Use Logitech Trackball with Better Touch?

[Charles218]

I have a Logitech Marble Trackball and have been frustrated that their software no longer allows the buttons to activate vertical scrolling. In looking for alternative software I came across Better Touch, but as a novice I am lost trying to work with it. Two questions, can I control my trackball with Better Touch? If so, can I assign vertical scrolling Up & Down to the two small left and right buttons?

I really am a novice and have not been able to get very far with this.

[Charles218]

Since I posted the questions above I became aware of Karabiner, and was able to install it and configure my trackball perfectly. It is a very comprehensive program and I was able to configure it with no issues.

[devalias]

I've also used Karabiner for remapping some buttons/features on a Razer Orbweaver gaming keyboard (since Razer doesn't support running the config software on macOS), and it seems to work really well.

I believe I was originally hoping/looking to do it with BetterTouchTool, but for whatever reason I found myself going a different way and using Karabiner.. I wonder if that was because I couldn't easily create shortcuts that would only run on that device (not override my normal keyboard)?

I know under 'Trigger Conditions' we can choose 'Works on keyboards with same type as used for recording':

But in my testing, that doesn't seem to restrict it in the way I would have expected.

Eg. I just used my Razer Orbweaver to record a keyboard shortcut for 1, and then typed 1 on my Apple Magic Keyboard, which triggered the shortcut.

With Karabiner I can create 'key remappings' and know they will work well.

[devalias]

@Charles218 So it turns out that 'Works on keyboards with same type' is the correct way to do this for keyboards; though it won't work correctly when Karabiner is being used and takes 'exclusive control' of the device.

@Andreas_Hegenberg

Mh that should definitely work, I use it all the time to remap e.g. Logitech buttons.
One restriction: it will not work if another app has taken exclusive lock /control over the keyboard (e.g. Karabiner Elements)

This is because then BTT needs to fall back to the higher level system API's, which don't allow to get the keyboard type.

From a quick skim, I don't think there is currently equivalent functionality for 'only re-map this on the mouse I recorded it on' like there is for the keyboard shortcuts. I'll mention it in that thread and maybe they can add a new feature for it!

[devalias]

Seems like there is some work in progress that will improve the features available for configuring gestures on mice from within BetterTouchTool as well!

@Andreas_Hegenberg

Yes, I'm currently working on a big upgrade to mouse support, hopefully being able to completely replace e.g. the Logitech software. Limiting to a specific mouse will be part of that.

However it's part of a massive feature as I'm porting libratbag/libratbag: A DBus daemon to configure input devices, mainly high-end and gaming mice (github.com) (a comprehensive Linux mouse driver library) to BTT. So it will still take a bit. The next alpha version will already be able to do something like this, but it will be a bit complicated to use.

[eembee]

Hi Charles, I'm very interested in learning more since I love my trusty Logitech Trackman Marble Mouse. I installed and tried Karabiner (Ventura, M2 Pro) but I cannot get it to detect my small side buttons. What's your setup? Do you use those buttons? I normally use them for fast vertical scroll but nothing works on Ventura. Thanks.

[Charles218]

While I do not remember the exact steps that I took to get it to work, I do recall that it was quite easy once I downloaded and used the Karabiner - EventsViewer App. If you have not used that, I would suggest that your give it a try, it made it clear which button was being read by the software. Also, on a few occasions it appears to stop working, I just restarted the software and all was back to normal. You will have to check with the developer regarding Ventura, I don't know if it is compatible or not, I'm running Big Sur.