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Steermouse vs usb overdrive9/24/2023 ![]() ![]() Linux is a perfect example of where this issue sort of mentality applies. Those who loathe the UI are repulsed by the inability to change things to their liking. Those who love the UI wouldn’t have it any other way and so, they don’t really care. Wanna theme those windows? No way! As with most things in life, this has two sides of the coin. You can’t change the fonts used or the size. Sure, you can change the selection colour and the size of the dock, but that’s about it. Hence, the purposeful limiting of user customizability. You can only feel at home if you are familiar with the interface. I suppose the mindset is probably something to the effect that any user should be able to use a Mac and feel at home. Of course, the Mac platform has always been about doing things one way. ![]() Or perhaps, it’s tantamount to setting your display resolution to 1024×768 no matter what resolution your panel supports. How can it do this when they’ve purposely crippled the control panel to not allow customization to ones liking in even something as primal as the mouse movement? To me, this is tantamount to fixing the key repeat delay to 5 seconds at a rate of 10 characters per second and purposely not providing a vehicle to change the setting. ![]() But to me, something is wrong! The Mac platform is supposed to be providing the best user experience out of all operating systems. Many people have reported this problem and, likewise, equally many people have probably posted to say that nothing is wrong. I came back with the advent of Tiger where it was first reported that the mouse acceleration problem existed. Somewhere between System 7 and OS X, I stopped using Macs. Back in the days of System 6 (6.1.3 was when I first got my own Mac-a MacSE), the mouse movement was normal. Now before critics slam me for this post, I should point out that this mouse movement wasn’t always a problem. I might add that as good as USB Overdrive is, the movement still doesn’t feel quite right. I struggled long and hard to adapt to the mouse acceleration curve but after a few months, I simply couldn’t handle it anymore and used USB Overdrive to alter the mouse movement behaviour. There are, no doubt, proponents of the movement that will say that this is the proper behaviour and that Apple got it right while everyone else screwed up but I disagree. The mouse acceleration and movement is simply too erratic and not very smooth compared to the Windows and Linux motions. I've also tried ControllerMate, but I wasn't able to program a macro that was reliable for activating the Application Switcher via a single button press.Ever since Mac OS X 10.4, Apple did a disservice to the computing community by severely crippling the mouse movement behaviour. Losing a couple of buttons isn't that bad, but it also always starts up on the lowest DPI setting, which is unnecessarily irritating. So USB Overdrive would have been great for that, except it can't override the DPI-adjustment functions of buttons 7 and 8 (+ and - ) on the mouse. However, I'd also like to be able to configure my keyboard as well. I've been using the trial version of SteerMouse, and it works perfectly with the mouse. I'd like to be able to assign one of the DPI buttons on the MX518 to the key command that opens DejaMenu so if I'm fiddling around on the other screen I don't have to move the mouse to the other screen or touch the keyboard. I'm using an old HP keyboard and a Logitech MX518 mouse. I'm also using a second monitor and DejaMenu. When I'm making music, I've got a lot of hardware sitting between me and the screen (USB numpad, audio interface, 71 key korg keyboard, and possibly manuscript paper). I have a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, but recently I've been needing to use an external keyboard. ![]()
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