Swap Mouse Buttons: Right-Click ＆ Middle-Click for {Window, Linux}

Another input device productivity tip: Swap your right button and middle button's actions.

Why You Should Swap Right-Click ＆ Middle-Click

Why? The right-click action is not much used, and middle-click is much useful. And right button is much easier to press than pressing the mouse wheel.

The right-click almost always activates a context menu. For majority of people, that's mostly used in browser, and not very often.

The mouse wheel button by default does several more useful things in all major browsers:

• Click on a link to open it in new tab.
• Click on a tab to close it. (no need to aim for that little X.)
• Click on a empty spot to start auto-scroll. Useful for fast scroll (faster than mouse-wheel) and for scrolling a large image sideways. (on Linux, Firefox, you need to turn on autoscroll. 〔➤ Firefox: Set Mouse Wheel Scroll Speed, Backspace for Previous Page, Autoscroll〕 〔➤ Linux: AutoScroll on Google Chrome Browser〕)

How to swap right-button ＆ middle-button?

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft and Logitech Mouse

If you have Microsoft mouse, its bundled software IntelliPoint can easily do that. Just go to Control Panel, find the mouse icon.

Logitech mouse also has bundled software that lets you swap easily.

Using AutoHotkey

You can use AutoHotkey. Here's the AutoHotkey code to swap:

$RButton::MButton
$MButton::RButton

Create this file, save it as swap_buttons.ahk, and you need to tell AutoHotkey to start it when your computer starts. For how, see: AutoHotkey Tutorial.

Linux

See: Linux: How to Swap Mouse Buttons.

Ban Double Click

You should also make everything single-click. See:

• Single-click Open File in Windows ＆ Linux
• Mouse Hover to Auto-Raise Window