I never installed drivers for the mouse. Its just a mouse; I shouldn't need them.

I recently bought their updated version of that mouse for our Windows machine, and tested it on my iMac; no drivers required. Maybe there are fancier mice that require special software, but I hardly use the fancier scroll functions of the mouse I have, so I have a hard time believing there'd be other controls that I'd be willing to install new software for.

I've found basically all mice will work if all you want is scroll and left, center, right buttons. But if you want all the extra stuff, like the various wheels and side buttons etc., and especially if you want to customize the response, which CAD people often do, then one often needs the driver.

I'll be honest, Fusion 360 is still a lot better in a lot of ways (advanced feature set, ease of use, layout and hotkeys, etc), and if I were employed to do CAD full time, I'd still be using it (helps that the company would be buying the license).

FreeCAD is workable, though. And since I'm mostly just making parts to 3d print, it gets the job done nicely.

TinkerCAD is another option (https://www.tinkercad.com/) and it's honestly the easiest CAD tool I've ever used. But it's not really comparable to the real parametric CAD tools.

I currently mix gamepad with a split keyboard(Freestyle 2) and a Kensington trackball as the backup mouse; having the controller in the center of the split makes it smooth to pick up and put down. And if I really needed more dedicated controls - well, why stop at one gamepad? Maybe I should try a flight stick too.

I have 2 extra mouse buttons for switching between virtual workspaces and another 2 for volume control.

https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/config/config-...

https://github.com/dheera/scripts/blob/master/config/files/x...

Of course, the mouse is a Razer...

That said, I'm all in on trackpads 24/7 now and have been for years. Nobody does trackpads better than Apple and using a giant external one while my laptop is docked helps me to remain productive when I need to undock. So much of your productivity is muscle memory and by using a trackpad full time, I'm also flexing those muscles.

An acquaintance mentioned that her daughter damaged the trackpad on her MacBook. She was making do with a regular mouse, but apparently hated it horrendously for Minecraft and desperately wanted to get the trackpad fixed. I can't even wrap my head around the idea of Minecraft on a trackpad.

Trackpad support though has had many issues over the years in my experience across devices & distros.

Wacom tablets track every app you open, last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247292

Just as well, since Synapse is terrible.

But after this thread, maybe I just just try it.

I believe the g305 works with the old logitech software, which is much better than ghub. You should give that a try and see if it solves your issues with having to launch ghub just to get your mouse to work properly. Here is a link: https://support.logi.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360025298053

There are dozens of threads asking about how to use logitech and elecom trackballs on Macs and they all end up with "Well, I finally got steermouse and all my problems have gone away"

https://code.woboq.org/linux/linux/drivers/hid/hid-elecom.c....

If you use a recent Elecom device and an LTS linux kernel you need to patch your kernel just to get the buttons working right!

I now have a G703 (so new G Hub software) and while I haven't tried that on the Mac, I can configure the onboard settings from Windows or from Linux [0] with no issues whatsoever (aside from setting a button to show the battery level, which, for some reason, doesn't work).

---

[0] The Logitech software doesn't work on Linux, but Piper/ratbag work just fine.

https://github.com/libratbag/piper

This is funny, considering it's an Electron app. They just didn't take the time to port, apparently.

I now open Discord exclusively with firefox.

I always have Discord, Element, VSCode (two windows), and two separate Chrome profiles running at the same time and I haven't seen it crash in weeks.

I have absolutely no experience with Electron development, and actually believed that the cross-platform thing was free (or almost). Again, at least for apps that don't need special functions that could be platform dependent.

Besides that, unlike java, nodejs don't bundle a lot of stdlibs by itself.(It don't even have a lib for manipulate images!) So you end up being required to use custom native modules for some specific tasks.(If no js alternative available)

The nodejs way is build yourself, so you will have the right one. But since it is a bundled electron program, it doesn't work and you need to prebuild it.

> The registration information is not refundable because it is a short string and easy to copy. We cannot accept any refund requests for it. Please try this software before purchasing a license. You do not have to pay unless you are completely satisfied with this software.

This is happening here.

For Germany, see https://www.it-recht-kanzlei.de/digitale-inhalte-widerruf.ht...

2) EU regulations do have a nuance - and in this case, 1) makes determination if said software needs to have a refund policy for the consumer harder. While WinRAR does have a refund policy, it seems the period for refunds is shorter than what is mandated. win.rar GmbH is based in Germany, so how it did bypass these rules? Spoiler: they didn't, the rules allowed them precisely due to the evaluation period.

Eventually just put the mouse into onboard profile mode, assigned all the buttons to F13-24, then mapped them with AutoHotkey. GHub, goodbye and good riddance.

Personally I don’t have a fancy mouse (just a cheap wired Microsoft one) because it’s hard to find good ambidextrous mice. So it probably just uses standard mouse drivers.

Razer used to have a mac version of their app but they just decided to not make their new app and support any new devices several years ago.

I typically swap my mouse hand to prevent repeating stress injuries so there’d have to be better ambidextrous support!

Razer was a huge PITA constantly forgetting my config and I couldn't be happier now that I have Karabiner handling everything for my Razer device.

Corsair makes a great wireless headset that plays nice with Mac and has good range (I can walk around almost all of my house and stay connected which is a godsend for Zoom hangouts with friends). Unfortunately, their software, iCue, is trash. It regularly tells me my headset is "Unavailable" when it's working just fine and if I leave my headset off the charger (aka, I don't plug in it) and it goes to sleep then it's a 50-50 chance that it will forget it's config. I couldn't care less about the RGB nonsense on the ear cups but the bright LED on the mic boom (green = on, red = off) is distracting. Thankfully they have a setting to only show the LED when the mic is off (exactly what I want, I want visual confirmation I'm muted). The problem is if it loses it's config that defaults back to always on and I have to do a dance of killing the iCue software and relaunching it until it fixes itself.

Fyi I frequently have to open zoom camera settings to make my laptop camera (Linux, darter pro) work. The fault may your case be shared with zoom, which is also a dumpster fire.

I tend to just ... never install any software like that on my Windows PC.

I also don’t tend to install software like that (including the GUIs for graphics drivers too—just install the driver through Device Manager) and I don’t care about the lost functionality. But if you want your fancy gaming mouse to have most of the special features it was advertised to have, the software is useful.

[0] I don't think it's an actual driver, I think it just remaps USB HID events from the built-in driver.

... but I don't care about customizing button behavior or anything like that, and only have a mouse this fancy because I wanted to 3-device switching on it (so I could easily use it on Windows and iOS, too). Though now that I've got one I'm kinda in love with the free-spinning scroll wheel and would have trouble going back to a normal one (though I hated it at first).

Agreed. I have a 3Dconnexion CadMouse Pro Wireless, which is the only mouse I could find with [an actual middle mouse button in addition to a clickable scroll wheel]. After upgrading to Big Sur, physically clicking any mouse button doesn't register click events with the operating system. So I can move the cursor but not click it. The recommended workaround is to plug it in with the USB cable and use it that way.

Is it 3Dconnexion's or Apple's fault? No idea, but this is just insane. When was the last time an OS upgrade caused your _mouse_ to stop working!? It's like taking a time warp back to the 90s.

However, I'd prefer native, non-Electron app, that doesn't take 350 MB of space, just to configure my mouse (G Hub).

I have G600, the software works in my MBA M1 but it couldn't pick up my mice. Because G600 is connected through the mini dock station dongle.

There's libratbag[0] if you want to mess with some DPI settings.

0: https://github.com/libratbag/libratbag

I use a M-R0056 MX Ergo trackball, primarily for CAD. It's fantastic hardware, very precise & responsive, controllable, and reliable even after years of being packed into/out of a laptop bag almost daily, etc.

But the drivers? Ugghh. After looking at all the great function mappings and other stuff they could supposedly do, I did a whole bunch of setup, and found that the software was, to be very polite, flaky.

Tried multiple fixes, but in the end, just de-installed and ran the hardware with the default Windows mouse software ever since. The Logitec software is just a complete waste of time.

I haven't been in windows internals since Win32, so I have no idea if it is MS making it impossible to make good drivers, or it's lazy 3rd parties shipping second rate stuff. To me it feels like it's 2nd rate managed as bloatware - just use the biggest and quickest libraries available and ship it, but that is complete conjecture. Either way, it is really disappointing to get such good hardware and not be able to take advantage. If anyone has any insight as to why it's so bad, or what can be done about it...? E.g., is there a similar obscure utility like Steermouse for Windows (looks great, but seems Mac-only)?

2021 would be the first time I've even heard about headphones needing the vendor's app to work right, or input peripherals needing to install its own drivers like its 1998.

almost 100% of the big-name companies that sell performance mice have this wierd thing where they force you to download and install bloatware just to have your mouse work properly.

Had that problem years ago with my MadCatz R.A.T.. When MadCatz went out of business, my mouse turned into a paperweight.

Currently using an A-JAZZ AJ52 (about $10 on amazon). Been using it for over a year now and it works perfectly for work and gaming. Drivers are plug-and-play, so no bloatware installed along with it. It really is nice.

I used Asus mouse. It was truly underwhelming, even on Windows. It did not remember its settings, instead some "driver" software applied those settings on Windows startup, which caused mouse device to disappear for a few seconds every time I booted my computer with annoying plug-out, plug-in sounds.

Without the software running, the extra programmable buttons on my mouse (which I used a lot) wouldn't work, which is normal.

With the software running, my G930 headset would now reconnect over and over for ten minutes whenever I plugged it in or turned it on, making it almost useless.

It eventually resolved itself, but I don't know when because I didn't use it for a few years. Ugh.

I have a Mac machine and a Linux machine side by side and my efficiency on Linux is like double that of on Mac, even though I use the Mac 90% of the time.

(Mac destroys everything else on 4k scaling, though. Linux is atrocious at that. Windows is just "good enough.")

No. Most Mac users are obsessed with keyboard shortcuts because they're faster and more efficient. This is true whether a mouse experience was super optimized or not. If you're typing moving to a mouse takes a lot more time than using a keyboard shortcut. Similarly being a left-hand shortcut wizard is highly effective when combined with a mouse as well.

Lets not use stupid hyperbole here.

I think 99% of Mac users could plug a mouse in out of the box and use it just fine on a Mac. Those that need the extra support can just as easily install one of the many 3rd party utilities that better handle mice support than the manufacturer.

I tried Microsoft, Logitec, and SteelSeries, which is about as great a variety of mice as can be expected.

I know I tend to be in the minority on HN in my dislike of macOS, but I'm trying here.

Conversely, I really really like the magic keyboard, and having an extra accelerator button is pretty nice (that isn't the stupid MS button).

That said, I'm full time trackpad, even on desktop, so mouse stuff is rarely an issue for me. I'm only using a mouse in specific scenarios.

Since then, I've switched over to a driver-less mouse where everything is controlled via mouse buttons (XTRFY MZ1).

That said I do have some weird issues with my mac and haven't rules it out as a cause.

Isn't this the default behavior of Photoshop? I've been using space+drag since moses was a baby. How is this a feature of this software?

[0] https://github.com/pwr-Solaar/Solaar

The old software worked well. I was super disappointed when I got a superlight that it simply didn't work with old software. I'm on windows but describing the new software as a car crash is still extremely accurate.

Anyone know of software similar to steermouse on windows?

What keeps me sane is I bought two G203's, configured them on my PC, saved the settings to the mouse itself, then used them on my work and home Macs. Note this isn't required, but mice often come configured with relatively low DPI or annoying button assignments.

Their mice hardware is pretty good, but the software is so bad I never install it and just use whatever works on the mouse by default.

On Mac I use the magic trackpad for wireless because it's the only one I've found that consistently works with the bluetooth connection. I'm not sure who is at fault, but other bluetooth devices just constantly have issues (drop connection, fail to wake, fail to pair, etc.)

For wired I sometimes use one of the Razer "Gaming" mice - I don't like the aesthetic, but there aren't a lot of great options in that category and they work well enough.

Apple mice have never been good - they've always been form instead of good design.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/mx-anywhere-3.9...

+1. It's the only way to be sure.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html