Why You Need a 9 Buttons Mouse?

Basic mouse today has 3 buttons: left, middle (wheel), right. Many mouses today have 5 buttons, by adding 2 extra buttons for the thumb, usually for browser {forward, backward} page.

But many gaming mouses sport 9 or more buttons. Why do you need it?

You need:

• 3 standard {left, middle, right} buttons.
• 2 buttons for browser {back, forward}.
• 2 buttons for prev/next tab. This is incredibly useful.
• 1 button for closing tab (【Ctrl+w】). Again, extremely useful.

That's 8 buttons already.

To be pampered, you'll also want:

• 2 buttons to switch prev/next {window, workspace}. (or, switch to 2 of your most frequently used apps.)
• 2 buttons for direct {copy, paste}.
• 1 button to close window. (【Alt+F4】)

That's 13 buttons.

Then, there's desire. You desire:

• Tilt wheel is useful. Once in a few days, you need to side scroll a large image, or code inside a inner window. Tilt wheel is easier and faster than dragging the side scroll bar. Tilt wheel counts as 2 buttons.
• Logitech's spin wheel. This is actually critical in Linux, because X11 doesn't support accelerated scroll. 〔☛ Logitech Mouse with Spin Wheel〕
• Resolution switch. Usually, there are 2 buttons for this. This is quite important in some games. For example, in first-person shooter games, when you snipe someone far away, reducing resolution helps aiming significantly. See picture here: Xah Combat Aim Radar. If you do a lot 3D modeling work, it can be also very useful.

Counting the Buttons

When shopping for a mouse, you have to watch out the button count, and count the ones that'd be actually useful for your own customization.

Usually, mouse makers count all things that sends a signal. For example, they count wheel tilt as 2 buttons. And, the standard {left, middle, right} are counted as 3 buttons.

For example, the Logitech G9x. They count as 9 programable buttons.

• 3 standard buttons
• 2 mouse wheel tilt left/right.
• 2 thumb buttons
• 2 DPI switch buttons. (on top left)

but actually, for this mouse, only the 2 buttons for thumb is practically useful as custom buttons. All other buttons have important pre-defined functions. If you redefine them, you lose that important function.

Best Hundred-Buttons Mouse

There are quite a few mouses with more than 7 buttons. See: Best Mouse for Programers: 17 Buttons.

Tips for Button Assignment

There are more functions than there are mouse buttons. Here's some tips in button assignment.

First of all, the most important tip for assigning buttons is to put the most frequently used function to the most easy-to-press buttons.

The most needed commands are, roughly from most needed to least:

• Standard left click.
• Standard right click (necessary, because it's used by so many apps).
• Double click. (but you should set your system to use single click instead. See: Single-click Open File in Windows ＆ Linux.)
• Switch to {previous, next} tab.
• Close current tab.
• Switch to last window/app.
• Single click for copy ＆ paste.
• Go Back previous page.

Here's some tips.

• The command for forward page history is comparatively less used. This is by default mapped to a button on mouse. You can remap it for something else.
• The left/right tilt wheel by default is used to scroll left/right. But that's not used much. So, set tilt to something you use more often, such as copy/paste, or previous/next tab.
• The middle click is often hard to press, but in browsers it can be used to open a link in new tap. Quite useful. So, chose a easy-button to do middle click.