521566 - Using Kensington's Expert Mouse Trackball, "AutoScroll" and "Scroll With Mouse" don't work

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Al Kristy]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.23) Gecko/20090825 SeaMonkey/1.1.18
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.23) Gecko/20090825 SeaMonkey/1.1.18

When I use my trusted Kensington Expert Mouse (Model 64217 – with the largest size ball) regardless of USB or PS/2, when engage either a "Scroll With Mouse" or "AutoScroll", neither works.
This same problem extends 100% to Thunderbird and also to Firefox, but not all the time - at some sites, when you engage Autoscroll, those sites show a small button with UP or Down arrows inside it, and then it works. But at sites, where they don't support it, nothing happens - Kensington' software shows a button with up-down-left-right arrows, but you can't move the curser or scroll/move across the screen in desired direction. SeaMonkey simply doesn't support that.
Interestingly, the older Netscape browsers, i.e. ver. 4.7, 4.8, supported it WONDERFULLY, and you could use simple Scroll-UP or Scroll-DOWN buttons of the mouse even being outside the viewable portion of the screen - meaning, the cursor could be on top of Status Bar, but scrolling options would still be working. With MS Internet Explorer it works flawlessly and at its smoothest, allowing easily scroll/autoscroll/scr.w.mouse inside any scrollable windows of any page. With Thunderbird, contrary to its mail program predecessor Netscape 4.7, when you would be sending a mail and would have to choose the names from the address book, the smoothness of the autoscroll/scroll with mouse was awesome – fast, responsive and having just the right feel – no jerky moves.

In the past you tried to address these issues, but to no avail…
Kensington stayed in contact with me to address the very same problem, did expand on the scrolling options for their driver’s software. 

Now, the problem is with supporting software, such as all incarnations of Mozilla’s Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey

Please, do it this time…

Thank you..

Alex Kritsky
New York

p.s.
In Thunderbird even a regular Scroll-up/down works in EXTREMELY jerky fashion and at times jumps over dozens of messages at a time, rendering it totally useless. I believe the mail client in the Sea Monkey pretty much exhibits the same behavior, prompting to drag the scroll bar instead, making the built-in features of the trackball's driver useless.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.When engaging AutoScroll or Scroll with Mouse (usually by clicking on 2 buttons of the mouse simultaneously)
2.Nothing happens
3.
Actual Results:  
My 4-button mouse is set up in the following way: 
Lower-left = click
Upper left = Right Click
Lower right = Scroll Down
Upper right = Scroll UP
Lower Left+Lower Right (clicked together) = Scroll with Mouse
Upper Left+Upper Right (clicked together) = AutoScroll

Expected Results:  
To be able to smoothly scroll across the page when rotate the ball when physically touch it (in Scroll with Mouse) or do it automatically in Autoscroll, depending on the extent of rotating the ball - often progressively increasing in speed as more rotation of the ball is performed.
I'm using the latest software for the trackball available - this is NOT their latest "BLADE" ball mouse with red ball, but their MouseWorks ver. 6.22.4.1. driver for model# 64217 4-button trackball.

Please inspect the behavior I described earlier, hopefully with the older versions of the Netscape v. 4.xx / Internet Explorer (v.6.0.) for comparison and understand the problem and finding the easiest solution to remedy this anomaly.
Themes have no relevance on this issue as the built, as I experience it on more than one system.
about:buildconfig

Build platform

target
i686-pc-mingw32

Build tools
Compiler 	Version 	Compiler flags
cl 	14.00.50727.762 	-GL -wd4624 -wd4952 -TC -nologo -W3 -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE)
cl 	14.00.50727.762 	-GR- -GL -wd4624 -wd4952 -TP -nologo -Zc:wchar_t- -W3 -Gy -Fd$(PDBFILE)

Configure arguments
--enable-application=browser --enable-update-channel=release --enable-optimize --disable-debug --disable-tests --enable-update-packaging --enable-official-branding --enable-jemalloc --with-crashreporter-enable-percent=10

Comment 1

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Can you reproduce with SeaMonkey v2.0rc1?

Are you looking for a specific (= which ?) fix to SeaMonkey?
Or are you reporting a Core issue?

Comment 2

[Al Kristy]

I do believe it is both -- a CORE issue and in need of a FIX -- in particular, if ALL of the  Mozilla family browsers and mail client programs stopped SUPPORTING THE SCROLLING FUNCTIONS OF THE MOUSE. 

Would YOU classified it as "in need of a fix" or as having a "CORE issue" if NONE of your current line of products worked with a particularly famous brand of (fancy and most expensive) mice, but its predecessors (Netscape 4.xx) and standard XP components (Internet Explorer, Word, etc.) did with no problem? 

Incidentally, a director of school for some of our handicapped clients we work with at a Special Ed facility, who after having been shown the setting for the buttons, had them used for all of the trackballs throughout her facility, and used it ever since for years. She just recently commented on your R&D team rather negatively for ending the support of these functions, as all of the clients/patients of her school are wheelchair-bound and having both, an Auto-scroll and Scroll with Mouse, were utilized to improve and treat children’s learning disabilities and aid with their cognitive functions and daily reading routine... We agreed…

You could start with a "fix" and see where it takes you or if it remedies the problem -- you'd know right away... If not, then it's a tad deeper than just a “fix”.

Thank you.

Comment 3

[Phoenix]

Is this still reproducible?

Comment 4

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard