Support

Uninstalling the USB Overdrive X

To uninstall the USB Overdrive, use the Uninstall USB Overdrive application that's located in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder. If you deleted it by mistake, you can reinstall the USB Overdrive (even if it's already installed) and then remove everything with the Uninstall application.

System requirements

Version 10.4.8 should work under Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later (i.e. Jaguar, Panther and Tiger) on any Mac with a working USB port. I recommend using Apple's Software Update to keep your system up-to-date.

Beta 5 should work under Mac OS X 10.1.2 or later, on any Mac with a working USB port. It has not been tested under Mac OS X 10.1.1 or earlier releases.

Version 1.4 works in Classic under Mac OS X 10.2 or later to enable scrolling in Classic applications. It must be installed separately because the native USB Overdrive X alone can't do anything about scrolling in Classic.

Configuring the tilt wheel on Logitech mice

Tilting the scroll wheel left and right on some Logitech mice such as the MX1000 and MediaPlay activates two Button commands in the USB Overdrive instead of Wheel Left and Wheel Right. The specific button numbers may vary, they are Button 9 and Button 10 for the MX1000 and Button 7 and Button 8 for the MediaPlay. Those buttons default to Do Nothing because other mice use them for other purposes, so the tilt wheel won't scroll horizontally unless you reprogram them to Scroll Left and Scroll Right, possibly with a large line count. To find out the correct button numbers, tilt the wheel while the USB Overdrive window is open and frontmost. The buttons should hilite in bold in the list.

Known problems

- The Overdrive may not be able to save and load its preferences (including registration data and device settings) if the /Users folder or the home folder was moved to another partition without creating the appropriate links and updating the appropriate system settings.

- The USB Overdrive X won't work under Mac OS X 10.2.0, 10.2.1 and 10.2.2. Apple changed some low-level HID classes between 10.2.2 and 10.2.3, so there's no way to make a single binary that works on both. You should use beta 5 if you can't upgrade to Mac OS X 10.2.8 for any reason.

- There are a few applications where the USB Overdrive X can't scroll, see note below.

Troubleshooting hints

- The USB Overdrive includes a USBOverdriveHelper application that is automatically launched at login time. If the helper application is not launched, most features do not work. If you find that the driver is not working, try to launch the USB Overdrive X application once to automatically add its helper to the Login Items section of the System Preferences. You can verify if the Helper application has been added to your Login Items by opening the System Preferences and looking at the Login Items list in the Login preferences.

- Be warned that Clicked Wheel Up and Clicked Wheel Down can only be used if the Middle Button (or whatever button is chosen as the wheel button) is set to Do Nothing or Auto Scroll.

- Make sure that you never installed the third-party "AppleUSBMouse Turbo Edition" driver, or uninstall it to make the USB Overdrive handle your mouse devices.

Using the Back and Forward commands

The USB Overdrive now has specific commands for the Back and Forward, which are typically assigned to the fourth and fifth mouse buttons to go back and forward in web browsers and in the Finder. These commands are functionally equivalent to the Command+left arrow and Command+right arrow keystrokes in most applications, and to the Command+[ and Command+] keystrokes in Safari and in the Finder:

Back = Command + <[> or Command + <left arrow>

Forward = Command + <]> or Command + <right arrow>

Why not a System Preferences pane?

The native prefPane is almost complete and I’ll be releasing it soon. The current user interface is not a prefPane and it's not very pretty either, but it is fully functional and will do the job until the new version is ready for release.

Technical notes

- The USB Overdrive includes a kernel extension, a helper application, a preference pane and the user interface. The helper application is hidden inside the user interface application, while the kernel extension is installed in the /System/Library/Extensions folder.

- When the user interface is launched, it updates the Startup Items section of the Accounts tab in System Preferences to automatically launch the USBOverdriveHelper application at login time. This only works for the current user account, so you should launch the user interface once for each user account.

- Moving the USB Overdrive X application to a different location makes the Login Items link obsolete, so the helper application will no longer be automatically launched at login time. Launch the USB Overdrive X application once after moving it to fix this problem.

Padix/Rockfire fix

- Some joysticks and gamepads with firmware from Padix, such as the Rockfire and Boeder CrossCheck devices, declare themselves as "class 3" devices rather than "class 0" devices. This appears to be a firmware bug, and it makes it impossible for the Apple USB Composite driver to handle them. If the Composite driver doesn't load, neither does the USB Overdrive. There is a simple fix that fully enables those devices, you can download it here but be aware that it comes with no warranties and no tech support.

Known incompatibilities

- The AppleUSBMouse Turbo Edition third-party kernel extension should not be installed, because it takes over control from the USB Overdrive. When Turbo Edition is installed, none of the USB Overdrive features will work. If you never installed it, you don't need to worry about this. If you did, you should uninstall it to activate the USB Overdrive.

- This is not an incompatibility, but if you want the USB Overdrive to handle a Microsoft or Logitech or Kensington mouse, you should make sure that the vendor's kernel extension has been uninstalled. The USB Overdrive can peacefully coexist with other mouse drivers, but they take over their mouse devices so that the USB Overdrive can no longer see them.

Scrolling with the wheel in Mac OS X

The USB Overdrive X can't currently force non-scrolling applications to scroll, like the Mac OS 9 version used to do. I am currently investigating ways to force scrolling in Mac OS X, but I don’t want to play any dirty tricks because the whole point of Mac OS X is to give us greater system stability. What you currently buy with the Mac OS X version is the ability to set the scrolling speed and direction in all the applications that know how to scroll, and soon the ability to do accelerated scrolling and auto scroll.

Page scrolling (i.e. scrolling one page at a time) is implemented through keystrokes instead of mouse wheel events, and therefore works in places where line scrolling does not. For example, many Carbon and even Classic applications support page scrolling with the USB Overdrive X. Note that scrolling keystrokes are received by the user interface element that currently has keyboard focus, rather than the one that's under the current mouse position.

Some applications don't currently support horizontal scrolling.

If your favorite application doesn't scroll in Mac OS X, please contact the authors of the application and ask them to add support for mouse wheel events. You may even want to tell them that there's some free code they could use or borrow from (see note below).

Some of the applications that don't currently support wheel scrolling include:

- Adobe Acrobat Reader
- FileMaker Pro
- Open and Save file dialogs in Carbon applications
- and many more...

If you know other widely used applications that should appear in this list, please let me know. And if you find that some of the above applications are now working, send me a mail so I can remove them from the list.

Note for application developers: NEVER scroll more than one line at a time when you receive a mouse wheel event. If you absolutely have to, please allow a user preference to force one-line scrolling. If you scroll more than one line at a time, mouse drivers won't be able to work consistently across different applications, and users will get very confused. Leave it up to the mouse driver and its related user preferences to select a scrolling speed that's right for each user. Also, please allow horizontal scrolling if at all possible. Most mouse devices only have a vertical wheel right now, but many users want to use it for horizontal scrolling when it's pressed and rolled.

Richard Buckle wrote a PowerPlant class called CScrollWheelHandler that lets developers easily add Mac OS X scroll wheel support to any PowerPlant project. This may also be helpful to Carbon developers using other frameworks, or none. It is 100% public domain, but the author asks to be notified of any bug fixes or enhancements.

http://www.sailmaker.co.uk/progtools.html

Mouse wheel scrolling in Classic applications

The USB Overdrive 1.4 allows you to scroll with your mouse wheel in Classic applications. Please note that you have to install USB Overdrive 1.4 (the one for Mac OS 9 and Classic) on top of the USB Overdrive X or any other native Mac OS X drivers you may have installed. A native Mac OS X driver can't interact directly with Classic applications, and Classic (like Mac OS 9) has no built-in support for wheel scrolling.

To make a long story short:

- USB Overdrive 1.4 must be installed in your Classic system folder in Mac OS X 10.2 or later. You can install it under Classic while running Mac OS X, or under Mac OS 9 directly.

- No specific Mac OS X driver is required to allow scrolling in Classic, but if you do install USB Overdrive X or other mouse drivers then you must make sure that the mouse wheel is configured for scrolling and not for something else.