Author Topic: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?  (Read 6505 times)

Ibrahim Hakeem

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Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« on: March 11, 2021, 06:57:00 am »
Hi all

For as long as I've been using my T450S with ArcaOS, I haven't been able to get the trackpoint's scroll button working as intended - whenever I press it, the cursor just jerks around the screen in a random direction. It's not that big a deal as much, rather a QOL thing that I'd love to wrangle.

I wasn't able to find a solution to potentially remap it and was hoping to see if anyone has experienced anything similar and might have a solution.

If it helps at all,  I tried an external mouse as well, finding that while scrolling itself worked fine, there was no response when I clicked the on scroll wheel. It did function perfectly and as intended when using my M93P however (using Firefox to test).

Thanks in advance as always  ;D
« Last Edit: March 11, 2021, 05:30:52 pm by Ibrahim Hakeem »

Dave Yeo

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Re: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2021, 07:01:12 am »
For my T42, using the IBM mouse driver rather then the Amouse driver allows the scroll button to work. You do lose the ability to use a scroll wheel on a regular mouse though.
Not sure whether the T450S works the same as the T42 is old enough that IBM supported OS/2 on it and IIRC, it is wired as a PS2 mouse.

Ibrahim Hakeem

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Re: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2021, 07:14:16 am »
For my T42, using the IBM mouse driver rather then the Amouse driver allows the scroll button to work. You do lose the ability to use a scroll wheel on a regular mouse though.
Not sure whether the T450S works the same as the T42 is old enough that IBM supported OS/2 on it and IIRC, it is wired as a PS2 mouse.

That was my first approach but unfortunately my T450S recognizes the trackpad + trackpoint as a USB HID device rather than a PS2 device.

Dave Yeo

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Re: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2021, 07:43:25 am »
Did you try with the IBM USB mouse driver? Unluckily it doesn't seem to ship with ArcaOS and I'm not sure whether it'll work with the ArcaOS USB stack or what else it needs.
Here's,
Code: [Select]
Signature:       @#OEM:9.23#@  OS/2 USB Mouse Device Driver
Vendor:          OEM
Revision:        9.23
File Version:    9.23
Description:     OS/2 USB Mouse Device Driver

Neil Waldhauer

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Re: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2021, 03:59:05 pm »
What is the Trackpoint scroll button? Is it the blue trapezoid shaped button? What is it supposed to do?
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Ibrahim Hakeem

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Re: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2021, 05:25:31 pm »
What is the Trackpoint scroll button? Is it the blue trapezoid shaped button? What is it supposed to do?

Yes, the trapezoid shaped button with the row of blue dots. It's intended to work exactly like pressing down on the scroll wheel with a regular USB mouse - pressing it once or hold it down whilst also moving your cursor to scroll up and down with (predominantly modern) programs that have a page/document scrolling function, i.e Firefox or OpenOffice.


Did you try with the IBM USB mouse driver? Unluckily it doesn't seem to ship with ArcaOS and I'm not sure whether it'll work with the ArcaOS USB stack or what else it needs.

I'll definitely need to try that when I'm back at my laptop. I'm not too confident on how it'll turn out as I believe ArcaOS's USB stack is quite different - but it's definitely worth a shot.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2021, 05:28:45 pm by Ibrahim Hakeem »

Ibrahim Hakeem

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Re: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« Reply #6 on: March 21, 2021, 08:52:33 am »
Apologies for the belated update. Unfortunately the IBM driver yielded no results - I was assuming as much so it comes as no surprise to me, but it was definitely worth the try  ;D

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« Reply #7 on: March 22, 2021, 03:30:53 pm »
Hi

I think the issue may be that there are several brands of trackpoint, one may think that all should be from Lenovo, but indeed there are three brands of trackpoints that came bundle with Thinkpads.... I can not remember all ELAN, Synaptics...and I can not remember the third one.

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Ibrahim Hakeem

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Re: Thinkpad T450S trackpoint scroll button, can it be mapped?
« Reply #8 on: March 22, 2021, 11:59:26 pm »
Hi

I think the issue may be that there are several brands of trackpoint, one may think that all should be from Lenovo, but indeed there are three brands of trackpoints that came bundle with Thinkpads.... I can not remember all ELAN, Synaptics...and I can not remember the third one.

Regards

Hi Martin

By the looks of it, the T450S's trackpoint relies on Synaptics hardware. I think most of the ELAN ones are used in the X-Series, I also can't seem to remember the name of the third manufacturer but I believe their ones are used in the mid-low range Thinkpads and Ideapads.