[PLUG] Configuring Kensington Orbit Scroll Ring Trackball buttons

[tomas.kuchta.lists at gmail.com]

Got little time over the weekend to remember more and look at your responses.

With your trackball events being correctly registered by the OS you have two
options as I see it:
  a) reuse different button for middle click
  b) emulate middle click (as left+right button press)

a) pick alternative button for the middle button function on your device.
   find out what is the button number by: xev | grep button
     - example: You chose button 8
   find out your device ID by: xinput list
    - in your case it is: 8
   get your existing button mapping: xinput get-button-map 8
    - I get: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
    - button map - maps device button numbers to xinput buttons/events by order
                   in my example device button 1 maps to ximput button 1 ...
    - xinput button order is: 
       1 = left button
       2 = middle button (pressing the scroll wheel)
       3 = right button
       4 = turn scroll wheel up
       5 = turn scroll wheel down
       6 = push scroll wheel left
       7 = push scroll wheel right
       8 = 4th button (aka browser backward button)
       9 = 5th button (aka browser forward button)
   assign your device button (8) to xinput middle button (2)
     - this is done by putting dev button (8) to the 2nd place in the list
       you got from: xinput get-button-map 8
     sudo xinput set-button-map 1 8 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
   now your button 8 should act as middle button

Note 1: If you get error: No protocol specified - run: xhost +
        before executing the command
Note 2: If you want to make this permanent add the xinput set....
        to ~/.xstartup or figure out the relevant X11 config file/line

b) Emulating middle button as left+right button press
   find out your device ID by: xinput list
    - in your case it is: 8
   check xinput property settings for your device 8 by:
     xinput list-props 8
     - you will most likely see line like:
       libinput Middle Emulation Enabled (284):  0
   enable middle button emulation by:
     sudo xinput set-prop 8 "libinput Middle Emulation Enabled" 1
     - if you get protocol error - see Note 1 above
   to make it permanent - see Note 2 above or:
     /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
       Section "InputClass"
         Identifier "middle button emulation class"
         MatchIsPointer "on"
         Option "Emulate3Buttons" "on"
       EndSection

I hope this will work for you - It comes from my old notes

If someone finds this and uses Wayland instead of X11 - this will most likely
not work for them.

Best luck,
Tomas

On Sat, 2019-07-06 at 11:32 -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Jul 2019, Rich Shepard wrote:
> 
> > Help appreciated,
> 
> I've taken this thread to the linuxquestions.org hardware forum. Thanks,
> Tomas, for your responses.
> 
> Rich
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