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Trackball Options
The trackball has several options for the action that the buttons initiate when the trackball is not being mapped by the Control Manager. The available functions are in the following list, followed by an explanation of what each does.

Option Action
None No Action
Left Button Activates the Left Mouse Button
Right Button Activates the Right Mouse Buttons
Middle Button Activates the Middle Mouse Button
Drag Lock Set Drag Lock Mode
Double Click Sends a Double Click on the Left Button
Scroll Enables the Y axis to act as a mouse wheel
Scroll Lock Same as Scroll but latched
Double Click Sends a Double Click on the Left Button

"None" causes the button to do nothing at all.

The "Left Button", "Right Button", and "Middle Button" simply set the selected button to act as the indicated button.

The "Double Click" option causes the button to send a Double-Click on the left button to the system.

The "Drag Lock" option closes and holds the left mouse button down until any button is clicked. The effect is like "dragging" with the left mouse button held down.

Selecting "Scroll" causes Z-axis pulses to be sent by the Y-axis while the button is held down. Set this way, rolling the trackball up or down will send pulses like a mouse wheel which can be used for scrolling, etc. like any other wheel mouse. When the button is released, the TrackBall goes back to its normal X/Y mode.

The "Scroll Lock" option works like the "Scroll" option but scrolling is latched on until another button is pressed. This is useful when you're doing a lot of scrolling, you don't need to hold the button down.

Note that with either of scrolling options, the X-axis is still active and so the cursor can be moved left and right on the screen if desired.

Also note that the scroll axis does not respond as a regular mouse axis. It generates far fewer pulses for a given ball rotation than either the X-axis or the Y-axis do when operated normally. Depending on the application and some Windows settings, the scroll rate is generally two or three lines of text for a single mouse pulse which necessitates the slow pulse rate.

Setting the Options

Setting the trackball options is accomplished through the GUI Test/Calibrate button. The trackball doesn't need real calibration, so its slot is used for setting the options. The Control Manager must be in Direct Mode for the options to be available, If the Control Manager is in Mapped Mode, the only thing available through the Test/Calibrate button will be Control Manager Devices.

To access the Trackball Setup Applet, click the Test/Calibrate button in the GUI with the Control Manager in Direct Mode. You should see the list of detected devices as usual, the TrackBall Pro should be among them. Select it normally and you should see the Trackball Setup Applet. It looks like this:


Operation is quite straightforward. To the right side of the applet are where the options are set. The upper section is where the button functions are set. Each of the four buttons has its own drop-down lists from which you can choose the function you want the button to perform.

Below the button assignments section there is a section for setting some axes pertaining to the axes. Three settings are involved. The first is that for "X/Y Rate". This generally sets the sensitivity for the mouse X and Y axes.

Below the X/Y Rate box is one labeled "Z Rate". This edit box sets the sensitivity for the Z-axis scroll wheel function. It is kept separate because of the differences in sensitivity between the X/Y and Z axes noted above.

Finally, there is a box labeled "Rotation". This can only be set in 90-degree increments and rotates the sense of the trackball so that, at 0-degrees rotation, up is up, whereas at 90-degrees rotation, up is right, etc. Useful in some situation where the trackball cannot be positioned with the most ideal orientation.