work around for middle button not working on X64 Win 7 Logitech mouse

[Markham]

After a couple of lengthy Skype conversations with The Sarge, I've decided to put back the auto-heal ability which only cuts-in if Circle Dock is idle - meaning no mouse movements or clicks. The Sarge told me that, on his HP laptop (Win 7-64), although the global mouse handler was working correctly, he'd lose the ability to toggle the Dock after about 15 seconds or so of inactivity.

In the final release, the automatic healing ability will be a configurable option, defaulting to "off", as not all users will need to have it enabled.

Apparently the program is working fine on his desktop PC, also Win 7-64, so I'm wondering if this problem may be allied to laptops with external (Logitech) mice?

The attached beta (usual caveats apply) contains some changes which may help.


Mark

[Markham]

Can I have some feedback please... I'd like to release this to the masses.

[worick]

I still loose middle button toggle. I have not had a chance to test it much though. I Should get some time in tomorrow on it.

[worick]

To add a bit more, the label on the toggle button shows the mouse middle down and up correctly, most of the time...

One time it did not. This may be an exception. I did not have the toggle button showing. Middle mouse stopped working and I used the setup screen to show the toggle button when CD is hidden, without trying to fix the middle mouse. The the toggle label showed "Mouse Dormant". I tried the "reconnect mouse and keyboard handlers" from the right click menu and the label started showing correct information. Visibility toggle via mouse was not restored however.

adding a modifier key does not fix the issue of no middle button toggle.

[sgtevmckay]

I have been dickering around for several hours now...All of the previously discussed issues remain. I am thinking we are stuck with the issues in Windows 7, since we can not identify what exactly the change in the code is.
The other alternatives are obvious, but not CD Centric, which is not what we want, but what we may have at the moment.

I do not make this offer lightly, but I could always attempt to contact the programmer of XmouseButtons (???), and see if there is something he is aware of that we are missing.

We could release with a disclaimer concerning certain Mouse types and third-party software or Massive-Multi-Button Mouse.
So far the only guaranteed thing I have done to get my mouse working is to assign hotkey functionality to a spare or rarely used button

I know your frustration...I have been right there with you almost every step, but intil we ban find out teh missing equation, I believe us to be at an impasse 

[Markham]

You know, Sarge, this has to be a hardware problem allied to some Logitech mice. There's a user here in Cebu who has an HP/Compaq (widescreen) laptop running Windows 7 64-bit and a USB (HP) external mouse. He has absolutely none of the problems you and Worick are encountering. My wife uses a Dell Studio (1737) laptop, under Windows 7 64-bit, and it has a 3+ year old Logitech wireless mouse and that also works flawlessly with Circle Dock.

That said, there is one last thing we can try. Up to now, the global handler has been raising events within Circle Dock whenever a mouse activity is detected - such as you moving the mouse, mouse button down, mouse button up etc. I've made a minor modification such that when the button used to toggle visibility is released, a message is sent to Circle Dock's main message handler (its WndProc) and this in turn toggles the visibility. Different mechanism, same result.

I've kept in all the mouse event handlers, however, but now these simply report the mouse's status. I've also retained "keep alive" although you should not need that now. (Incidentally, the "keep alive" function monitors two aspects. It is triggered after 30 seconds of mouse and keyboard inactivity; it is also triggered once every 50 keystrokes unless there is mouse activity during those keystrokes.)

If this version still misbehaves for you, then I'm at a loss as what to do next.

Oh yes, I almost forgot: there are two circumstances where Circle Dock needs to restart itself following configuration changes made in the main settings dialog. The first is fairly obvious - change of UI language. The second is where the default Z-Order is changed. If you modify either of those settings, Circle Dock will automatically restart itself when you close the settings dialog (it's no longer necessary to press the big button on the languages page - the button itself is being removed).



Mark

[Markham]

There is one final thing I can do - and I've just added this, so it's not in the beta attached to the previous message. That is as follows:

User presses Mouse Toggle Button Down
Global Mouse Hander triggers MouseDown Event. This sets a flag according to what the Dock Visibility should be when that button is released. It is the boolean opposite of "DockIsVisible".

User Releases Mouse Toggle Button
Global Mouse Handler sends a Windows Message to Circle Dock instructing it to toggle visibility. Circle Dock should act on this immediately and reverse the setting of "DockIsVisible".

(NEW) Global Mouse Handler then triggers MouseUp Event. In this handler, Circle Dock checks to see if the Dock visibility was changed - the flag set in MouseDown should now have the same boolean value as "DockIsVisible" but if it doesn't, then it toggles the visibility.

This is very much a "belt and braces" approach.



Mark

[worick]

downloaded and testing. I'll report back as soon as I can. Note to add, my 64bit system is a desktop, not a laptop. I don't think I had stated one way or the other. It is a 2 or 3 years old.

I really do appreciate your work on this Markham. As sarge was saying though, I don't want to tie up all your dev time on CD on this problem that doesn't seem to effect a large number of people. Xmouse got me around the problem 100%. I would rather not use it, but...

[sgtevmckay]

I'm hot on it!!! 

[worick]

still loose toggle function. It doesn't come back on its own. The "reconnect mouse and key..." menu item has worked a couple times, but has not fixed it most of the times I tried it.

toggle icon correctly shows mouse down and up. That is, as long as the label was turned on before the mouse toggle messes up. If I don't have the toggle button showing when the mouse stops working and turn the toggle on it shows "Mouse dormant" until I use the "reconnect mouse..." menu item or restart CD. That seems to indicate to me it is something inside CD that stops seeing the mouse, even though the hook is working correctly.

**** O! As I was typing this post I noticed one more thing. The label text on the toggle button does change when visibility toggle isn't working. When I press the middle mouse button it does NOT show "toggle Visibility". Normally when CD is working when I press the middle mouse button it shows:

Mouse Click:
Middle Down
Toggle Visibility
"program pointer is over"

When Visibility toggle is not working with middle button it shows:

Mouse Click:
Middle Down
"program pointer is over"


So, as you had thought CD is registering the middle down event, but it is not triggering the Toggle Visibility from that.

[Markham]

What you've described confirms that the global handler is working just fine. However, what is causing Circle Dock to lose the settings - the mouse button and modifiers - but only for you and The Sarge, is a complete mystery. If the problem was more widespread, then I'd be tempted to question the Windows memory manager role and that of dotNet's garbage collector.

You may wish to try the following - note "X Mouse Button Control" must not be loaded:

1. Start Circle Dock and configure the Mouse Toggle to be Ctrl+Middle Button (you could also use Alt and/or Shift).
2. Quit the settings dialog but leave Circle Dock running.
3. Start X Mouse Button Control and configure its middle button to send {Ctrl}{MMB}

Note: the above configuration should be set on the default Layer (Layer 0) and with "default" enabled. Do NOT select Circle Dock as it will not react to mouse messages sent to its Window Handle in quite the same way.

The middle button alone should toggle the visibility however the CD global handler should detect the "Ctrl" keystroke as well as the mouse click - and assumes that XMBC sends the following sequence of messages:

Key Down (Ctrl)
Mouse Down (Middle Button)
Mouse Up
Key Up

We know that XMBC, when configured to send keystrokes, will toggle visibilty consistently. However, that functionality is provided by the Net Runtime, I simply tell it which key(s) to monitor and it does the rest. It sends a message to the CD window when the correct hotkey sequence is keyed. Unfortunately there is no equivalent functionality for the mouse - or I would be using it!



Mark

[space007]

FYI:
got the same problem on my system (Win7 x64) with middle logitech mouse button. 
After a clean reinstall (moved from XP x86), one of the first thinks to reinstall from the apps in the system was Circle Dock.
I do not have yet installed setPoint from Logitech.


regards.

[sgtevmckay]

Greetings space007
I am glad that you have stopped by to document this issue. 

Can I also ask for a little more information?
Particularly; What Logitech mouse do you use?

I have been using Circle Dock, and Logitech Mice with the setpoint tools for well over a year now and I am most satisfied, but it has created for a sacrifice. In as much that I have permanently assigned a mouse button to Circle Dock.  For me this is a very small price to pay.
This may not be your situation.
If you use a multi-massive button mouse, setpoint tools is almost an absolute must, if not; I have found that once setpoint is installed, the mouse buttons are detected appropriately and Circle Dock will work with teh center button as would under normal conditions.

Let me know your findings as you go, and if you hit any issues, I will help as I can

Regards
The Sarge

[space007]

Thanks for the reply.

I got the Logitech MX400

I just got the SetPoint setpoint615_x64 version 6.15.25 from logitech site, which is for all x64 (XP and W7), will see after install what happens.

Problem is I do have some other apps for key mapping (Executor) , this is especially annoying with game trainers messing up the mappings

c u

[sgtevmckay]

Problem is I do have some other apps for key mapping (Executor) , this is especially annoying with game trainers messing up the mappings

-space007 (October 14, 2010, 02:25 AM)

Indeed.
For this reason I set up a Hot key combination to a mouse button, using SetPoint to send the hotkey command to Circle Dock.
Although not an option for everyone, this has worked out greatly with my MX Revolution

Let me know how things work, or not, and I will try everything I can to help get you set up in an appropriate way 

[A.Palabrsky]

I recommend Autohotkey for toggling. You just need to run 1 script that simulates an F13 keystroke (or F17...etc) when you click on middle button+left button for example. Autohotkey can replace all the softwares like SetPoint, XMouseButton...etc in one, it is free and has a light CPU usage.
Since CD will consider it as a keyboard shortcut, you won't get any trouble with mouse.
Just ask me if you don't want to write the script