This is the documentation for the KDE KControl module that configures mice and other pointing devices.
Table of Contents
This module allows you to configure your pointing device. Your pointing device may be a mouse, a track ball, a touch-pad, or another piece of hardware that performs a similar function.
This module is divided into several tabs: General, Cursor Theme, Advanced and Mouse Navigation. There may also be one or more additional tabs if you have a Logitech mouse or trackball, providing access to special features.
If you are left-handed, you may prefer to swap the functions of the and buttons on your pointing device by choosing the “Left handed” option. If your pointing device has more than two buttons, only those that function as the and buttons are affected. For example, if you have a three-button mouse, the button is unaffected.
With this checkbox selected, the scroll wheel (if any) will work in the opposite direction (so that if rolling the top of the scroll wheel towards you previously causes a scroll down, then it will now cause a scroll up). This may be useful to handle a unusual setup of the X server.
If this option is not checked, icons/files will be opened with a single click of the mouse-button. This default behavior is consistent with what you would expect when you click links in most web browsers. If checked however, icons/files will be opened with a double click, while a single click will only select the icon or file. This is the behavior you may know from other desktops or operating systems.
This is the default setting for KDE. Clicking once on an icon will open it. To select you can drag around the icon(s) or Ctrl+ click, or simply click and hold to drag it. You can also enable automatic selection of icons using the Automatically select icons checkbox, discussed below.
When this option is checked, the shape of the mouse pointer changes whenever it is over an icon.
This option should be checked in most situations. It gives more visual feedback and says, in essence, if you click here, something will happen.
As noted above, if you have Single-click to open files and folders selected, you can select icons by dragging around them, or by using Ctrl+ click. If you routinely need to select icons, you may want to enable this checkbox, which will allow icons to be selected automatically by pausing over the icon. The Delay: slider determines how long is required before the automatic selection takes effect.
When this option is checked, KDE gives you visual feedback whenever you click on something and activate it.
This tab allows you to select from a number of cursor themes. A preview of the cursor display is shown above the listbox.
The features provided by this tab may not be available on some systems. Your system may need to be updated to support cursor themes.
If you have additional cursor themes available, you can install and remove them using the buttons below the listbox. Note that you cannot remove the default themes.
This option allows you to change the relationship between the distance that the mouse pointer moves on the screen and the relative movement of the physical device itself (which may be a mouse, track-ball, or some other pointing device.)
A high value for the acceleration multiplier will lead to large movements of the mouse pointer on the screen, even when you only make a small movement with the physical device.
A multiplier between 1x and 3x will works well for many systems. With a multiplier over 3x the mouse pointer may become difficult to control.
The threshold is the smallest distance that the mouse pointer must move on the screen before acceleration has any effect. If the movement is within the threshold, the mouse pointer moves as if the acceleration were set to 1x.
Thus, when you make small movements with the physical device (e.g. mouse), you still have fine control of the mouse pointer on the screen, whereas larger movements of the physical device will move the mouse pointer rapidly to different areas on the screen.
You can set the threshold value by dragging the slider button or by clicking the up/down arrows on the spin-button to the left of the slider.
In general, the higher you set the Pointer acceleration value, the higher you will want to set the Pointer threshold value. For example, a Pointer threshold of 4 pixels may be appropriate for a Pointer Acceleration of 2x, but 10 pixels might be better for 3x.
This is the maximum amount of time between clicks for KDE to register a double click. If you click twice, and the time between those two clicks is less than this number, KDE recognizes that as a double click. If the time between these two clicks is greater than this number, KDE recognizes those as two separate single clicks.
If you
click with the mouse
drag within the time specified in Drag start time, and
move a distance equal to or greater than the number (of pixels) specified in Drag start distance
KDE will drag the selected item.
If you have a wheel mouse, use the slider to determine how many lines of text one “step” of the mouse wheel will scroll.
This tab allows you to configure the keyboard number pad keys as a mouse-type device. This may be useful when you are working on a device without another pointing device, or where you have no other use for the number pad.
To enable keyboard mouse mode, you need to select the checkbox labelled Move pointer with keyboard (using the num pad). When you do this, the other settings will become enabled, and you can customize the keyboard pointer behavior further, if required.
The various keys on the number pad move in the direction you would expect. Note that you can move diagonally as well as up, down, left and right. The 5 key emulates a click to a pointer button, typically mouse button. You change which button is emulated by using the / key (which makes it mouse button), * key (which makes it mouse button) and - (which makes it mouse button). Using the + emulates a doubleclick to the selected pointer button. You can use the 0 key to emulate holding down the selected pointer button (for easy dragging), and then use the . to emulate releasing the selected pointer button.
This is the time (in milliseconds) between the initial key press and the first repeated motion event for mouse key acceleration.
This is the time in milliseconds between repeated motion events for mouse key acceleration.
This is the number of key events before the pointer reaches a maximum speed for mouse key acceleration.
This is the maximum speed in pixels per key event the pointer can reach for mouse key acceleration.
This is the slope of the acceleration curve for mouse key acceleration.
Some Logitech USB mice support special features, such as switching to a higher resolution, or providing cordless status. If KDE was built with libusb support, then you will get an additional tab for each supported mouse that is plugged in.
The supported devices are:
Wheel Mouse Optical
MouseMan Traveler
MouseMan Dual Optical
MX310 Optical Mouse
MX510 Optical Mouse
MX300 Optical Mouse
MX500 Optical Mouse
iFeel Mouse
Mouse Receiver
Dual Receiver
Cordless Freedom Optical
Cordless Elite Duo
MX700 Optical Mouse
Cordless Optical Trackman
Cordless MX Duo Receiver
MX100 Laser Mouse
Receiver for Cordless Presenter
Not all devices support all capabilities (typically cordless devices do not provide resolution switching, and of course only cordless devices support cordless status reporting), so some parts of the tab will not be enabled for some mouse types.
If the mouse supports resolution switching, the Sensor Resolution radio button group will be enabled, and you can switch from 400 counts per inch to 800 counts per inch and back. If you use 800 counts per inch, the same physical movement of the mouse will cause a greater (roughly double) amount of motion of the cursor. This tends to be popular amongst gamers.
If the mouse supports cordless reporting, the Battery Level and RF Channel widgets will be enabled. You can only change the RF Channel if your mouse has two channel support.
Because of the way USB devices work, the code that accesses the current status on Logitech mice needs to be able to write to the mouse. This should be handled by your distribution, but if not, you may need to do some configuration yourself.
On a Linux system, you should use the hotplug system to change the ownership
and permissions on the mouse entry in /proc/bus/usb. One
way to do this is to create a short script
(/etc/hotplug/usb/consoleUserPerms) that changes the ownership
and permissions, as shown below:
#!/bin/bash
#
# /etc/hotplug/usb/consoleUserPerms
#
# Sets up newly plugged in USB device so that the user who owns
# the console according to pam_console can access it from user space
#
# Note that for this script to work, you'll need all of the following:
# a) a line in the file /etc/hotplug/usb.usermap or another usermap file
# in /etc/hotplug/usb/ that corresponds to the device you are using.
# b) a setup using pam_console creates the respective lock files
# containing the name of the respective user. You can check for that
# by executing "echo `cat /var/{run,lock}/console.lock`" and
# verifying the appropriate user is mentioned somewhere there.
# c) a Linux kernel supporting hotplug and usbdevfs
# d) the hotplug package (http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net/)
#
# In the usermap file, the first field "usb module" should be named
# "consoleUserPerms" to invoke this script.
#
if [ "${ACTION}" = "add" ] && [ -f "${DEVICE}" ]
then
# New code, using lock files instead of copying /dev/console permissions
# This also works with non-kdm logins (e.g. on a virtual terminal)
# Idea and code from Nalin Dahyabhai <nalin@redhat.com>
if [ -f /var/run/console.lock ]
then
CONSOLEOWNER=`cat /var/run/console.lock`
elif [ -f /var/lock/console.lock ]
then
CONSOLEOWNER=`cat /var/lock/console.lock`
else
CONSOLEOWNER=
fi
if [ -n "$CONSOLEOWNER" ]
then
chmod 0000 "${DEVICE}"
chown "$CONSOLEOWNER" "${DEVICE}"
chmod 0600 "${DEVICE}"
fi
fi
The usermap file that goes with this is
/etc/hotplug/usb/logitechmouse.usermap, as
shown below:
# script match_flags idVendor idProduct bcdDevice_lo bcdDevice_hi bDeviceClass bDeviceSubClass bDeviceProtocol bInterfaceClass bInterfaceSubClass bInterfaceProtocol driver_info # Wheel Mouse Optical consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc00e 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # MouseMan Traveler consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc00f 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # MouseMan Dual Optical consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc012 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # MX310 Optical Mouse consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc01b 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # MX510 Optical Mouse consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc01d 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # MX300 Optical Mouse consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc024 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # MX500 Optical Mouse consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc025 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # iFeel Mouse consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc031 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # Mouse Receiver consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc501 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # Dual Receiver consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc502 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # Cordless Freedom Optical consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc504 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # Cordless Elite Duo consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc505 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # MX700 Optical Mouse consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc506 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # Cordless Optical Trackman consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc508 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # Cordless MX Duo Receiver consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc50b 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # MX100 Laser Mouse consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc50e 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000 # Receiver for Cordless Presenter consoleUserPerms 0x0003 0x046d 0xc702 0x0000 0xffff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000
That should be all that is needed on Linux - just copy the files into
/etc/hotplug/usb/, and when the mouse is
plugged in, the ownership and permissions should be changed
so that the user at the console can access the mouse.
