SmartWheel, scroll text in inactive windows with the mouse wheel (Download Here)

[broken85]

I've just released the initial beta version of my small helper utility, SmartWheel. The utility allows you to scroll up and down text boxes of background (inactive) windows using the mouse wheel in conjunction with a hotkey (currently CTRL)

It's very simple to use, and requires absolutely no configuration, though there will be a few options coming in the next release.

To use the utility, simply run the executable (it's advisable to add it to the Startup folder to have it running all the time). To scroll any plain text box in any window (active or inactive), simply hold CTRL, put the mouse pointer over the control you want to scroll, and have at it!

More information: (currently unavailable)
http://benmcclure.com/software/index.php?catid=4&blogid=1

Download: See the attached installer, SmartWheel-Setup.exe

The utility currently only works in plain text boxes (eg. boxes without rich text, graphics, smooth scrolling, etc.). I hope to include functionality to scroll any type of field in one of the coming releases.

This is basically my first public software release, so I hope to get some feedback and suggestions from this site.

[mouser]

this sounds like a really nice idea!

[broken85]

Mouser, would you mind posting the installer, at least temporarily until I get my server up? It's under a megabyte, so it shouldn't dent your bandwidth much.

I've got bigger server problems than I realized, so it may not be up for a day or two, hopefully not longer.

Thanks,

Ben

[mouser]

absolutely.
you can attach it to this thread in a post, or email me ([email protected]) and i'll make a little space for you until you get your server issues resolved.  not a problem.

[broken85]

Thanks a million!

I updated my original post with the installer. I'm sure it'll be fine here, but I've got more utilities on the way shortly, so if my server isn't up in time, perhaps you could create a page to host them, either temporarily or permanently, whichever you'd prefer. Thanks a lot either way!

Ben

[NewKreation]

KatMouse has been one my best utilities for years, allowing me to merely hold the mouse over the inactive screen and scroll...without even having to hold the Ctrl button!

Check out this free tool here: http://ehiti.sdf-eu.org/katmouse/

[Alex Bischoff]

KatMouse has been one my best utilities for years, allowing me to merely hold the mouse over the inactive screen and scroll...without even having to hold the Ctrl button!

-NewKreation (June 15, 2006, 08:54 AM)

KatMouse is pretty nice, but it only worked for me while I was using Win2k (not since switching to WinXP) :-/. Since then, I've been using Wheeler which has been working fine in XP.

[mouser]

welcome to the site alex 
some very neat programmers tools on that page with Wheeler (http://www.eluent.com).

[Chris]

KatMouse works well for me on both Win 2000 and XP

Chris

[NewKreation]

KatMouse works well for me on both Win 2000 and XP

-Chris (June 15, 2006, 09:54 PM)

It works well on all of my XP machines as well. This may be due to the fact that there have been new versions of KatMouse released since Windows XP was released years ago. Alex may want to give this one another go.

[broken85]

I started my script without having a hotkey, however I found it somewhat annoying if my mouse would drift off of the window and I was trying to scroll.

I've been working on a lot of backend stuff and am completely rewriting most of it to use my new functions and config options. The next version will allow you to choose whether or not you want to use a hotkey. I also still hope to have the next version include support for scrolling background windows such as Firefox and any other rich text-type control.

Hopefully if you're having a problem with KatMouse this script will work for you. While I've only been able to test it on XP, it works exactly the same on every machine I've used it on.

Anyway, thanks for the information on KatMouse, and if anyone has any suggestions on how I could make this the most useful mousewheel utility possible please let me know. I will be more than happy to try to implement any usable suggestions quickly, as in within a few days.

I've also got a lot of other free utilities underway at www.benmcclure.com/software if anyone is interested (However don't bother with HotSpell yet as I am squashing some major bugs). If there is a utility not listed that you would like to see, please let me know, as I would love to try my hand at just about anything. Thanks!

-Ben