Middle-right mouse buttons remap for X

Just a simple middle-to-right mouse buttons remapping xorg.conf file.

Reasoning

Clicking the middle-button (the wheel click) is not comfortable, while the right button is comfortable. However, many applications now require a lot of middle-button usage while they reserve the right button for rarely used optional actions.

I tested a system-wide remapping of middle and right buttons and after two months I found that probably I will not return to a standard setup.

Manual remapping

The xinput or xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 3 2" can be used. To use the xinput, first find your current mouse ID, then reassign the second and third buttons (let's say the mouse ID is 14):

xinput | grep Mouse
xinput set-button-map 14  1 3 2
xinput set-button-map 14  1 3 2 4 5 6 7 8 3

The last line will also assign the right button to the front side-button, to avoid any need for wheel-click on a mouse with side buttons.

Map of buttons:

 remapped --------  ----------------------------- original
                 1  1 = left button
 right on middle 3  2 = middle button - scroll wheel click
 middle on right 2  3 = right button
                 4  4 = wheel forward
                 5  5 = wheel back
                 6  6 = wheel right
                 7  7 = wheel left
                 8  8 = rear side-button - page back
   right on side 3  9 = front side-button - page forward

Xorg.conf remapping

Xorg.conf setup survives KVM switching, or other input devices events, whitch will otherwise reset the xinput effect. However, xorg.conf setup is system-wide.

In the past the mouse was an extension of computer, nowdays it is an extension of hand. Anyway, the system-wide setup is more comfortable...

Installation

The make install will copy the supplied 72-mouse.conf into /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and if it is not in conflict with any other setup after the X restart it will become active.

Debug

To check the current setup, and to check whether xmodmap setup is active:

xev -event mouse
xmodmap -pp

Propaganda

Mouse and keyboard have to be user-level configurable, not system level configurable. Because interface devices (input devices) belong to a human. They are not a part of computer as a CPU, GPU, or memory.

R.Jaksa 2023