Warzone 2100 Forums

Posted: **29 Sep 2017, 17:12**

Moving the cursor while the middle mouse button is pressed (i.e. dragging it) rotates the screen. In some Thinkpad models, trackpad middle buttons can fail at this task because of a feature called "wheel emulation":

Pressing the trackpad middle button puts the trackpoint in scroll mode instead of generating a "press" event. Because of this missing event, SDL can only recognise that middle button when it is released, not when it is pressed or down:

Code: Select all

// simplified code from ./lib/sdl/main_sdl.cpp

SDL_Event event;
while (true)
{
	/* Deal with any windows messages */
	while (SDL_PollEvent(&event))
	{
		switch (event.type)
		{
 			case SDL_MOUSEBUTTONUP:
                                // recognised with both middle mouse and middle trackpad buttons
				debug(LOG_ERROR, "released middle button");
                                break;
 			case SDL_MOUSEBUTTONDOWN:
                                // only recognised with middle mouse button
				debug(LOG_ERROR, "pressed middle button");
 				break;
 			default:
 				debug(LOG_ERROR, "unknown event");
 				break;
		}
	}
}

// pressing and releasing middle button results in key states:
// KEY_PRESSED, KEY_DOWN and KEY_RELEASED for middle mouse button
// KEY_PRESSRELEASE for middle trackpad button

To disable wheel emulation, you can use xinput:

0. Determine the trackpoint device name (usually 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint'):

Code: Select all

xinput list --name-only

1. List its properties:

Code: Select all

xinput list-props 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint'

2. The name of the property to be changed depends on your input driver.

For libinput, run:

Code: Select all

xinput set-prop 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint' 'libinput Button Scrolling Button' 0

For evdev, run:

Code: Select all

xinput set-prop 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint' 'Evdev Wheel Emulation' 0

3. To test your change, press the middle button inside a window opened by:

Code: Select all

xinput test-xi2 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint'

The result should look similar to:

Code: Select all

TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint                   	id=13	[slave  pointer  (2)]
	Reporting 7 classes:
		Class originated from: 13. Type: XIButtonClass
		Buttons supported: 7
		Button labels: "Button Left" "Button Middle" "Button Right" "Button Wheel Up" "Button Wheel Down" "Button Horiz Wheel Left" "Button Horiz Wheel Right"
		Button state:
		Class originated from: 13. Type: XIValuatorClass
		Detail for Valuator 0:
		  Label: Rel X
		  Range: -1.000000 - -1.000000
		  Resolution: 0 units/m
		  Mode: relative
		Class originated from: 13. Type: XIValuatorClass
		Detail for Valuator 1:
		  Label: Rel Y
		  Range: -1.000000 - -1.000000
		  Resolution: 0 units/m
		  Mode: relative
		Class originated from: 13. Type: XIValuatorClass
		Detail for Valuator 2:
		  Label: Rel Horiz Scroll
		  Range: -1.000000 - -1.000000
		  Resolution: 0 units/m
		  Mode: relative
		Class originated from: 13. Type: XIValuatorClass
		Detail for Valuator 3:
		  Label: Rel Vert Scroll
		  Range: -1.000000 - -1.000000
		  Resolution: 0 units/m
		  Mode: relative
		Class originated from: 13. Type: XIScrollClass
		Scroll info for Valuator 2
		  type: 2 (horizontal)
		  increment: 15.000000
		  flags: 0x0
		Class originated from: 13. Type: XIScrollClass
		Scroll info for Valuator 3
		  type: 1 (vertical)
		  increment: 15.000000
		  flags: 0x0

EVENT type 15 (RawButtonPress)
    device: 13 (13)
    detail: 2
    flags: 
    valuators:

EVENT type 4 (ButtonPress)
    device: 13 (13)
    detail: 2
    flags: 
    root: 87.65/97.23
    event: 87.65/77.23
    buttons:
    modifiers: locked 0 latched 0 base 0 effective: 0
    group: locked 0 latched 0 base 0 effective: 0
    valuators:
    windows: root 0xc2 event 0x1800001 child 0x1800002

Warzone 2100 Forums

Thinkpad trackpad middle mouse button can fail in Linux

Thinkpad trackpad middle mouse button can fail in Linux