you hold it, it creates a selection box and cancels out the scrolling. I'll see if I can limit that.
thanks, again.
Alrighty folks, here's the latest and greatest version.
Again, thanks to everyone for the great feedback. Let me know what you like/dislike from this new version.
I really like this latest version! It seems to have addressed all of the previous issues and works very well. I have 3 simple usability suggestions to fine tune things, but I think it works very well as is.
1.) In Hold mode, have the left mouse click immediately exit scroll mode. No need to wait, because the button can't do anything else then either.
2.) Have the "scroll on" message be positioned just below the pointer and maybe even have it move with the pointer. I had trouble finding it in the middle of the screen in a busy browser windows.
3.) Add another level of sub menus to the options menu. So it would be Options -> Scroll Mode -> Hold Mode (with a check mark beside it if selected) and also Options -> Scroll Mode -> Lock Mode (no check mark if the other option is selected).
Thanks for the awesome software. I'm using it right now and copied into my startup folder to be a permanent addition to tray.
Greg,
I'm very happy to hear you enjoy this version. I made sure to release something that was worth the download. I had gone through some pretty extensive testing before release (the code was actually done one week before).
I like your suggestions, here are my replies:
1) I haven't thought of that. just to confirm, you want that a single left mouse button click, would exit out of Hold Scroll Mode? let me see how I can integrate that. No ETA on release.
2) I can definitely do that.
3) The menu system/options was going to be a post beta detail. I was going to suggest having a "preferences" or "options" menu which would bring up a windows with all of the applicable settings, since they seem to be increasing with every iteration.
For suggestion 1, I was thinking that a single click of the right button (the button that initiates scrolling) would immediately exit the scroll mode. Basically, set the count-down timer to zero when exiting scroll mode because there is no need to wait.
Sounds like you have everything else covered in future plans. Mo'Scroll is really progressing nicely!
There are a lot of neat things going on with this.
The smoothness is MUCH improved. People looking over my shoulder still wonder why the pointer is freaking out, but I will leave that to their imagination. ~_^ Maybe being able to have the cursor disappear similar to what happens when you type would work? Might function as another good indicator of "scroll mode" should other options be turned off.
I like Greg's idea about canceling out faster than entering scroll mode.
I still would like an option to hide the bar entirely. Now that it is smaller though, it doesn't seem that bad. I will play with it more. I usually look for the icon to change colors. Speaking of which...
A small cosmetic thing... have you thought about switching the colors of the icons? (red = off, green = on) It seems more intuitive to what we are used to as far as color signals on a daily basis. (Traffic lights, Warning signs, etc...)
Any luck on a lock mode by holding left and right click?
Excellent work so far, and thanks for your continued development on this.
-Jodon
hmm, i have thought about moving the mouse away from view. I'll look into this.
I can definitely swap the icons around. Maybe even give an option for adding your own icons.
Can you give me a more detailed use case of the left + right button scroll?
then cancelling out of the scroll mode has been implemented, but i wont release the new version until I get some other things in line.
I'm also working on adding a new mode. it's going to be a scroll for mode for tablet PCs, because when you're using a active digitizer, the mouse goes haywire. I'm going to add this hover window that you mouse over which will scroll for you.
The challenge with that will be managing window focus.
Work has been hectic lately, and home life a little busy (i'm helping my girl train and raise money to bike across the country), so I am not sure when i'll have time to work on it. So far i've been working on it in spurts on my way to work (30 mins), but that's far too little time. I'm hoping to get some downtime this weekend.
The left+right click scroll is something to solve the things that require you to hold right click to do:
1.) Right Click Drag files in windows
2.) Right click and drag to effectively 'right click' on multiple files.
3.) Mouse gestures in Opera and Firefox
Right now I can't do these things with MoScroll running unless I set the delay really high, or am really fast about dragging and gesturing.
The only trick I would see to this is when MoScroll detects both have been pressed to engage 'lock mode' or even to be held to engage the scroll, it would have to prevent the right click menu from firing when the right button is released. As it stands, Windows will fire it even if both are press simultaneously or held and released.
I always sorta like the way the old Logitech software did this back in the day. You would press left and right click at the same time, an icon would appear and the cursor changed into up or down arrows depending on which side of the icon you were on and got faster the further you moved away from it. It did this by saying pressing both at the same time was "Mouse 3" being pressed. Unfortunately, the drivers for a bluetooth mouse don't seem to do that, thus the reason for needing it to rely on the simultaneous status alone.
Am I making sense?
Another thought I had was maybe instead of the "Scroll Mode" on the screen, you can change the cursor to be something that indicates it. This would work well with the 'logitech style' mode, but even without it could be a good clear onscreen indication.
I hope you don't feel pressured to do this. As it is free, family totally comes first and I and others already appreciate the work you have done already.
-Jodon
I travel all the time. I finally caved in and bought the mogo BT (i say caved in because a buddy of mine has the next gen mogo and they're sweet - but my laptop only has ghetto pcmcia) anyways...
your app here is actually quite nice (considering the oldschool app mogomouse website uses is a bunch of crap) the only drawback is that you're not letting people save settings.
is there a reason for that? basically if you set up your delay to 4 seconds or you set the "Scroll Mode" option, when you reboot the app, the settings are gone. I'm being picky but i think this is KEY to using this app.
I've started developing one myself though was curious if you had considered adding that last mile of functionality..
no reason other than i'm extremely lazy. It's a good idea and one that i was planning on adding when people would ask for it. I dont want to over featurize the app, so I don't assume, that what i think is right, is actually right.
but now you have made your case, i'll save settings in an ini somewhere. though i'm probably not going to get around to it for a while (1-2 weeks).
Thanks so much for the feedback, and patience.
that's good to hear - i like the fact that the app doesnt have an installer - an ini or whatever type of file you can serialize to would be great.. its just a couple settings after all, scroll pref & timer.. thanks! look forward to future releases.
So here's the deal.
I don't like extra files, I'm thinking of the following options:
option 1: (easy street)
have the settings default to whatever they are now, and have the users (that's you all) be able to change it from the application.
PRO: no extra files.
CON: Settings are session based, so when you close the app the settings are gone.
option 2: (the cake)
Have the setting set in a INI file that you have to lug around with your EXE (that's irksome to me for some reason).
PRO: Settings are semi permanent.
CON: you have to lug an INI file along with the EXE.
Option 3: (the hybrid: easy street cake)
So in this one, I suppose everyone wins (except the programmer). This is the options that combines Easy Street with The Cake in that you get to change the settings, and perhaps optionally get to set a "save settings to file" check. that would export the settings. The app is already coded to look for the INI, whose settings will overwrite the default ones (i hope that somewhat makes sense).
PRO: Get both the ability to change settings in the app and keep them semi permanently.
CON: Gives me more of a challenge (ok so that's not a CON, but it makes the app take longer to be updated).
on the other side of things, I'm pretty much ready to release the code in GPL/OSS format. I will try to get some kind of sourceforge space, but i'm not sure i like that presentation.
what do you all think?
Again, thanks for the continued feedback
-Blademonkey
First up, I have been looking for a decent alternative to the pointix hacked effort MOGO are pushing out, it was overkill for what I wanted - ie to scroll up and down.
I wanted something that just did the basic vertical scrolling, no other bells and whistles. My other criteria was that it had to be portable, which of course yours is.
Now I honestly hope I do not offend here, but I did like the way that pointix worked in terms of dropping an anchor and accelerating the scroll based on mouse distance from this point, and since yours requires you to constantly move the mouse I thought I would try to produce something.
Anyhoo, I hope you dont mind if I post a link here? I am not trying to start a utility war! I think our apps are sufficiently different, but since you already have the interest, and I need the feedback for development I hope it is ok, if not - please remove my link.
Banshee
bscroll = vertical scroller based on holding right click to drop anchor and then moving up or down to scroll the active window, further you move, faster the scroll.
http://www.portalis.org/public/bscroll/
Sweet! I love it!
Good job.
I say go for Option 1 - Easy. No need to complicate things and there is a simple work-around for users.
As for bscroll -- very nice. I like the "pointix" way of scrolling best.
no way on option 1 :) are you nuts?
so - option 2 and 3 don't sound that different of options..
I don't see the issue in having a "defaults" as you have now, and additionally having the program look for an ini file for user preferences...
So the idea is that if you dont have an ini you load defaults if an ini is present you read from it.
As far as 'developer nightmare' if it's too complicated to add a "save settings" button or action, you may want to just post instructions on how to manually create an appropriate INI for the app. That should be a good solution to the issue ...
anyway - I can take a crack at it and contribute if you want to contact me or upload your source code somewhere for me to look at.
This is a useful app, checkout RADIAL scroll on google. Try that concept in yor next project.
You just made my day! I just got my Kensington Orbit Trackball and this program makes it infinitely better! Thanks so much!
Any chance of getting that source code out?
I'd really like to adapt it for use with trackpoint mice. The Lenovo drivers are mutual exclusive about scrolling and middle clicks, and I'm used to having both with linux drivers and timeouts.
Right now, the behavior is close, but not quite what I used to use. For example, middle mouse instead and horizontal lock with horizontal scroll.
But at least the scrolling method matches. I've found three other software (all closed source) that do the anchor method like middle click scrolling, which works extremely poorly for trackpoints. Kudos to you for that.
Hey folks, it's been a while, sorry for being absent, i had alot of things to take care of in the last few months. All is well and development of Mo'Scroll will continue.
I am planning on releasing the source, but honestly, the code is so sloppy it's embarassing.
I am planning on moving this page to another site, something that's not exactly a blog and is a little more accessible to changes when changes are made. One big question i have for everyone is how did you get to this page/app? what was the referring link that or method that lead you here. this will be important for me to know to redirect future peoples to my new site.
thanks again for all of your feedback, it's been priceless.
http://www.carltonbale.com/2007/02/how-to-scroll-if-your-mouse-has-no-scroll-wheel/
I got linked from here. Took me quite a bit of googling, but once I got the right search terms, it was a pretty high hit.
Working on other people's code is usually sloppier than from scratch (especially if the original source wasn't very organized to begin with), so don't feel too badly. It not easy learning other people's code.
http://www.carltonbale.com/2007/02/how-to-scroll-if-your-mouse-has-no-scroll-wheel/
I got to here for the link above. My main purpose for using your program is because I have been having pain in my forearm, from using my scroll wheel too much. But I hate having to grab the scroll bar on the side of the browser. So this is a great way for me to try and relieve the pain and be able to scoll.
I use a pc at home but a mac at work. Do you think its possible to create your program for the mac as well. That would be great.
alright, thanks, please keep the feedback coming. In terms of google searches what criteria did you all use to get to the linking site?
I'll see if I can embed some meta data for better searchability.
I used "trackpoint scrolling emulation middle click" as search terms, but trackpoint didn't really get the hits i was looking for. The other terms pretty much hit the linking site spot on, though.
Thanks for the feedback all, keep it coming.
@Ryan Adkins, I have no mac coding experience, but your inquiry will give me reason to look into it.
perhaps someone could give me a hint on where to start for OSX coding.
Chalk another one up to http://www.carltonbale.com/2007/02/how-to-scroll-if-your-mouse-has-no-scroll-wheel/
Go ahead and open up the source! Everyone always feels self conscious about their code, bit it's worth it.
Personally I am interested in your app to help complement an Endurapro keyboard (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/en104wh.html), and would love to see some customizable keychord options as I'm not too hot on the rightMB or rightMB+leftMB techniques.
I would have to play with it, but I think the WindowsKey + RightMB might work well. Another thought that comes to mind would be using Scroll Lock to either directly activate the scrolling functionality, or to enable/disable the scrolling modes altogether.
Thank you. This will be very helpful. Will recommend it to everyone.
I'll be posting the new code here.
email me if you want to partake in the project.
http://code.google.com/p/moscroll/
Hi Blademonkey,
I'm using a 3 button mouse with no scroll wheel, so your software can be very helpful to people like me. However, I was wondering about what I should put in the INI file in order to scroll using the middle button rather than the right button?
Thanks a lot,
Nice little app and it works with Vista x64 too! I recently purchasesd a trackball without a wheel and I found your app to help trememdously. Thanks for all your work :D
Would it be possible to use a keyboard key to turn the scrolling on and off? Like maybe the Left Ctrl or Alt key? A customizable key mapping would be ideal. You could then set this key to enable/diasble the scroll lock mode or you could use it to toggle the scrolling (press and hold for scrolling, release to return to normal). Also this hotkey should be an enable/disable setting in case the key is used by differnet apps. I know some applictions specifically use keys like the Right Alt key.
Have you posted the source code to Google code yet? Depending what your using, I might be interested in making some changes/contributions to this application.
Very good but I get the Left click menu flashing when I exit scroll is there a fix for this... like a buffer on exit
I second the idea that we should be able to use a different button to scroll with. When the right mouse button is held, the mouse becomes a scroll wheel, but in Opera, holding that button and turning the scroll wheel serves as a tab switcher. There seems to be no way currently of disabling this feature currently.
http://operation420.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1186
Is there a way I can start MoScroll in "Scroll Mode" (Where it scrolls when I am holding the right mouse button and stops once I let go).
That would be handy for my tablet...
I will look into your suggestions. Sorry for the delay, it's been a LONG time since i looked at this code. i think i'm like 3 versions away from the current autoit. i will first try to incorporate a button remapper using the old code, and maybe fork the code for the new version of autoit.
MPG: I will have to look into that. give me some time to get reacquainted with the code. Thanks for your feedback.
FYI: someone sent me a donation. THANKS!!
Sweet app. Sounds like there are a bunch of folks eager to make improvements and adapt it to their application. In fact I'm interested in taking a crack at it myself.
So release that source! ...or don't, but don't string us along.
BTW, if I could find a donate link I'd give you $20 right now... let me (us) know if you put one up.
Hi! This applications seems great! But the links are dead and its seems impossible to find on any other site. Can you fix the links? Thanks!
The links are dead but I have found on Google Code: http://moscroll.googlecode.com/files/MoScroll_0_7.exe
Here's a link to the latest version. I've had it on my comp for a while and since the links here are down I figured someone else might want to download:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YNR672SP
anyone figure out how to keep the settings saved and not reset every time?
hey all, I lost my recent code for this app and i can't decode it. So i may just end up rewriting it from scratch.
sorry for the long hiatus, work/life has been hectic.
to address some of the other comments
try moscroll.ini should work.
I have to run now, but i'll be back tonight with more updates.
Donate link will be uploaded
Donation link is already at the bottom of the moscroll page. does it not work for you?
btw thanks for all of your patience.
Hi thanks, but where is moscroll.ini ? The links at the top of this page don't work.
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