Set mouse wheel scrolling speed globally?

thetrivialstuff · 2012-02-13 01:36:05

It seems that a long time ago, there used to be an option "VertScrollDelta" configurable in the mouse driver for X. The new drivers don't have that (evdev and whatever else there is).

If you have a synaptics touchpad on a laptop, there is *lots* of configurability for scrolling characteristics, but this is not a synaptics device, so I can't use that driver.

What evdev does have, are lots of configurable options for *emulating* a scroll wheel on mice that don't have one -- including the ability to set its sensitivity.

But all I've been able to turn up concerning actual scroll wheel speed/rate settings are:

- Some desktop environments allow you to set this (Gnome, KDE) -- but I'm not using a DE

- Ubuntu has a way to set this globally, or used to, or didn't used to but does now -- not using Ubuntu, obviously

- Some users have gotten desperate enough to write code that captures wheel events, then fires extra ones (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php? … &page=2#20)

- There *is*, somewhere, a global setting in X, because Firefox knows how to read it: it has a setting called "mousewheel.horizscroll.withnokey.sysnumlines" that you disable when you want to set a custom number of scroll lines in Firefox.

- There is a possible overkill solution called imwheel, which runs as a separate daemon, -- but I don't like introducing this level of complexity just for a small settings change.

- The older 'mouse' driver still exists, but it doesn't have VertScrollDelta either. Maybe it never did, and this was only ever on synaptics devices... but I do remember having somehow set a "lines-at-a-time" setting from 3 to 7 in my X configuration file (before xorg I think).

...So, is there some way to set the global setting that Firefox calls "sysnumlines"? Or is that small "xwheeldoubler" C program really the best/only solution right now?

~Felix.

thetrivialstuff · 2012-02-13 06:36:41

OK, upon further digging, I've discovered that this really is impossible unless you speak C/C++. Fortunately, I do.

Here's where one of the Xorg developers says it's categorically impossible due to design decisions:

http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg/2011-D … 53927.html

And here's where somebody disagrees, in the form of a patch to implement scroll wheel acceleration:

http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-devel/ … 12517.html

That's from a couple years ago and from the looks of things it was never adopted... but it at least tells me where in the source I need to start looking for that pesky value of '3' (Who? Who thought that three lines would be enough?). Edit: whoops. From the code I've read so far, I think that first guy might be right; maybe Xorg doesn't actually know how to scroll at all, and is just passing scroll button presses down to the applications... which would mean that each application has to deal with its own implementation, and there is no one place to change this. Bleh.

(Ugh. I have a sick feeling that one day this thread is going to come back and haunt the Linux community when someone uses it in a Windows vs. Linux debate. "In Windows, you just go into Mouse Properties. Look what *this* guy had to do!")

Last edited by thetrivialstuff (2012-02-13 06:53:00)

theking2 · 2014-02-24 15:30:27

thetrivialstuff wrote:

(Ugh. I have a sick feeling that one day this thread is going to come back and haunt the Linux community when someone uses it in a Windows vs. Linux debate. "In Windows, you just go into Mouse Properties. Look what *this* guy had to do!")

I must admit, it is rather tempting....

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=297329

ewaller · 2014-02-24 16:02:37

theking2,
Careful of old threads. I hope the OP is not still looking for an answer a year later

thetrivialstuff · 2014-04-06 19:44:16

ewaller wrote:

theking2,
Careful of old threads. I hope the OP is not still looking for an answer a year later

Hah -- actually, I am. Or rather, I gave up completely and mostly use page up / page down when I'm on a system with a conventional mouse now.

This still annoys me, but I confess I haven't looked into it in months.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-02-13 01:36:05

Set mouse wheel scrolling speed globally?

#2 2012-02-13 06:36:41

Re: Set mouse wheel scrolling speed globally?

#3 2014-02-24 15:30:27

Re: Set mouse wheel scrolling speed globally?

#4 2014-02-24 16:02:37

Re: Set mouse wheel scrolling speed globally?

#5 2014-04-06 19:44:16

Re: Set mouse wheel scrolling speed globally?

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