An open-source mouse and trackpad utility for Mac

[firecall]

Unpopular opinion, but I like the Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard!

I try other Mouses but always return to the Apple products.

Trying to get other Mouses to have the same acceleration and tracking as you he Magic Mouse eludes me!

The thing with the Magic Mouse is the touch sensor on top! Being able to swipe and scroll horizontally and vertically is so ingrained that I miss it when switching.

Adding a TouchID sensor to the side of the Apple Magic Mouse would be super useful!

I don’t have a Magic Keyboard with TouchID yet, so I’m constantly reaching over to MacBook keyboard. I feel like if my thumb could just connect with the TouchID sensor on the side of a Magic Mouse, there’s be a lot less friction in the security UI!

I’m inspired to also try a trackpad given the enthusiasm shown in the comments here!

[Joeri]

The magic keyboard is ok. The layout is subpar and it lacks a tiny bit of travel for a thin-style keyboard (.2 mm extra would do it I think), but overall it is nicely built, reliable and easy to clean. Going to that from a thinkpad keyboard was a bit rough though. I wonder if people who love it have ever used a good keyboard.

The magic mouse is the worst mouse I have used so far, precisely because of the touch area. I tried for a while to adapt to it and developed severe RSI. I event went through the “I must be holding it wrong” pattern like the apple fanboy I am, to no avail. I suspect it comes down to me having the wrong shape of hand. Luckily logitech makes some excellent mice, and I can map the thumb buttons to the gestures I used most on the magic mouse.

[alwillis]

> Unpopular opinion, but I like the Magic Mouse

I've always liked the Magic Mouse.

> The thing with the Magic Mouse is the touch sensor on top! Being able to swipe and scroll horizontally and vertically

This is such an underrated feature; I use it constantly.

But there's more it can do; Better Touch Tool lets you configure gestures to your heart's content [1].

[1]: https://folivora.ai

[troupo]

The only problems I had with magic mouse:

- you can't rest your fingers on it. When you use it, you have to keep your finger(s) raised

- if an app/game uses middle button, you can't use that

[tipsytoad]

Trackpads SOTA, Keyboards OK, Mouse is PITA

[_ZeD_]

Yeah... Your opinion is unpopular

(Sorry, but I can't stand Apple hardware... I find it very crappy)

[idle_zealot]

This is a mandatory install on macOS for me (one of many). The suite of extra software utilities required to make the base OS usable is ridiculous, but I'm glad to see open source maintainers working to keep my mouse working.

[jonny_eh]

> This is a mandatory install on macOS for me

Would you mind expanding on that? I'm not sure what I'd improve about my touchpad experience on my Mac.

[frou_dh]

Funnily enough, they've just added a toggle to disable pointer acceleration in this year's macOS Sonoma: https://i.redd.it/rezxi3gfwf4b1.png

[ayemel]

On the flip side, this is exactly how I feel with Windows in order to get the base OS usable.

[ahstilde]

what are your other mandatory installs?

[tambourine_man]

>The suite of extra software utilities required to make the base OS usable is ridiculous

Use Windows or Linux. Good luck and have fun!

[kitsunesoba]

Unpopular opinion perhaps, but as someone who's bouncing between all three big desktop platforms pretty regularly, cursor acceleration is a total non-issue. I adjust to the difference so quickly that I don't even notice a difference.

I'm glad that Sonoma is adding the checkbox to turn it off for those who need it but it's never been a bother for me.

[yoyopa]

don't know if it's unpopular but for me I am hypersensitive to changes between mac and windows and using a mouse on the mac drives me insane

[jonwest]

Not to take away from this app, but I’ve been using Mos https://mos.caldis.me for a couple of years now and it’s been just enough to mitigate the faults I had with default mouse settings in macOS.

[lode]

This is what I've been looking for for such a long time.

The maximum speed that can be configured using the built in tools for both mouse and trackpad is way too slow for my liking.

In the past I used MagicPrefs to do this, but that sadly doesn't work anymore. This is the first time I'm able to do this again, and with a free tool too! Thanks a lot for submitting this.

[0x0]

I ended up having to pay(!) to re-enable middle clicking after magicprefs stopped working at some point in the macos upgrade race. I bought this. https://middleclick.app/

[dang]

Related:

LinearMouse – A minimal app to get rid of scrolling acceleration on macOS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27485051 - June 2021 (76 comments)

[cowjan]

I've long looked for a good mouse utility for Mac that can disable mouse acceleration, modify scroll wheel behavior, etc. This one even saves preferences per-device which I find very useful.

[blairbeckwith]

I’m eager to try this out, but you might also want to check out Steermouse[1], which is a utility it took me years longer to discover than it should have.

I’m not sure how it stacks up to this open source project, but it’s definitely been worth the license cost to me over the years.

[1] https://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/

[sorahn]

I’m not sure off the top of my head if BetterTouchTool can disable the mouse acceleration, but it can definitely modify everything else.

[aPoCoMiLogin]

personally i prefer this one https://github.com/Caldis/Mos

[reboot81]

Can’t use macOS&Magic Mouse on 2x27” without cranking up the acceleration. Been using https://plentycom.jp/en/cursorsense/ for 10 years. Will try this, seems more maintained.

[mehlmao]

I've used Smooze [1] in the past. It has a ton of features, but I really just need it for turning off mouse acceleration and making the scroll wheel usable. Glad to see an open source option.

[1] https://smooze.co/

[baq]

I'm using https://github.com/ther0n/UnnaturalScrollWheels, literally the only thing it does is invert the scroll wheel direction.

"You're holding it wrong" taken to absolute mastery.

[hk1337]

I would prefer it show me the homebrew command in addition to a copy to clipboard button instead of just the button so I have to _trust_ what you're having me paste.

It's `brew install --cask linearmouse` for those wondering.

[bloqs]

Are you a windows/linux user that finds Mac mice always feel weirdly slow or "wrong"? This fixes it, and is frequently updated. Mandatory new mac install item for me.

[astockwell]

It is me!

[callahad]

Nice! I've been using Mac Mouse Fix (https://mousefix.org/), which is also open source, to handle inverting my mouse wheel and remapping the back/forward buttons, but LinearMouse looks quite a bit more featureful.

[ayemel]

The lack of mouse acceleration in Windows is what make it feel, to me, clunky and slow. I know it’s a function of what you grew up with/are used to but it’s interesting to see. Personally I like being able to flick my mouse across the screen without having to pick up my mouse—enables faster work.

[DaiPlusPlus]

> The lack of mouse acceleration in Windows is what make it feel, to m

Windows has had built-in acceleration since Windows XP (maybe 2000?) - it's the "Enhance pointer precision" option in the (classic) Mouse control panel.

There's also an acceleration curve you can customize, but there's no built-in GUI editor, but the data's all in the HKCU\Control Panel\Mouse registry keys.

[gibolt]

I've had my touchpad randomly stop working. Sometimes a restart fixed it, sometimes it required a deep dive into driver land. Something so basic that should just work.

I am not aware of any trackpad failures on Mac.

[strongpigeon]

This looks really good! Installing right now.

As an aside, I had just started working on a tool to do that since all I want is to have natural scrolling on my trackpad but regular scrolling on my mouse. Will have to take a look if this goes with the a11y route or the custom driver path.

Edit: looks like this modifies CGEvent

[pb060]

Does anyone know of a tool that can emulate the pointer inertia you'd find with a trackball, but on a trackpad? This way, you could 'launch' the pointer across the screen. As a long-time trackball user, I believe this feature would be incredibly useful.

[mike31fr]

I'm using https://github.com/pilotmoon/Scroll-Reverser for years for that purpose and I'm very happy with it!

[tlhunter]

I've kept a minimized macos preference window open for months now so that I can switch the mode when I'm on the go. This app takes care of that one use case pretty well and just made my life slightly better.

[Pesthuf]

Apple's idea of "natural scrolling direction" is insane. Scrolling with a touchpad and scrolling with with a mouse wheel are simply different things - the natural direction is simply different for both.

[Toutouxc]

> natural direction is simply different for both

That’s 100 % subjective. There’s not a single reason why sliding your finger on a mechanical movable surface should behave differently than sliding it on a touch sensitive surface. You’re used to it behaving differently and that’s fine, but I prefer to have the same behavior for both and neither of us is right or wrong.

[turtlebits]

You can easily change that under mouse settings. I'm not sure it's insane as my kid is fine with it as he's never used the opposite.

[shove]

Interesting. I just got finished working on some JavaScript to auto detect two-finger trackpad scroll vs a physical mousewheel and wondered why this kind of thing isn’t built into the OS.

[akerr]

I'm still using Logitech Options+ when I dock my MacBook Air into my big screen and use an MX Anywhere. Last I checked, none of these utilities enable click-and-hold to pan.

[donatj]

I've been using "Scroll Reverser" for years to let me have Natural Scrolling on my trackpad but not my mouse. I'll have to check this out as an alternative.

[mike31fr]

Same for me, long time user of https://github.com/pilotmoon/Scroll-Reverser Just curious, when you have a tool that does such a precise small single task, and does it perfectly, why would you bother installing an alternative? What I thought when reading this post was more like "I already have a perfect solution, I don't need another perfect solution", so just curious if you think I'm missing something by thinking like this?

[jb1991]

would be great if it also offered middle-click emulation like other utilities do for those cross-platform programs that think everyone has a three-button mouse

[olgeni]

While we are here, is there a way to completely disable (not just reduce) the stupid, useless desktop switching animations? \o/

[idle_zealot]

Yes, but it requires disabling system integrity protection. Yabai's "scripting addition" allows instant switching between spaces.

[kidfiji]

Love the per-device configuration. I was using Scroll Reverser, but it looks like I'll be using this now. Thank you :)

[eshack94]

As a CursorSense customer for years, it's nice to see a modern open-source alternative. I'll check it out.

[Moldoteck]

Somebody that used both magic keyboard+mouse and logitech mx keys + their mouse, what do you think?

[jnsie]

Useful tool, beautiful (and simple) website, dmg and brew install options, open source. Very nicely done!

[mig39]

The fact that there's a homebrew install option is the icing on the cake! Installing now!

[vehemenz]

This looks very similar to SteerMouse. Does it do the same thing?

[rcarr]

Anyone know what the Linux equivalent of this would be?

[drixer]

Really great! Thanks :)