Topic Title

Is it just me, or have the various mouse manufacturer's basically given-up on programmable multi-bottom mouse-drivers for Windows 7? I have several favorite Kensington mice that I've used for years with Datacad, and I'm used to having thumb-bottoms programmed for "n", "back" and so forth. Now with my new laptop, I can't program ANY of the buttons on my existing 6-button mouse. Kensington seems to have abandoned any new drivers or up-grades past Vista for there mice. And Logitech has a very limited palette once past the "standard 3-button" configuration, with very limited programability. Worse I'm finding as I shop for hardware for my new CAD station that most of the multi-button mice on-sale aren't Windows-7 compatible, or you can't re-program any of the buttons...not even the middle scroll-wheel for "n".

Without "n" on the mouse, Datacad is almost unusable.

My other hardware peeve is the lost of the oversized L-shaped return-key. It's bad enough that most "modern" keyboards have no feel or key-travel. I loathe the flat, light and shallow action of my laptop's keyboard...I hit way too-many wrong keys or keys together.

I miss the long, deliberate travel of a manual typewriter. I'm taken to composing long letters or project memos on my manual Underwood Model 5 or Olympus portable then scanning them OCR back into OpenDocs, or as printed or scanned .pdfs.

I'm pretty sure that Logitech's SetPoint driver will do this in at least the 32bit version of Win7. In the 64bit version, it definitely lets you have the Middle button snapping, but I can't be sure about custom programing on the other buttons. Can someone confirm this for Win7 64bit?

Logitech SetPoint in Win 7 64 is pretty much loaded with custom options including multi keystroke macros. Here is my MX518's available options. I leave my middle mouse set to the default Generic Button and that works for snapping in Datacad. There maybe less options available with the cheaper 3 button OEM $10-20 logitech mice, but I usually don't install setpoint when using these mice and Datacad still snaps correctly with the default windows drivers in Windows 7.

Hi folks,

If I was going to work on a Win7 computer, this is the mouse I'd probably buy:





As you can see, it has a touch sensitive surface so a middle snap *cannot* move accidentally (like when you have a scroll wheel). Scrolling is done by swiping your finger(s) in a direction. Battery life is up to 6 months.

It is ambidextrous, as well, so you can switch hands to rest your favored arm.

Edit: I am going to try to see this mouse in the store -- it may be that it does not offer a middle button; which would seem to really silly, if true.

Just came across this post today . . .

I've been using a Logitech G700 mouse on Win7 64 X3 for about a year now.

It works great. My DataCAD profile includes snap, undo, redo, move, stretch 2D, stretch 3D
zoom in/out, layers, measure pt to pt, and isometric.

You can create profiles for apps, games, etc. tho I have not done so.

In using Kensington Trackball (expert Mouse), is there a simple way to zoom out??

If it has a scroll wheel, sure, but it without a scroll wheel I can't think how it could work.