[9fans] evoluent mouse review

[9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Russ Cox]

Two months ago, in response to the mention on this mailing list, I
got an Evoluent 3 Rev 2 mouse, pictured at http://www.evoluent.ca/.
It is a USB mouse, and I've been using it with Plan 9 apps on Linux.
I can't vouch for how it works with Plan 9 natively.

At first I really hated it: it was too jerky and too hard to move
my hand to the mouse without moving the cursor.  Then I found that
there is a button on the bottom that cycles through 2600, 1800, 1300,
and 800 dpi.  The default is 1800, and I found that changing it to 800
cured the jerkiness.  It still took a while for my hand to learn how
to move from the keyboard to the mouse without looking down and to get
used to the buttons--I've always used my middle finger for both buttons
2 and 3, and I retrained my hand to give button 3 to the ring finger.
It took me a week of using the Evoluent to feel comfortable with it.

I had been using an Evoluent at home and an IBM at MIT, but I just got a
second Evoluent for MIT.  The Evoluent and the often-recommended IBM mouse
both suffer from "mouse creep", where the wire pushes the mouse after
you let go of it (this is particularly annoying when you've just put the
cursor in an acme tag), but the problem is much less pronounced on
the Evoluent.

Two caveats for the Evoluent.  First, in contradiction to the diagram
on the http://www.evoluent.ca/ page, the main buttons are numbered 132
not 123, so you have to remap them in software.

Second, the Evoluent slides very nicely, but the five hard feet it
has will scuff up low-quality surfaces like the crummy Staples folding
banquet table I use for a desk at home.  Even though it's an optical
mouse you might want a mouse pad.

All in all, though, I won't be buying any more IBM mice.  I'm tempted
by the wireless Evoluent but haven't tried it.

Russ


P. S.  As for software remapping, it appears that some versions of xmodmap
require you to give a remapping string with exactly the right number
of buttons, while others let you give too many or too few.  My Linux
system with the former behavior thinks it has 11 buttons (!), while
my Linux system with the latter behavior thinks it has only 9 buttons.
Thus, the following script works in both places:

	$ cat /home/rsc/bin/funnymouse
	#!/bin/sh
	xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 3 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11"
	$

but when you run it on the latter system, you get the amusing output:

	$ funnymouse
	Warning: Only changing the first 11 of 9 buttons.
	$

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Dave Eckhardt]

I bought one of these ("Evoluent VerticalMouse 3 Rev 2", aka VM3R2).

It doesn't work with my KVM (IOGear GCS1734, neither top of the line
nor junk), not with Linux or Plan 9:  horizontal tracking is fine, but
vertical tracking goes only up.  It works ok plugged directly into a
Linux box.

After some mail back and forth with Evoluent, the bottom line is they
don't care.  They began with a defensible position (not all mice work
with all KVM switches), but, when asked to name *one* switch the VM3R2
works with, they quit answering mail.

Note that their web site warns against KVM switches when using the
Windows driver (as if!), but does not make a general warning.

It's an interesting device, but when using some (maybe all?) KVM
switches you're better off with an $8 Logitech throwaway.  Too bad.

Dave Eckhardt

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[andrey mirtchovski]

can you cat /dev/mouse and see if button 4/5 events are generated by
the mouse? it may be that they give you something else than the usual
down/up event that everybody is used to (large value deltas, for
example). they may also be generating button 6 and up events instead,
in which case you'll have to tweak the kernel driver and put a fix
yourself.

On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 2:32 PM, Dave Eckhardt <davide+p9@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> I bought one of these ("Evoluent VerticalMouse 3 Rev 2", aka VM3R2).
>
> It doesn't work with my KVM (IOGear GCS1734, neither top of the line
> nor junk), not with Linux or Plan 9:  horizontal tracking is fine, but
> vertical tracking goes only up.  It works ok plugged directly into a
> Linux box.
>
> After some mail back and forth with Evoluent, the bottom line is they
> don't care.  They began with a defensible position (not all mice work
> with all KVM switches), but, when asked to name *one* switch the VM3R2
> works with, they quit answering mail.
>
> Note that their web site warns against KVM switches when using the
> Windows driver (as if!), but does not make a general warning.
>
> It's an interesting device, but when using some (maybe all?) KVM
> switches you're better off with an $8 Logitech throwaway.  Too bad.
>
> Dave Eckhardt
>
>

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Nick LaForge]

mr. eckhardt,

have you considered translating the evoluent usb interface into one
the kvm switch can understand with an atmel avr board?

nkl

> I bought one of these ("Evoluent VerticalMouse 3 Rev 2", aka VM3R2).
>
> It doesn't work with my KVM (IOGear GCS1734, neither top of the line
> nor junk), not with Linux or Plan 9:  horizontal tracking is fine, but
> vertical tracking goes only up.  It works ok plugged directly into a
> Linux box.

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Dave Eckhardt]

> have you considered translating the evoluent usb interface
> into one the kvm switch can understand with an atmel avr
> board?

I'm impressed by your creativity.  You are right that with
sufficient thrust, wings are not necessary and even a brick
can fly. :-)

Even without solving the problem, it *would* be interesting
to know exactly what is going wrong.

First I should probably walk around trying other KVM switches.

Dave Eckhardt

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[erik quanstrom]

> I'm impressed by your creativity.  You are right that with
> sufficient thrust, wings are not necessary and even a brick
> can fly. :-)

he must have been inspired by seeing vista in action.
(does that need scare quotes?)

it's hard to comprehend using what would have passed
for a fine supercomputer when i was in school for
a graphics card.  and then having an operating system
so self-assured, that it requires at least that much power
to run a gui.

but such is progress in computers — and my evidently
quickly advancing age.

- erik

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Mathieu Lonjaret]

Hello,

I'm thinking of buying such a mouse. Have you found better since you
posted that review? Did you (or anyone else) get a chance to eventually
try the wireless one?

Thanks,
Mathieu

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Russ Cox]

On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Mathieu Lonjaret
<mathieu.lonjaret@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm thinking of buying such a mouse. Have you found better since you
> posted that review? Did you (or anyone else) get a chance to eventually
> try the wireless one?

I still use Evoluents everywhere, all wired, with
both Linux and OS X.  The software remapping is
still the only real pain point.  On OS X, I use a
third-party program called USB Overdrive.
On Linux, after each installation of new X software
I have to run xev to learn what button numbers
X assigns by default and then construct a new
xmodmap line for the funnymouse script.
I haven't found a better mouse, nor have I tried
the wireless one.

I am planning to play with an Apple Magic Mouse
using Paul Lalonde's patch (soon to be in p9p).

Russ

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[David Leimbach]

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On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 8:41 PM, Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Mathieu Lonjaret
> <mathieu.lonjaret@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm thinking of buying such a mouse. Have you found better since you
> > posted that review? Did you (or anyone else) get a chance to eventually
> > try the wireless one?
>
> I still use Evoluents everywhere, all wired, with
> both Linux and OS X.  The software remapping is
> still the only real pain point.  On OS X, I use a
> third-party program called USB Overdrive.
> On Linux, after each installation of new X software
> I have to run xev to learn what button numbers
> X assigns by default and then construct a new
> xmodmap line for the funnymouse script.
> I haven't found a better mouse, nor have I tried
> the wireless one.
>
> I am planning to play with an Apple Magic Mouse
> using Paul Lalonde's patch (soon to be in p9p).
>

Interesting.  :-)  I've used the Apple Magic Mouse, and it's "ok".  I was at
an apple store when I did.  I've got some code that can read touchpads (I
think I've tracked up to 10 points).  If the mouse has the same raw
capabilities as the touch pad, it might be a good Plan 9 chording mouse.  I
just worry what happens when your palm is down or not on the mouse.

I've actually become a trackball guy again, and use the Kensington Expert
Mouse Trackball.

http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-Expert-Optical-Trackball-64325/dp/B00009KH63/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1262621445&sr=8-1

I paid 100 USD for mine, and have no regrets.  It's got 4 buttons and can
chord just fine.  The scroll ring is pretty nice too.

There's a newer version but I think they may have taken a step backwards.

Dave


> Russ
>
>

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Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Benjamin Huntsman]

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Anyone remember or still use the Depraz red mouse?  I thought I had heard someone figured out how to convert them to USB...
I've got three brand-new-in-box, so at least one of them is itching to be usb-ifyed.

> I am planning to play with an Apple Magic Mouse
> using Paul Lalonde's patch (soon to be in p9p).

I've got a Magic Mouse as my main mouse now.  It's much more solid than the Mighty Mouse, but you still have to lift your index finger off the surface to deliver a right-click.  Furthermore, without the depressible trackball, there's no way to deliver a middle-click, so it's back to keyboard shortcuts...

-Ben

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Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Anthony Sorace]

  Benjamin Huntsman wrote:

> Anyone remember or still use the Depraz red mouse?  I thought I had
> heard
> someone figured out how to convert them to USB...

I've got two of the USBified ones, one attached to my cpu server and
one moving
between an old iBook and a few other Plan 9 machines. i still really
like the feel in
my hand and the resistance on the buttons, although optical is a real
step forward.
the little plastic nubs on the bottom could be smoother, too.

these were USBified while i was at the labs; i have no information on
the procedure.

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[David Leimbach]

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Just saw this Patch of Paul's, it's the same stuff I found.  I'm now anxious
to try the new p9p on my touchpad with the macbook!  :-)

Good times!  Thanks Paul and Russ!

Dave

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Anthony Sorace <a@9srv.net> wrote:

>  Benjamin Huntsman wrote:
>
>  Anyone remember or still use the Depraz red mouse?  I thought I had heard
>> someone figured out how to convert them to USB...
>>
>
> I've got two of the USBified ones, one attached to my cpu server and one
> moving
> between an old iBook and a few other Plan 9 machines. i still really like
> the feel in
> my hand and the resistance on the buttons, although optical is a real step
> forward.
> the little plastic nubs on the bottom could be smoother, too.
>
> these were USBified while i was at the labs; i have no information on the
> procedure.
>
>
>

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Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Russ Cox]

> I am planning to play with an Apple Magic Mouse
> using Paul Lalonde's patch (soon to be in p9p).

Paul's code is now in p9p.  Because the code can read
where your finger is on the mouse when you click, it can
pretend there are three different buttons when in fact
there's just one.  Chording works too, and it's all very natural.
It's quite elegant actually.  Kudos to Paul.  I hope that the
code will let one use the new clickable laptop trackpads as
3-button mice too, but I haven't tried that.

However, if you have any tendency toward repetitive strain injuries,
you might want to avoid the Magic Mouse: not being able to touch
the mouse with the non-clicking fingers means a less relaxing grip,
especially when pretending its tiny surface has three buttons.
After maybe four hours of use, my wrist had started to hurt.

(I had a bad desk twelve years ago that hurt my wrists, and
now they're sensitive to this kind of thing.  But I'm not the only
one - http://boingboing.net/2009/12/03/magic-mouse.html - and
presumably that guy wasn't using 3 buttons or chording.)

Back to the Evoluents for me.

Russ

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[andrey mirtchovski]

> I hope that the
> code will let one use the new clickable laptop trackpads as
> 3-button mice too, but I haven't tried that.

i just did. acme isn't seeing any mouse clicks from a macbook's
trackpad. i'll take a look and report in more detail in a bit.

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Jack Johnson]

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 8:20 PM, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchovski@gmail.com> wrote:
> i just did. acme isn't seeing any mouse clicks from a macbook's
> trackpad. i'll take a look and report in more detail in a bit.

I'll have to give that a try. It seems acme + trackpad isn't always
fun, but my brain loves a trackpad for some reason.

I keep thinking I want one of these for a desktop machine, but I'd
still probably need a mouse hanging around, too:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-45849.html

Plus, Mac 2-finger scrolling has ruined me.

-Jack

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[andrey mirtchovski]

here's a report. i obviously don't know enough about touch controls to
be of any use, but i'd like to help with testing.

- on my snow leopard macbook pro it appears that the multitouch
library is found and devdraw is compiled with -DMULTITOUCH (indeed if
i undef this the problem goes away).

- multitouch works according to osx and the touchCallback routine is
called with the correct number of nFingers (at least for n<=5),
unfortunately at no point does the classifyTouch classify any touches
as button clicks.

- there are two preferences for the trackpad -- 'tap to click'
(available for primary button with one-finger tap and secondary button
with two-finger tap, there is not tertiary button option) or 'press to
click' (which generates a primary button click only, regardless of how
many buttons were pressed when the clicking occurred). here the
behaviour differs a bit in terms of expected actions, although the end
result is the same:

- pressing to click with one finger generates a correct primary mouse
button event (even secondary, if the right side of the trackpad is
set) for mouseevent, however with osx.touched set by touchCallback we
try searching the higher-order bits of "but" and find nothing

- tapping to click generates a correct primary or secondary mouse
button event, but again gets caught by osx.touched set and nothing in
the upper bits in mouseevent()

in both cases the keystroke event is generated by osx itself and not
by touchCallback.

if i print out the number of fingers passes to touchCallback and the
resulting buttons as calculated by classifyTouch, i see the correct
value of nFingers but always zero buttons pressed. i was expecting (in
order for chording to work) that if i tap a finger i would see a
button stroke, instead i see multiple calls to touchCallback but no
button classification.

digging a bit deeper, it appears that the size of my click is around
0.2 to 0.5 (with a size sensitivity of 1.25) so my threshold time
never accumulates. pressing and holding a full finger onto the
trackpad finally lets the threshold time accumulate, but that's now
too long for a click to be generated. setting the size sensitivity to
some low value (0.05) finally lets classifyTouch report appropriate
clicks if i tap in the upper part of the trackpad but those do not
translate into actual click events sent to acme. the upper part of the
trackpad is exactly the wrong place for one to be clicking on a
macbook though...

unfortunately, i think a proper solution for trackpads may be a bit
more involved than what my simple understanding of the problem can
fix.

ps: two-finger scrolling works as usual, but that's outside of the
realm of multitouch (i.e., it's worked since leopard)

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[David Leimbach]

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On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com> wrote:

> > I am planning to play with an Apple Magic Mouse
> > using Paul Lalonde's patch (soon to be in p9p).
>
> Paul's code is now in p9p.  Because the code can read
> where your finger is on the mouse when you click, it can
> pretend there are three different buttons when in fact
> there's just one.  Chording works too, and it's all very natural.
> It's quite elegant actually.  Kudos to Paul.  I hope that the
> code will let one use the new clickable laptop trackpads as
> 3-button mice too, but I haven't tried that.
>

In fact it has made the trackpad unusable for me as I can't highlight
anything with a click of any kind at this point.  Now if you have a mac
multi-touch laptop, you're going to have get an external mouse.


>
> However, if you have any tendency toward repetitive strain injuries,
> you might want to avoid the Magic Mouse: not being able to touch
> the mouse with the non-clicking fingers means a less relaxing grip,
> especially when pretending its tiny surface has three buttons.
> After maybe four hours of use, my wrist had started to hurt.
>
> (I had a bad desk twelve years ago that hurt my wrists, and
> now they're sensitive to this kind of thing.  But I'm not the only
> one - http://boingboing.net/2009/12/03/magic-mouse.html - and
> presumably that guy wasn't using 3 buttons or chording.)
>
> Back to the Evoluents for me.
>

I'm back to using trackballs :-) .  And I guess I either have to fix this
problem with the trackpad myself or wait for a fix or use an external
pointing device.

Dave

>
> Russ
>
>

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Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[hiro]

I own the old optical logitech mouse. It has fallen down a lot, also
it was swinged against walls because of driver issues and one very
rainy night I forgot it outside, connected to my x60s in standby. I'm
still using both without any problems, although I often had to reboot
the thinkpad because of software and again driver issues. Four years
ago the left button started getting hard to press, it was a slow
transition, so I learned to hit the right spot of it. Now it seems the
problem has gone away by itself. I never understood the problem of
clicking that scrolling wheel.
The only ongoing problem is that I sometimes have to clean my desk,
because these old mice only work on few kinds of surfaces.

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 2:59 PM, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 9:03 PM, Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I am planning to play with an Apple Magic Mouse
>> > using Paul Lalonde's patch (soon to be in p9p).
>>
>> Paul's code is now in p9p.  Because the code can read
>> where your finger is on the mouse when you click, it can
>> pretend there are three different buttons when in fact
>> there's just one.  Chording works too, and it's all very natural.
>> It's quite elegant actually.  Kudos to Paul.  I hope that the
>> code will let one use the new clickable laptop trackpads as
>> 3-button mice too, but I haven't tried that.
>
> In fact it has made the trackpad unusable for me as I can't highlight
> anything with a click of any kind at this point.  Now if you have a mac
> multi-touch laptop, you're going to have get an external mouse.
>
>>
>> However, if you have any tendency toward repetitive strain injuries,
>> you might want to avoid the Magic Mouse: not being able to touch
>> the mouse with the non-clicking fingers means a less relaxing grip,
>> especially when pretending its tiny surface has three buttons.
>> After maybe four hours of use, my wrist had started to hurt.
>>
>> (I had a bad desk twelve years ago that hurt my wrists, and
>> now they're sensitive to this kind of thing.  But I'm not the only
>> one - http://boingboing.net/2009/12/03/magic-mouse.html - and
>> presumably that guy wasn't using 3 buttons or chording.)
>>
>> Back to the Evoluents for me.
>
> I'm back to using trackballs :-) .  And I guess I either have to fix this
> problem with the trackpad myself or wait for a fix or use an external
> pointing device.
> Dave
>>
>> Russ
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[blstuart]

>> Back to the Evoluents for me.
>
> I'm back to using trackballs :-) .  And I guess I either have to fix this
> problem with the trackpad myself or wait for a fix or use an external
> pointing device.

Has anyone tried the Contour Perfit?  I've been hesitant to
drop $100+ on it without knowing how it is, but I never
seem to find mice big enough to keep some part of my
hand from dragging on the desk.

BLS

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Quico Moya]

I'm unable to simulate three buttons on my Magic Mouse.  Is there
something I have to do to turn this feature on? Thanks!

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Jeff Sickel]

There are only two potential buttons with the Magic Mouse.  The
easiest way to get simulate the three buttons in p9p devdraw,
drawterm, and 9vx is to do the option-click and cmd-click.  Not
the best for chording, but it works.  Ctrl-click is also mapped,
but I always forget which one really does what compared to using
a 3-button mouse.

I just realized that the trackpad preferences does have an option
to two-finger click assignments for either the left or right button.
Still not optimal for rio.  But given that that's one approach, it
does mean that if someone wants to poke at the code to add full
gesture support then it would be possible to simulate chording.


On Feb 21, 2012, at 9:03 AM, Quico Moya wrote:

> I'm unable to simulate three buttons on my Magic Mouse.  Is there
> something I have to do to turn this feature on? Thanks!

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Russ Cox]

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 10:03 AM, Quico Moya <guingu@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm unable to simulate three buttons on my Magic Mouse.  Is there
> something I have to do to turn this feature on? Thanks!

There was at one point code in plan9port that simulated three
buttons along the top of the magic mouse; it read out where your
finger was on the mouse and used that information to simulate
the buttons.  I do not remember if that code is still enabled.
Perhaps not.  It was using undocumented APIs that are probably
different today.  It was also no substitute for three real buttons.
Without the tactile feedback about where your fingers were,
I found it very draining to use for long periods of time.

Russ

Re: [9fans] evoluent mouse review

[Quico Moya]

Oh, I see.  I was curious to know if the simulation would work for me—I find control-clicking a little cumbersome.  I think I'll buy an Evoluent for my desktop Mac.  I don't like very much the idea of carrying around a mouse to substitute my MacBook's buttonless trackpad, though, so I'll keep on control-clicking it.

Thanks, Jeff and Russ, for your replies.

Quico.