About Customizing Mouse Buttons

Mouse buttons define how a system pointing device functions.

You can customize the behavior of a mouse or other pointing device in the Customize User Interface (CUI) Editor. If a pointing device has more than two buttons, you can change the behavior of the second and third buttons. The first button on any pointing device is reserved for the operating system and cannot be defined as part of the customization (CUIx) file.

By using the Shift and Ctrl keys, you can create a number of combinations to suit your needs. Your pointing device can recognize as many commands as it has assignable buttons. The Mouse Buttons section is organized by keyboard combination such as Click, Shift+Click, Ctrl+Click, and Ctrl+Shift+Click. Tablet buttons can also be customized, but are numbered sequentially instead of by keyboard combination. Drag a command to a mouse button combination to assign a command. Create additional buttons by dragging commands to a node under Mouse Buttons.

The following table shows the Click mouse button properties as they appear in the Properties pane of the Customize User Interface (CUI) Editor.

Properties for the Click Mouse Button

Properties Pane Item

Description

Example

Aliases

Specifies the aliases for the mouse button. Click the [] button to open the Aliases dialog box. Each alias in the CUIx file should be unique and it is used to reference the mouse button programmatically.

AUX1

Accept Coordinate Entry

When you click one of the buttons on a multi-button pointing device, the program reads not only the button number but also the coordinate of the crosshairs at the time you click. By carefully constructing macros, you can choose to either ignore the coordinate or use it with the command activated by the button.

Including a backslash (\) in a command macro introduces a pause for user input. For the Mouse Buttons and Digitize Buttons menus, the coordinate of the crosshairs is supplied as user input when the button is clicked. This occurs only for the first backslash in the command; if the item contains no backslashes, the crosshairs coordinate is not used. Consider the following command macros:

line
line \

The first command macro when assigned to a button starts the LINE command and displays the Specify first point: prompt in the normal fashion. The second command macro when assigned to a button also starts the LINE command, but the program uses the current crosshairs location at the Specify first point: prompt and displays the Specify next point or [Undo]: prompt.