When doing accounts recently, my spreadsheet had tiny columns and I noticed I was having trouble getting my no-name USB mouse to go to exactly the right area of the screen. I looked closer and when I move it slowly diagonally it would sort of go 5-10 pixels across then 5-10 pixels up, so what should be a straight angled trajectory on the screen in practice traveled like stairs/steps viewed in profile.
I went back to 3d modelling and noticed that I’d always put up with this, hand often tensed up, battling the mouse to go exactly where I want it to. I’d never really noticed, had been used to it. Sometime during the frustrating accounts process I gave it the bash and as a result the middle mouse no longer worked and now I need to find a replacement, ideally something that works a lot better.
I fired up my crappy magic mouse and as well as actually not having a middle mouse it disconnects (bluetooth) every 5 minutes for up to one minute where it just doesnt work. Apparently a common issue - Apple has never made a decent mouse in my experience, and their best one is no exception. Also no middle mouse is pretty much ridiculous for 3d modelling/navigation.
So I went to the apple store, and brought their recommendation, a 'Rapoo" model with both bluetooth and a USB connector(still wireless) but my mac thinks the usb thing is for a keyboard not a mouse. As a bluetooth device my mouse teleports across the screen in 3 inch jumps. It was $50 and is going back for refund tomorrow.
So do you have a recommendation for a good 3 button mouse that works on Mac? At this stage I’m not sure what to seek and am using my disconnects-every-5-minutes magic mouse which will never suffice in the long term.
Lovely. Accurate and has extra buttons I map to keys using included software, which is helpful for apps and games alike. I like that I can set the wheel to free spin for web surfing, and clicky for games.
I use a logitech M500, but having the drivers installed means that I can’t use the wheel to scroll in Monodevelop. Considering this has been a bug for years now, I don’t see that getting fixed any time soon, so buyer beware and all that.
Logitech Performance MX with SteerMouse. I got burned bad with a whole-system freezing issue in Mavericks when switching applications with their default drivers. I really like the basically frictionless scroll wheel (with horizontal scrolling), though. I’d be annoyed to have to switch to something more traditional.
Apples magic mouse, the wireless one w/ the entire top as a touch sensitive pad, is the most amazing mouse in the world. I started using it when it came out, and have never once looked back.
I also use Logitech mice, a G5 at work and a G700 at home. Don’t currently have the drivers/bloatware installed for either of them (though they were useful for initial setup of the firmware on the G700), use the G5 on both Win and OS X.
To be honest, I’m wondering if the problems in the OP are hardware related at all. To have that kind of problem with two completely different mice… Are you using your operating system’s default drivers, and are you sure that you don’t have anything else messing with it in software? No USB overdrive or anything? I’ve not ever had such an issue in a long history of using many mice across many operating systems. (And it sounds like the same issue but with different levels of sensitivity.)
Also to consider is that OS X has a crazy and not easily controlled acceleration curve, that could potentially be the cause of your issue. Is the mouse snapping on a grid, or is it just jumpy when transitioning from low to high speed (and thus painful when trying to move short distances quickly)?
You can use an app like MagicPrefs for that. My Logitech MX518, after quite a few years (7?), has just started acting up where it occasionally stops responding for 5-10 seconds. Although it otherwise still works fine, it’s getting somewhat worn after all this time, so rather than fiddle with it to see if it’s the connection or whatnot, I just ordered a G400S, which seems like more or less the same as the MX518.
MagicPrefs is an option yes, but from my experience it doesn’t work that great for constant middle clicking, in my case Blender. It requires constant middle clicking for navigation.
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