Unpopular opinion, but I like the Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard!
I try other Mouses but always return to the Apple products.
Trying to get other Mouses to have the same acceleration and tracking as you he Magic Mouse eludes me!
The thing with the Magic Mouse is the touch sensor on top! Being able to swipe and scroll horizontally and vertically is so ingrained that I miss it when switching.
Adding a TouchID sensor to the side of the Apple Magic Mouse would be super useful!
I don’t have a Magic Keyboard with TouchID yet, so I’m constantly reaching over to MacBook keyboard. I feel like if my thumb could just connect with the TouchID sensor on the side of a Magic Mouse, there’s be a lot less friction in the security UI!
I’m inspired to also try a trackpad given the enthusiasm shown in the comments here!
The magic keyboard is ok. The layout is subpar and it lacks a tiny bit of travel for a thin-style keyboard (.2 mm extra would do it I think), but overall it is nicely built, reliable and easy to clean. Going to that from a thinkpad keyboard was a bit rough though. I wonder if people who love it have ever used a good keyboard.
The magic mouse is the worst mouse I have used so far, precisely because of the touch area. I tried for a while to adapt to it and developed severe RSI. I event went through the “I must be holding it wrong” pattern like the apple fanboy I am, to no avail. I suspect it comes down to me having the wrong shape of hand. Luckily logitech makes some excellent mice, and I can map the thumb buttons to the gestures I used most on the magic mouse.
> - you can't rest your fingers on it. When you use it, you have to keep your finger(s) raised
I rest my fingers on the surface all the time and it's fine?
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I'm also one of the dozen that like the Magic Mouse; in fact I have the first gen one that takes AA batteries, and it's still working perfectly. It's now the oldest mouse I've owned and used. Prior to it I think I had an early model of the wired optical IntelliMouse.
This is a mandatory install on macOS for me (one of many).
The suite of extra software utilities required to make the base OS usable is ridiculous, but I'm glad to see open source maintainers working to keep my mouse working.
Not the OP, but for one thing, natural scrolling is just an awful idea for mouse users, it was designed for touch screens, and translates pretty well to trackpads (Although it broke with over a decade of user experience), but it's completely unnatural on a mouse. Unfortunately, if you're a user who switches between a mouse and the trackpad, Mac OS only let's you pick one.
> natural scrolling is just an awful idea for mouse
IMO there’s no objective reason why. Natural scrolling is not what a lot of people are used to with a mouse, but it’s perfectly usable and even more consistent if you’re using the Magic Mouse, which uses a touch surface instead of a mechanical wheel.
I, for example, always make my Windows and Linux machine use natural scrolling like I’m used to from my Mac and my life isn’t any better or worse because of it.
Unlike for touch devices, it is no better or worse - but as scroll wheel operation already is incredibly well established, most already have an intuitive assumption of behavior and switching forcing the user to switch only annoys them.
It is even part of our language: you "scroll down".
I thought the same as you until I once got a new Mac and forgot to switch off natural scrolling during the initial setup. You scroll down on a page far more often than you scroll up, at least in my day-to-day. Natural scrolling on the mouse wheel makes scrolling down an easier motion on my right middle finger than with classic scrolling. It's easier to push out than to pull in.
> natural scrolling is just an awful idea for mouse users
I'm the opposite - I was surprised by how much of an improvement I found natural scrolling after decades of computer use. I now use an autohotkey script when on windows to get the same behavior as I get on macOS.
I can certainly see the switching cost not being worth it and wanting a setting that applies to the mouse and not the touchpad, but I'm failing to see how it's anything other than a switching cost.
The issue happens when you're not "switching", but co-existing across multiple platforms.
For work, I use a Mac as my daily computer, but also use Linux at home, and a ChromeOS for travel. My Mac is heavily customized to behave like my Linux desktop, but there's little hope for ChromeOS, which means all my muscle memory is gone.
I wish we'd have better standards, and at least a universal way to customize keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately we're far away from that. Even on Mac and Linux.
> I now use an autohotkey script when on windows to get the same behavior as I get on macOS.
Is there something specific here that's not just toggling the scroll direction to the right value in window's settings menu? It's had it for years at this point.
> I can certainly see the switching cost not being worth it and wanting a setting that applies to the mouse and not the touchpad, but I'm failing to see how it's anything other than a switching cost.
For me at least, you're fighting against decades of habitual usage. I have a mental model for how I expect my controls to work. I could switch - but I see zero value in doing so (what's the upside?) and a whole lot of wasted effort.
It's like a controller - Inverted exists. I understand that some folks like it. There are rare cases (usually when controlling an aircraft) in games when I might choose to use it. But by far and large... I just do not want an inverted controller. It's making me think harder for zero net benefit (and much worse in game results...).
On Windows 11, you can’t toggle the scroll wheel direction without registry edit permission. And for USB devices, there’s a unique key for every possible USB port it’s connected to.
I was still using a mouse when natural scrolling came out and it was a huge improvement. My brain immediately connected the scroll wheel to the content and it made a lot more sense. The unnatural scroll always seemed backwards and focuses too much on the particular mechanics of moving a scroll bar button instead of directly manipulating the content.
When I use someone else’s computer that uses the old scroll direction it just seems clunky and artificial.
Why would you need a mouse when using macOS trackpads? Before switching to MBP (about 10 years ago) I couldn't fathom using trackpad but then after a couple of days of usage I was so hooked up and it _felt_ so natural than I can't imagine using mouse nowadays...
While I agree that Mac trackpads are fantastic, there's still a need for variety. For some reason, I don't feel at home using a trackpad in certain programs, such as Photoshop. The Magic Mouse feels better in that scenario, like I have a little more control.
For general computer use and coding, I prefer the trackpad.
Ah, YMMV. I don't do any graphics/precise movement - mostly coding/shell/typing) and in this case trackpad is simply excellent - movement is precise and it's perfectly handy/accessible.
I did use a lot of gestures (especially in browsers, Opera from 10-15 years ago?) but with trackpad you have virtually the same? Single tap=left click, two-fingers tap = right click, cmd+tap = middle click. Two fingers swipe left/right = navigate forward/backward?
I never used those? I usually preferred keyboard shortcuts so laptop (MPB) with hands on the keyboard + occasional use of touchpad for "movement" was more than enough?
Sure, but presumably your original question wasn't addressed to yourself? With a better external keyboard you don't have a trackpad, and even with the internal one sometimes it's more convenient to use the more capable tool
I generally prefer the trackpad for productive tasks, but I never got the hang of using it for my weird Minesweeper obsession. A mouse has a lot of non-input leverage and physical control that’s very hard to replicate (for me, others swear by trackpads even for high pace, high accuracy pointer input like this).
Not per-device. I like "natural scrolling" on my trackpads, but dislike it with mouse wheels. It's a PITA to visit system settings every time I switch; I've been low-key looking for something like this for some time.
Acceleration doesn’t really have a place on touchpads since they became ‘perfect’ with near-zero deadzone ~10 years ago. Especially on a nice big touchpad with equal click pressure like MacBooks have
(If you’re taking about the scroll behavior) It can be set in two different places, but it’s the same setting underneath. Either you get natural everywhere or the other behavior everywhere.
The touchpad is probably the single best thing about Macs since ~2015. I remember going to the Apple Store and messing around with the Macbook Pro I was hooked on how responsive and useful the touchpad felt, and led me to buy one.
Windows (without additional utilities) allows you to disable mouse acceleration, change scrolling direction, change scrolling speed, and even invert buttons.
Sure MacOS' stock behavior might be fine for you, but that's a different conversation, we're talking about giving the user choice without resorting to hacks here.
> Windows allows you to…change scrolling direction
Within the last 5 years this wasn’t always the case since that’s when I last setup a Windows machine and this definitely was not a setting and I had to edit the registry. Trust me that was not my first choice—I would have much rather used a setting like you can on macOS for scroll direction.
Of course that’s not to say macOS is perfect either. Sounds like they are just now getting around to adding a setting for mouse acceleration. Now, this has always been possible with a “simple” (when compared to the multiple registry edits I had to do on Windows) terminal command—no need to resort to a an additional utility as you imply. Obviously both of these “hacks” as you say are not anything regular consumers are going to be able to do.
With all that said, macOS is closer aligned to how I would do an OS “out of the box”.
Linux too. None of the DEs are all that close to what I'm looking for, and of course building my own desktop from scratch with a window manager, bars, takes as much work as adjusting a DE and then a bunch more.
- Karabiner-Elements, primarily to map caps lock to ctrl when pressed with other keys and escape when pressed alone, although I also like to bind right command + asdfhjkl to cursor movement keys home pgdown pgup end left down up right respectively.
- yabai/skhd for window management
- brew/mas for package management
- linearmouse to disable cursor acceleration, scroll acceleration, and inverted scroll direction for mice while keeping all those things on for trackpads.
There are other things that I install on my Macs, but these are the programs that I use to fix behavior that I find unacceptable. Additionally I maintain a script of about 50 `defaults write ...` commands so that I don't have to dig around in the settings menus of system applications to configure them to behave sanely (show file extensions and paths, don't reorder Spaces, disable autocorrect, etc).
Alfred, Karabiner-Elements (for the hyper key functionality), Shortcat, TextSniper, Moom, Sublime Text, iTerm 2, my .bash_profile.
These are all apps for which I have long-standing muscle memory. If I use a new computer, I'm still pressing the keys but nothing happens and I have to remember how to do the things the normal way.
Each of the features provided by the above apps would also require an app to be installed for Windows, too. Not sure how this can be leveled as an OSX criticism.
Never heard of Shortcat before, it reminds me of that vim shortcut that used to be popular for firefox back in the day. I can see how that would be really powerful.
I use it to have hybrid modifier and regular keys: if I hold down caps lock like a modifier key and strike another key then it behaves like control. If I tap caps lock like I would a letter key then it behaves like escape.
Return is another hybrid between itself and control (my keyboard does not have a right control key).
Space is another hybrid with a whole lot of bindings when held down. With s it generates space so that I can have key repeat for space (don’t need that often). With hjkl it generates the cursor keys.
Newbie Mac user here. I just did what you suggested (I believe it's basically what's suggested in this article: https://9to5mac.com/2016/03/17/how-to-remap-windows-keyboard...), but I don't think Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V works on browsers; I still have to use Alt+C and Alt+V to copy paste when using Chrome/Firefox browsers whereas Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V works in PyCharm.
What am I missing? Thank you in advance for your suggestion/reply!
If you run through that guide I think the intended result is that "Alt-C" is going to be your copypaste. E.g. the keys work in the Mac order: CTRL / OPT (ALT) / COMMAND instead of the Windows order (CTRL / WINDOWS / ALT). So using Alt-C should trigger Copy, matching Mac-user muscle memory.
Perhaps PyCharm is set to Windows keymappings or such?
The mac doesn't use ctrl modifiers to use copy paste. If you remapped Alt/option and windows/command keys on a windows keyboard alt-c & alt-v (i.e. the keys to the right/left of the spacebar) would be recognized as cmd-c and cmd-v on the mac. PyCharm supports a windows and linux keybinding that lets you use ctrl-c and ctrl-v to copy paste but the mac generally uses the cmd key as opposed to the ctrl key. If you want to use ctrl-c and ctrl-v you can remap both of those pretty easily using karabiner elements to cmd-c and cmd-v.
It already lets you have different settings for the internal en external keyboards by default. I use it just like that - vanilla settings on my MacBook built in and for the external keyboard I switch command and option, since it’s a windows keyboard.
I don’t want to be inflammatory, but the amount of baby duck syndrome when people say MacOS and Linux are unusable is crazy. Just try to go vanilla for 2 weeks before you install two dozen utilities.
Yes! I regret the time I spent without Rectangle. Effortlessly managing windows, just throwing them around or between monitors without ever touching the mouse is absolutely priceless.
+1 to BetterTouchTool! I'm mostly a keyboard person (typical 'vim' user etc.) but being able to switch tabs using a two-finger tap left and right on the touchpad is so pleasant that I find it worth the investment for BetterTouchTool alone. Configuring this for the different keybindings of different programs flexibly is really great. And it's a one-time payment including fixes and improvements - I've had it for years.
+1, I can't live without BTT on Mac. From keyboard shortcuts, window management, controlling apps, overall customizations, HUD messages, and much, much more.
I wish BTT were multi-OS, so I could just copy the configuration across platforms, instead of having to recreate from scratch (Linux), or not at all (ChromeOS).
Windows isn't Unix, which is one of macOS's biggest selling points for developers and hackers (remember which website you're on). Recommending it as the solution whenever someone complains about macOS is counterproductive, because in many cases it's not a suitable substitute for macOS.
WSL isn't a solution to this problem, especially ever since they gave up adding support to the actual Windows kernel and just used a virtual machine.
I shouldn't have to wait for all my software to add support for putting the WSL wrapper around all of their commands. I should be able to just run them on bare metal. This is why JetBrains IDEs can do profiling, valgrind etc on macOS but not Windows.
You clearly missed the point of my comment, which is not to say that Windows should be Unix, but that the fact that it is not means that you probably should not be recommending it as a universal cure-all to people who probably use macOS for a reason.
In other words, it only sounds "annoying" because you seem to not understand why people would use a Unix operating system, and why Windows is not a suitable substitute.
(This is assuming they use macOS for its Unixness, but enough people use it for that reason that you probably shouldn't be telling people to just use Windows and "have fun". To your credit, you did also list Linux.)
I use a Mac, always have. My complaint is that people jump to criticize a way of working, saying it's unusable, when there are plenty of others that have enjoyed working this way for 40 years and are extremely productive that way.
Perhaps question if your old habits don't apply in a new context? And just because it's a WIMP UI you shouldn't expect it to work exactly like your former? That it's a new paradigm, with different metaphors, advantages and trade-offs?
> My complaint is that people jump to criticize a way of working, saying it's unusable, when there are plenty of others that have enjoyed working this way for 40 years and are extremely productive that way.
Well, I didn't do that. I said Windows misses a desirable quality that macOS has, which makes it unacceptable as a substitute for macOS, specifically, if one relies on this desirable quality.
> Perhaps question if your old habits don't apply in a new context? And just because it's a WIMP UI you shouldn't expect it to work exactly like your former? That it's a new paradigm, with different metaphors, advantages and trade-offs?
Do you see how you just proved my point? According to your argument the answer would be "Well just don't desire that quality then." and, gee, I sure wish the whole tech world could just do that, it sounds so easy.
I see the comments the same way and half the time they seem misinformed. How many Mac users are looking to move windows with the keyboard because the mouse is too much of a burden.
No one is complaining A is not B. Everyone is complaining that macOS lacks some fairly basic UX options and is being neglected by Apple which corrects these flaws at a glacial pace.
Oh, but they are. I'm extremely productive on stock macOS, way more than on Windows. I just don't keep complaining that Windows is broken. Some people obviously love it.
> Everyone is complaining that macOS lacks some fairly basic UX options
What you call "basic UX options" are highly opinionated personal views. I've used Macs since 2007 and haven't used a single one of the dozen or so "basic UX" tools people listed in the discussion.
On a tangent, I don't see what's wrong with complaining that A ≠ B. Complaining is just the precursor to voting with your feet, and having more or less than competitor offerings is a natural point of comparison in a customer's mind.
Sure, but there’s a limit. You wouldn’t complain that there’s no beef on a vegan restaurant.
The Mac’s thing has always been resizable overlapping windows with a menu bar at the top of the screen. If you’re hoping for a great tiling window manager, you’ll be disappointed. You can kind of get a poor man’s tiling setup with some hacks, but it’s not what the platform is about.
Now try to go beyond a shallow dismissive analogy and explain specifically in the case of linear mouse why disabling acceleration is trying to make a circle into a square?
(and consider the fact that your circle company has added that square peg into their latest oval OS)
What I’m trying to convey here is that, while I hate Windows' mouse acceleration, to the point of being almost unusable to me, I don’t go on forums ranting about how ridiculous the amount of tweaking the OS requires to be usable.
There are fortunately other choices that fit my sensibilities much better. Why try to bend Microsoft to my particularities, especially when there are billions of perfectly happy users?
Ideally you’d want every OS to feature every possible preference setting. In practice, every feature increases the surface for bugs, loses focus on limited resources, puts the burden of choice on the user, etc. There needs to be a vision, an opinion, a personality to a product. You can either share that or look for a different platform.
But you're doing even worse - you go on forums ranting about people criticizing legitimate OS deficiencies!
> Why try to bend Microsoft to my particularities
Many reasons, but specific to this conversation: because it's not a square! Tweakability of these things is part of "essence" of a general purpose OS, so that's the flaw of your analogy, and why you have to resort to generic analogies instead of explaining how a specific tweak is bad
>…instead of explaining how a specific tweak is bad
I have, but I’ll try one last time. Could Apple build an industry leading tiling window manager? Perhaps. Would that please most of its users? Probably not. Would it delay other more pressing demands? Surely.
I wasn’t discussing mouse acceleration, but it’s just the same. The acceleration curve hasn't changed since 1984, to the best of my knowledge. I don’t see Mac users complaining. Should Apple expend effort to accommodate ex-Windows users? It’s not my call, but I don’t think they should.
Regarding the pressing demands, how about a notification system that’s not a compete UX joke or a reliable and simple file sharing solution that doesn’t require the user to be aware of the SMB or SSH protocols? I could spend the whole day listing lower hanging fruits than meeting the particularities of ex-Windows users.
The number of system developers with deep knowledge of macOS, Swift/ObjC and willing to live in Cupertino is surprisingly small. It’s a very limited resource and it shows, given the number of years some glaring bugs survive with macOS every release.
You see Mac users complaining, they are right here in this thread, you just choose to dismiss the complaints.
Just like you again ignored that Apple also disagrees with you since they fixed this bug
And you haven't explained the most important thing- the blocking part, "resources are limited" gives you nothing of substance at this level, you actually need to know the amount of effort involved. How much time is needed to expose a different mouse curve? Would a better notification system be developed within that time?
Ask those Mac users if they're using the platform because their job requires them. You may be surprised.
I haven't ignored that Apple disagrees with me, that's a fact, since they shipped the toggle. I'm arguing how they should spend their developer's time.
>Would a better notification system be developed within that time?
How about basic functionality, like being able to close a notification without some serious mouse gymnastic? That bug is 3 years old.
Or having your music player display how much of the song has been played without requiring a hover, like any sensible music player has done since forever, iTunes included.
Or a System Preferences/Settings that's not a flabbergasting disaster.
Unpopular opinion perhaps, but as someone who's bouncing between all three big desktop platforms pretty regularly, cursor acceleration is a total non-issue. I adjust to the difference so quickly that I don't even notice a difference.
I'm glad that Sonoma is adding the checkbox to turn it off for those who need it but it's never been a bother for me.
Not to take away from this app, but I’ve been using Mos https://mos.caldis.me for a couple of years now and it’s been just enough to mitigate the faults I had with default mouse settings in macOS.
This is what I've been looking for for such a long time.
The maximum speed that can be configured using the built in tools for both mouse and trackpad is way too slow for my liking.
In the past I used MagicPrefs to do this, but that sadly doesn't work anymore. This is the first time I'm able to do this again, and with a free tool too! Thanks a lot for submitting this.
I ended up having to pay(!) to re-enable middle clicking after magicprefs stopped working at some point in the macos upgrade race. I bought this. https://middleclick.app/
I've long looked for a good mouse utility for Mac that can disable mouse acceleration, modify scroll wheel behavior, etc. This one even saves preferences per-device which I find very useful.
I’m eager to try this out, but you might also want to check out Steermouse[1], which is a utility it took me years longer to discover than it should have.
I’m not sure how it stacks up to this open source project, but it’s definitely been worth the license cost to me over the years.
I just installed LinearMouse. It doesn't support the extra buttons on my Logitech MX Vertical mouse, but SteerMouse does. That by itself is worth the license cost for me.
Hello, I'm the author of LinearMouse. It seems that you have both LinearMouse and SteerMouse installed simultaneously. As they have similar functionalities, if one of them captures and processes the side button event, the other may not receive it.
Can’t use macOS&Magic Mouse on 2x27” without cranking up the acceleration. Been using https://plentycom.jp/en/cursorsense/ for 10 years.
Will try this, seems more maintained.
I've used Smooze [1] in the past. It has a ton of features, but I really just need it for turning off mouse acceleration and making the scroll wheel usable. Glad to see an open source option.
I would prefer it show me the homebrew command in addition to a copy to clipboard button instead of just the button so I have to _trust_ what you're having me paste.
It's `brew install --cask linearmouse` for those wondering.
Are you a windows/linux user that finds Mac mice always feel weirdly slow or "wrong"? This fixes it, and is frequently updated. Mandatory new mac install item for me.
Nice! I've been using Mac Mouse Fix (https://mousefix.org/), which is also open source, to handle inverting my mouse wheel and remapping the back/forward buttons, but LinearMouse looks quite a bit more featureful.
The lack of mouse acceleration in Windows is what make it feel, to me, clunky and slow. I know it’s a function of what you grew up with/are used to but it’s interesting to see. Personally I like being able to flick my mouse across the screen without having to pick up my mouse—enables faster work.
> The lack of mouse acceleration in Windows is what make it feel, to m
Windows has had built-in acceleration since Windows XP (maybe 2000?) - it's the "Enhance pointer precision" option in the (classic) Mouse control panel.
There's also an acceleration curve you can customize, but there's no built-in GUI editor, but the data's all in the HKCU\Control Panel\Mouse registry keys.
I've had my touchpad randomly stop working. Sometimes a restart fixed it, sometimes it required a deep dive into driver land. Something so basic that should just work.
As an aside, I had just started working on a tool to do that since all I want is to have natural scrolling on my trackpad but regular scrolling on my mouse. Will have to take a look if this goes with the a11y route or the custom driver path.
Does anyone know of a tool that can emulate the pointer inertia you'd find with a trackball, but on a trackpad? This way, you could 'launch' the pointer across the screen. As a long-time trackball user, I believe this feature would be incredibly useful.
I've kept a minimized macos preference window open for months now so that I can switch the mode when I'm on the go. This app takes care of that one use case pretty well and just made my life slightly better.
Apple's idea of "natural scrolling direction" is insane.
Scrolling with a touchpad and scrolling with with a mouse wheel are simply different things - the natural direction is simply different for both.
That’s 100 % subjective. There’s not a single reason why sliding your finger on a mechanical movable surface should behave differently than sliding it on a touch sensitive surface. You’re used to it behaving differently and that’s fine, but I prefer to have the same behavior for both and neither of us is right or wrong.
Subjective or not, it definitely doesn't make sense to lock them together. If you change one, the other will also change. The fact that it doesn't allow me to have different settings for the mouse and trackpad doesn't make sense to me.
But of course there is a reason- wheel is mentally mapped to the windows' scroll bar
Touch pad is mentally mapped to the view/document like on a phone
Calling it subjective doesn't eliminate it
the "natural scroll direction" is shared for mice and the trackpad, so you can't have mice and the trackpad scroll different without third party software
Interesting. I just got finished working on some JavaScript to auto detect two-finger trackpad scroll vs a physical mousewheel and wondered why this kind of thing isn’t built into the OS.
I'm still using Logitech Options+ when I dock my MacBook Air into my big screen and use an MX Anywhere. Last I checked, none of these utilities enable click-and-hold to pan.
I've been using "Scroll Reverser" for years to let me have Natural Scrolling on my trackpad but not my mouse. I'll have to check this out as an alternative.
Same for me, long time user of https://github.com/pilotmoon/Scroll-Reverser
Just curious, when you have a tool that does such a precise small single task, and does it perfectly, why would you bother installing an alternative? What I thought when reading this post was more like "I already have a perfect solution, I don't need another perfect solution", so just curious if you think I'm missing something by thinking like this?
would be great if it also offered middle-click emulation like other utilities do for those cross-platform programs that think everyone has a three-button mouse
I try other Mouses but always return to the Apple products.
Trying to get other Mouses to have the same acceleration and tracking as you he Magic Mouse eludes me!
The thing with the Magic Mouse is the touch sensor on top! Being able to swipe and scroll horizontally and vertically is so ingrained that I miss it when switching.
Adding a TouchID sensor to the side of the Apple Magic Mouse would be super useful!
I don’t have a Magic Keyboard with TouchID yet, so I’m constantly reaching over to MacBook keyboard. I feel like if my thumb could just connect with the TouchID sensor on the side of a Magic Mouse, there’s be a lot less friction in the security UI!
I’m inspired to also try a trackpad given the enthusiasm shown in the comments here!