A

Anonymous

Question

Apple Magic Mouse and ID

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
November 10, 2009
19 replies
56762 views

I've recently purchased the lovely Apple Magic Mouse and am finding it quite difficult to use with InDesign CS4 - other ID versions would be the same I imagine. With this mouse you scroll by stroking its top surface, rather like a trackpad. This is excellent in other applications but in ID, because the pasteboard area is so large and the sensitivity of the mouse so high (even when scrolling is turned down to the minimum in its preferences), it's very easy to make your document shoot sideways off the screen. I expect Illustrator would have similar problems.

Is there a way in which the ID pasteboard can be resized or constrained? Maybe someone will come up with a prefs panel to control the new mouse's scrolling more precisely - but not yet.

Thanks for any ideas.

John Mallinson

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benwa02

Participant

Use BetterTouch Tools...

Add an appliction > Adobe ID

Add new gesture(s)

-- Single finger swipe down

-- Single finger swipe up

-- Two finger swipe down

-- Two finger swipe up

Set the Predefined action to No action.

This will essentially kill all scrolling within ID using the swiping. I find scrolling within ID annoying to begin with and having issues with it and ID so I have killed all scrolling using the MM. I typically use the hand tool or page up/down to move within ID.

- e

R

responsible_reporter0176

Inspiring

i downloaded the BTT, and followed your instructions, but it's not working...am i missing something??? i REALLY HATE the scrolling in ID...

thanks,

JD

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davedellaquila

Participant

JD,

I'm not sure what to tell you. The solution I describe works well for me. You might need to play with the "dead zone" region a bit to get the best results for you.

Dave

thinkingmanhawaii

Participating Frequently

Unfortunately this doesn't work for me as I rely heavily on Magic Mouse features. But I have noticed that with the latest round of updates, scrolling seems to be somewhat improved. There's still no control for it (that I've taken the time to find, at least!) but the issue seems to be not as insanely out of whack as it was. I'll keep this post updated.

D

davedellaquila

Participant

I too experienced the problem described by others in this thread. I'm using InDesign CS4, and Mac OS X, 10.6.3 (Snow Leopard). The solution, which works quite well, is to use a 3rd party mouse driver, called MagicPrefs. This utility allows you to extensively configure the Magic Mouse, including the ability to specify the region which is recognized on the surface of the mouse. By specifying that the mouse ignore input on the right 1/3rd (or so) of the mouse, you will no longer send InDesign input that instructs it to scroll horizontally unintentionally.

Best of all, it's free! Get it here: http://magicprefs.com/

I'm very happy with this solution, and recommend it to other InDesign users.

Dave

David Dell'Aquila

Ux/Interaction Designer

http://david.dellaquila.com

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Blasty

Inspiring

Where are you able to disable the touch surface for the right 1/3rd of the magic mouse like your post explained. I can't stand using the magic mouse in CS5 and I really need to get this to work. You mentioend that if you ignore input on right 1/3rd it will fix INDD problem.

Please explain to me how to do that with MagicPrefs

J

John Mallinson

Known Participant

I'm using CS4 (but I guess CS5 is similar). My major problem has been the side to side skidding of the document because of the width of the pasteboard and the over-sensitivity of the mouse. This can be killed with MagicPrefs by going into its Configure Scrolling dialog and disabling horizontal scrolling. I have a big enough screen so I can easily edit A4 spreads without zooming but if you have to, and want to scroll horizontally then use Alt-Spacebar-L mouse button to drag the document around.

It's a pity that Apple haven't given us more control in their preferences panel.

SuperMacGuy

Known Participant

I agree, it's far too sensitive. The core problem is that we have become so accustomed to resting our fingers on the surface of mice, because they always require a *definite* press, or scroll action. Now the magic mouse is so sensitive to ANY touch that it reacts to touches meant to push the mouse or were not meant to contact the surface of the mouse.

At first I liked it a bit, but the more I use it, I think it's Apple's worst mouse ever. Puck included (at least you could buy a housing to put them in). This mouse doesn't "seem" to track the same as all other wired mice I've ever used. The touch interface is great for vertical scrolling, but as pointed out here, far to sensitive in circumstances where such scrolling is not desired. Perhaps this could be rectified with a *very* comprehensive preference panel, ie one that lets a user specify the amount of scroll or movement required to initiate a swipe/scroll. The Wacom tablet panel has such prefs, for each program and an overall control as well (ie all unspecified apps). My other major complaint against the mouse is the overall shape. It is simple not comfortable or natural. I prefer a more bulbous mouse, since like many of you I imagine, I end up using the back of my palm to "push" the mouse around or rest my fingers on it. The Magic doesn't lend to resting on it at all. I also need to lift it up, or scroll it farther to the side of the screen than the room I have on my mouse surface. With my Mighty Mouse I pick it up by the sides and put it back down somwhere in the center of my mouse area. I have a dual screen setup, and my coworkers all have 24" iMacs, so it can still be a lot of screen space to traverse.

My Magic Mouse was a gift, but I still feel the $70 for it was a waste. I use it primarily because the scroll ball on the Mighty gets dirty fast and does not respond, and at that I rest the Magic next to my keyboard to scroll but still use the Mighty 95% of the time. If Apple would have made the exact same Mighty Mouse but only made the center area where the ball is, a touch sensitive surface, I would be in mouse heaven (they could delineate the area with a small inscribed line or something).

IMHO big Apple Fail.

Chris

aka SuperMacGuy

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REXprints

Participating Frequently

I teach this stuff so I should know that it's a mistake to think "it's my fault." I'm afraid the magic is wearing pretty thin for me too. I have to use a track ball due to a life over-moused, but it's sad how the evolution of the mouse has gone. The white/clear ones failed due to broken connections where the USB wire went into the hard plastic housing. The little wheel on the next version clogged with whatever that disgusting clogger goo is. Now this.

Anybody else have any luck with the third party drivers? Dare I ask if there's an app for that?

Anybody know what percentage of users use Magic Mouse what percentage of the time? It would help to know if one were to press Adobe to fix Apple's problem.

True that this isn't inventing anything. Tablets set preference all the way down to the tool level, on the fly. Setting pref's only at the OS level is a terrible idea for most users, I'm sure.

Harbs.

Legend

I actually like the Mighty Mouse. A little water (or alcohol) every

once in a while takes care of the scroll ball problem.

Harbs

thinkingmanhawaii

Participating Frequently

Having the same problem here—the Apple mouse scrolling in ID and Illustrator is insanely bad.

Harbs.

Legend

Someone posted (I don't remember who), that if you turn off "momentum scolling" (or whatever it's called) in the mouse preferences, that solves the problem...

Harbs

thinkingmanhawaii

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the advice - however I haven't found this to be the case (just

tried this and it didn't work—will try at home on the Mac Pro to see if it

works there with that one's M. Mouse) - Mahalo, Adam

Adam Prall

[signature removed]

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Alistair Dance

Participant

I would also like to add myslef to the list.

I have found posts on the apple forum for 3rd party drivers but none of them seem to work.

Any help would be great.

Thanks

R

REXprints

Participating Frequently

Could so few people have this problem? I'm using a Magic Mouse with 10.6 and, yes, CS3 ID is also out of control with the wildly sensitve mouse. Worse yet, the scrolling occurs when ID isn't even the active app, so you can come back to the document but not where you left it. It's an extremely annoying attribute of an otherwise sensational improvement in pointers.

Jongware

Community Expert

Same here. I think it's because ID scrolls a lot with each 'tick', compared to the pixelwise scrolling in browsers and regular text documents.

Photoshop appears to scroll like one would expect. (Just a mo') And so does Illustrator.

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eveningclouds

Participant

Not that it's any consolation, but I've got the same problem. Exact same thing happens with Google docs spreadsheet as with ID: sudden page jumps, unreliable clicking locations, and superfast scrolling. People suggest it's Bluetooth, or ID, or the mouse driver, so that doesn't leave us with much to go on. Mouse setting adjustments definitely do NOT help, as I've tried them all.

FivePicaPica

Inspiring

I'm not writing because I know the answer, but to follow your thread. I've been thinking about buying the mouse, but want to hear how it works with ID, etc.

I'm suprised it doesn't let you control the speed, since the macbook track pad gives pretty reasonable controls. I looked at the video and saw a scrolling with momentum with other options in the drop box. Do those do anything?

Any other pros/cons you can mention specific to ID?

A

Anonymous

I like the mouse very much in all applications I've tried except InDesign because of the problem I've mentioned. It's the ease of sending the page skittering off laterally out of sight which is annoying. The prefs panel settings don't give a very big range of scrolling sensitivities but certainly turning the scroll sensitivity right down and unchecking scrolling with momentum does help.

In other apps where the window size tends to conform to the size of the document this isn't a problem. I like the two finger swipe for going back and forward in Safari and Firefox.

John

Jeremy_bowmangraphics-DQuh1B

Inspiring

I wonder which sort of mouse you used before the "magic" mouse?

I was very impressed with the earlier "mighty" mouse when it was released, because of the ability to scroll horizontally, and to quickly fly about like hell on wheels using the little ball thing in the middle. But it took a lot of "preference adjusting" to get it to work the way I really wanted it to.

But then later, I got a Logitech mouse whose scroll wheel can be tilted/clicked (nudging what's in the screen horizontally, click-by-click with much more precision than the mighty mouse).

I still use the "mighty" mouse, on another computer, with affection. But there is always a problem of predictability. I wonder if the "magic" mouse can get over those difficulties? -- My guess is that the controlling software needs to be updated, and probably will, quite soon.

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