Odd remapped tilt behaviour MS Explorer Touch mouse

x64 Replacement/Alternative to Microsoft's IntelliMouse application.
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Wimads
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Posts: 11
Joined: Mon May 03, 2021 4:23 pm

Odd remapped tilt behaviour MS Explorer Touch mouse

Post by Wimads »

XMBC Version: v2.19.2
Windows Version: Windows 10 64 bit
Mouse Information (brand/model): Microsoft Explorer Touch mouse
Relevant Computer Information (CPU, RAM etc): Intel i7 9750H; nVidia GTX 1660 Ti; 16GB RAM
Did the problem occur after an upgrade of XMBC? (If so, from what version?): no
Did the problem occur after a Windows update/upgrade? (If so, from what version?): no
How long have you used XMBC?: 2-3 weeks
What language and keyboard layout do you use in Windows?: US layout; Dutch and US-English languages

Clear description of the problem - try and include as much information as possible, including what button and mappings you are having problems with (if applicable).:

Okay, so I know this is probably an issue with this particular mouse, rather than with XMBC, since its a bit of an odd mouse; but thought I'd report it anyway.

The MS Explorer Touch mouse has a touch strip instead of a scroll wheel. Its basically a clickable mini trackpad in place of the MMB, used for MMB click, scroll and tilt functions - as well as a 4th and 5th button depending on where on the touch strip you click (though I have disabled those since it doesn't work so well).

I remapped tilt left/right to back and forward, with "ignore repeated remapped horizontal scroll" checked at 300ms. I was half expecting it wouldn't work at all, because tilting is not making an orange highlight in the dropdown of the XMBC interface; while vertical scroll does show a highlight in the dropdown as expected. However, as it turns out, remapping tilt does work, but not without issues:

1. In browser (and most other software), the back/forward works, but the horizontal scrolling happens as well (for example in a google docs spreadsheet). Basically it's not ignoring the original function.

2. In a windows explorer window, the back/forward doesn't work at all. Its just scrolling horizontally like it isn't intercepted at all.

[EDIT]
So I forgot I had MS Mouse and Keyboard center installed, which controls this mouse as well. So likely this was interfering. However, the sad thing is that if I uninstall it, the horizontal scroll function doesn't work at all (regardless of XMBC). So I guess what happens is that the horizontal scroll messages aren't send by the mouse, but are created by the Mouse and Keyboard center software, which in turn were somehow still intercepted by XMBC with some added glitchyness.
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phil
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Posts: 7627
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2003 11:12 pm

Re: Odd remapped tilt behaviour MS Explorer Touch mouse

Post by phil »

I think your final theory there is relevant. Keyboard & Mouse center may be sending (injecting) the horizontal tilt messages - but it may also be sending scroll messages - this wont be easy for me to find out as I don't have that mouse. You may be able to find out with something like Spy++ to spy on the messages being sent (there are other tools also but none of them are particularly user/novice friendly).

XMBC Only hooks the mouse messages, and it should be able to intercept the injected tilt messages (which may be why it works somewhat) but if anything else is being sent at the same time, that's not going to get blocked. This does not really explain why it doesn't work at all in explorer though - but I suspect (a bit of a guess) the MS software may be doing different things depending what window/application is in focus (much like XMBC application profiles work)
--[ Phil ]--
--[ Administrator & XMBC Author ]--
Logitech G9/G604/M720/MX518, Microsoft Intellimouse, Trust 16341 BT Mouse
Windows 10 x64, AMD Ryzen 5900x, MSI x570 Tomahawk, 32GB DDR4,
nVidia RTX 2070s, Evo 970 1Tb NVME, 2x2TB WD Black (RAID1)
Wimads
New User
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon May 03, 2021 4:23 pm

Re: Odd remapped tilt behaviour MS Explorer Touch mouse

Post by Wimads »

The MS software has the ability to program different mappings depending on the application in focus. And since its Microsoft, I guess its very possible that by default its already doing something different for windows explorer.

Unfortunately scroll settings can't be changed per application in the MS software, so even if I can find out what messages its injecting, there's no way to change that.
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