How to dedicate lock zoom (without toggle) to a mouse or keyboard button

Questions and answers about 3Dconnexion devices on Windows.

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SW-USER
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How to dedicate lock zoom (without toggle) to a mouse or keyboard button

Post by SW-USER »

Hello,

I'm new here.

I have a question. As it is now, one can hold the mouse wheel to momentarily lock some axis and zoom in and out. But i want it to do both zoom and pan at the same time. And due to this I find my self using the mouse most of the time for navigation. Is there a way to make this? I know there is a lock rotation toggle button, but i use this button for saving (need more buttons) and i don't like the toggle function, I just want to temporarily lock rotation while holding a button like mouse key/wheel or CTRL or ALT or any key for a short moment.
jwick
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Re: How to dedicate lock zoom (without toggle) to a mouse or keyboard button

Post by jwick »

What device?

There is a way of doing this with some 3D mouse device buttons, but the GUI is not going to help you.

It takes some XML file editing. I can walk you through it if you want to tackle it.
SW-USER
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Re: How to dedicate lock zoom (without toggle) to a mouse or keyboard button

Post by SW-USER »

Hi and thanks for quick reply.

I have a Spacemouse Pro

All my buttons on the SP are occupied already. So i'm looking to get such function on my keyboard or my extra mouse buttons

(Another topic: Is there anyway to have a second set of button functions with long-press or holding CTRL/ALT/Shift?)
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Re: How to dedicate lock zoom (without toggle) to a mouse or keyboard button

Post by jwick »

What kind of 2D mouse? One of ours? These devices I have a lot of control over.

Anything can be done by using the driver's extension mechanism, if you are comfortable with a C compiler.

There is all sorts of hidden functionality in this direction, but the Radial Menus are the best way to add support for additional functions if you have an SMP. It's somewhat practical to do this for devices like the SME because the LCD shows you what is happening. For the other devices, it's hard to imagine how you could keep track of what is happening to the button assignments.

This functionality was implemented in the Spaceball 4000/5000. There was a Shift key, which would shift to a second set of functions. I removed it when that device went away. The SpacePilot also had similar functionality.

Your KB shift key functionality would go away if you overrode the Shift Key on the SMP. You would have to make an Axis/ButtonBankShift function.

That is exactly what I did yesterday to test this for you (overrode my SME shift key).
This is what I had in mind when I implemented this.

There's nothing stopping you from doing Shift, Alt, Ctrl too. But they have to be the SMPs Shift, Alt, Ctrl.

I'd use the Ctrl key to "control/limit" the axes (pan/zoom off), and Shift to "shift" to a new ButtonBank, and Alt to map the device to a different mode (e.g., 2D mouse mode).

It's still a lot of work because the GUI isn't going to help you.

Sure. It's all possible. But you have to get used to editing XML files. And you have the limitation of not seeing what the buttons are assigned to (no LCD). When they are assigned, the GUI will show what they are assigned to, but it won't help setting up the relationships between the modes.

With all that theory behind me, looking at your user id SW-USER worries me. If it means SOLIDWORKS user, then our options are very limited. Our SW implementation conflicts with most of this.
SW-USER
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Re: How to dedicate lock zoom (without toggle) to a mouse or keyboard button

Post by SW-USER »

Hi and thanks again,

I looked at your mice before but i like to have many buttons so i bought a Corsair Scinitar Pro with 17 buttons and i'm using them all and have no problem to remember what each of them does in Solidworks ;-)

I'm not a programmer so it may be hard for me to do such modification i think. I might reassign the the toggle lock rotation button again and move the save to a mouse button

What is "Radial Menus"?
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Re: How to dedicate lock zoom (without toggle) to a mouse or keyboard button

Post by jwick »

Open our GUI, select your device, press the Buttons button and click the arrow next to a device button (e.g., 1-4 on your SMP), you will see a Radial Menu category.

You can create menus there. In each menu you can assign 4-8 different commands (e.g., SOLIDWORKS commands).

When this menu is assigned to a device button, pressing the button shows an onscreen menu with 4-8 virtual buttons with your SOLIDWORKS commands. Therefore your 4 SMP buttons can activate 4*8 different commands.
SW-USER
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Re: How to dedicate lock zoom (without toggle) to a mouse or keyboard button

Post by SW-USER »

Hi,

Yes, i played around with that popup before. But i thought it was the same as clicking on SW-icons on the shortcut bar (S-Key) whish has unlimmit od icon space to be assigned. But the whole ide for me with SMP and multi-button mouse is to minimize time consuming searching for and clicking on icons and menus. I bought the SMP basically for all its buttons. The navigation puck is just a non-essential, but good to have, bonus.

I reassigned the lock rotation button now. Must say the navigation puck became more useful now even though it has a toggle function. This will work for me. Thanks
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