5th Mouse Button and Expose and Spaces

I've just installed the 10.6 upgrade and everything is wonderful except one thing, my 5th mouse button is assignable, but not recognized for spaces/expose. I can use my 5th mouse button in the finder and it acts as a left-click, so I know the OS is recognizing the input itself. But, when I assign the 5th mouse button to any of the expose or spaces it fails to activate said action. I prefer to use my 5th mouse button to activate spaces, I've assigned it that, clicked it, but nothing. Anybody else having trouble with this?

BTW, I am using a Microsoft Trackball Explorer.

MacBook Pro late 2008, Mac OS X (10.6), Microsoft Trackball Explorer

Posted on Aug 28, 2009 2:38 PM

107 replies

Bolti22

Level 1

0 points

Sep 10, 2009 11:42 PM in response to Thomas Maccarthy

Same problem here, even with 10.6.1.
I cannot assign "Show Desktop" to any mouse button. Using any button for other functions works pretty well. Keyboard use ist also fine in any way.
When pushing the assigne button in a browser window then, a kind of scroll button appears and I can scroll up and down by moving the mouse (where to configure this???).
Removing the pfile only helps until restart.

Sep 11, 2009 6:14 AM in response to Bolti22

Hmmm, my issue was just with assigning a mouse button to the Expose "All Windows" function (I don't use mouse shortcuts for Spaces). The "Show Desktop" function worked fine and even swapping the mouse buttons I use for those two shortcuts "Show Desktop" still worked while the other didn't. After 10.6.1 they both work correctly now for me.

Sep 11, 2009 10:43 AM in response to allencrawford

Alright, so, a couple of weeks in, 10.6.1 out and still no solution. The problem persists while trashing the specific .plist only works until you logout/restart. Apple, please get on this, spaces was one of the best UI moves in the past decade and being able to map it to my trackball made it that much better.

vexbit

Level 1

0 points

Sep 11, 2009 10:50 AM in response to Thomas Maccarthy

I had this during the Snow Leopard beta, and it really frustrated me. I thought the final version had fixed it - but I've just had it happen again after installing 10.6.1. The only cure I've found is to create a new user from scratch and transfer everything over, excluding the Library. It's rough, but at least it works :/

LargeAl

Level 1

128 points

Sep 11, 2009 11:39 AM in response to -DrD-

Check my post of similar problem.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10183409#10183409

It is a work around but works perfectly for me.

Sep 12, 2009 1:31 PM in response to Thomas Maccarthy

Fixed it.

Move the exposé.app file from applications/utilities to Applications and restart

stylez7

Level 1

0 points

Sep 13, 2009 8:40 AM in response to mishaneah

omg this fix worked for me, thanks so much!

stylez7

Level 1

0 points

Sep 13, 2009 4:06 PM in response to stylez7

update: the fix worked for me temporarily, but I keep redo-ing the fix if it ever stops to work

Sep 14, 2009 1:54 AM in response to LargeAl

@LargAl: This woraround is only applicable for Logitech mice, but this bug affects all mice.

Message was edited by: Rich in Berlin

Sep 14, 2009 1:56 AM in response to mishaneah

@mishaneah: *does not work* for me, with totally normal basic usb mouse.

Message was edited by: Rich in Berlin

stylez7

Level 1

0 points

Sep 14, 2009 4:40 PM in response to Thomas Maccarthy

Why is there no permanent fix yet? Cmon Apple

xGrill

Level 1

0 points

Sep 17, 2009 4:00 PM in response to stylez7

Apparently they are aware of the issue and are working on a fix!

Pinchies

Level 1

0 points

Oct 4, 2009 4:54 AM in response to Thomas Maccarthy

Just want to add, I have been experiencing this problem since tiger! I would love a solution one of these years now....

Oct 5, 2009 9:19 AM in response to Thomas Maccarthy

confirmed - 10.6.1. here, same problem.

solution here: moved spaces.app from /applications/utilities to /applications. Works right after RESTART.

vexbit

Level 1

0 points

Oct 9, 2009 1:13 PM in response to Thomas Maccarthy

I'm having exactly this problem using any mouse button to activate spaces on my Logitech MX518. The only permanent cure I've found is to create a new user and move everything over to that user - So I'm pretty sure it's a plist/configuration issue, but I just can't figure out what causes it.

I've had this on both Leopard and Snow Leopard - It's happened 3 times to me now. I've given up and just added the Spaces icon to my dock to invoke Spaces using my mouse. frown

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5th Mouse Button and Expose and Spaces