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Just installed Ubuntu 11.10. Been a while since I used any distro and I'm very impressed.

To be difficult, does anyone know how to enable the middle mouse button scroll option when browsing? I don't know if this is an OS level thing or browser config. option.

In Windows, you can usually click the mouse wheel to bring up a scroll icon when using browsers. This allows you to scroll by moving the mouse instead of the mousewheel.

I have RSI and find this method less taxing...

Thanks for any help!

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2 Answers 2

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Firefox

You can use some firefox options to both disable the default action which is to paste on clicking the middle-mouse button and also to turn on auto-scrolling.

First - in the Firefox - Preferences - Advance settings ensure you have the following options checked:

  • Use Autoscrolling
  • Use Smooth scrolling

Then in the Awesome bar type about:config

Search for *autoscroll and double click *general.AutoScroll to change from "false" to "true"

Now search for middlemouse

  • middlemouse.contentLoadURL = false
  • middlemouse.openNewWindow = false
  • middlemouse.paste = false

Then restart firefox

When you middle click you should now see this symbol to scroll:

enter image description here

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  • Direct, concise and accurate. Thanks so much.
    – Nicolas
    Nov 29, 2020 at 22:16
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System-wide, on ThinkPads

On IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads that have a Trackpoint (red mini-joystick dot in the middle of the keyboard), a similar mechanism can be configured system-wide. It is called "mouse wheel emulation". With this, pressing the middle mouse button and pushing the trackpoint in any direction will scroll up / down / left / right.

To configure this, the following should go into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/51-trackpoint-tweaks.conf:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier  "ThinkPad TrackPoint"
    MatchProduct    "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    Option      "EmulateWheel"      "true"
    Option      "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"
    Option      "XAxisMapping"      "6 7"
    Option      "YAxisMapping"      "4 5"
EndSection

[source]

The same can also be configured with the gpointing-device-settings application under "Use wheel emulation".

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