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Teach your rodent new tricks: binding keys to your mouse


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Many people these days use mouses with more than one button (*cough Mac cough*), and in fact Combat Mission directly supports two buttons plus mouse wheel. But most mouses have at least the mouse wheel doubling as a third button, and many quite mundane mouses also have extra buttons. Eg. the mouse I use has three buttons for the thumb and the mouse wheel works also left and right. Wouldn't it be sweet to be able to take these into use in the game?

Well, you already can. If your mouse is by Logitech, it should come with SetPoint software. If it is from Microsoft, the software is called IntelliPoint. Other mouse manufacturers have their own drivers. If they didn't come with the mouse, look in the manufacturer's website.

Now, how this works is that you go to the mouse software and bind certain key presses to certain mouse buttons. Like for example, binding Delete to the third mouse button makes your troops cancel target when you press it in game. You probably want to create a program-specific mouse profile if at all possible, at least Logitech allows this (I don't know too well about others, comment your findings below). Unfortunately though SetPoint doesn't allow setting the middle button just for one application, so if you want to set that for anything, it will apply globally.

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Also, many people upgraded their gaming rigs for CMBN. But how many of you upgraded your gaming mice? That's right, having a good mouse is just as or even more important than having a new nitrogen-cooled video card.

Some options to consider:

Logitech MX518

- eight programmable buttons

Razer Naga

- 17 programmable buttons!!! Enough to throw your keyboard away.

Steel Series Xai

- eight buttons, ambidextrous (the others are right-handed)

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Thanks for pointing this out Sergei.

I'm slightly appalled at myself for not even thinking of mapping some controls to my (MX518) mouse. :o, but I'd bet I'm not the only one.

Guess I just haven't played many games lately where it would occur to me, but there's definitely some utility for CM.

"Next Unit" comes to mind immediately, as I need to get in the habit of checking all my units each turn; I never fail to miss at least one during the (WEGO) orders phase, especially in larger battles.

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I have a logitech mouse and do exactly this. Stuff I have bound to extra mouse buttons at the moment are: target, camera 180, pause, unit lock and backspace to cancel orders. Obviously still need the keyboard for other hotkeys but putting some on the mouse helps me to be lazy and play one handed more of the time.

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Quick question for one of you Logitech types:

(I actually lied earlier---I have the G5 not the MX518)

Anyway. I grabbed the latest SetPoint software and dove in, but I can't seem to get any mapping to stick.

In the Advanced Settings (where you customize for individual apps/games), do I select the CMBN.exe as the app to modify (which is what I did), or....something else.

I'll keep messing with it but I'm wondering if I have to fiddle with the settings in the Data file as well, per the manual instructions.

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I have a logitech mouse and do exactly this. Stuff I have bound to extra mouse buttons at the moment are: target, camera 180, pause, unit lock and backspace to cancel orders. Obviously still need the keyboard for other hotkeys but putting some on the mouse helps me to be lazy and play one handed more of the time.

A definite for any RT gaming that is for sure!

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I have a Razer Orochi 7 button mouse and it is child's play to assign what ever key strokes and combinations to each of the buttons.

You can even assign one of the buttons to be a "Change button map" so you can have an endless number of button maps that you cycle too depending on the situation.

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