Using 5+ button mice/trackballs in DCS?

[grifnizzle]

tl;dr: is there a way to assign mouse button 4, 5, and beyond? More specifically, to functions VR Zoom and VR Spyglass Zoom?

 

So VR is rad. It's certainly a 'compromised' experience and has a bit of a learning curve but love it warts and all. One of the things I found really helpful after watching I think Jabber's video specifically was getting a trackball strapped to my thigh for clicking in the pit. First one I bought was super cheap 2 button set up and worked fine. But as time went on I found myself using HOTAS buttons for things like VR zoom/spyglass zoom and kneeboard/map functions that I wished I could move to something else so I could free up those buttons/switches for things that should actually be on the HOTAS. So I decided to get a fancier 6 button trackball thinking having kneeboard controls on something that actually sits where a kneeboard would would be cool, plus really didn't want to waste any of those precious stick buttons on things that weren't related to making things go boom.

 

However, after hooking up my fancy new trackball, I found that even when I bound mouse button 4, 5, and 6 to various commands, nothing happens. Even more aggravating, controls UI will not let me assign ANY mouse button to either VR zoom or VR spyglass zoom PERIOD. Am i missing something? Is there a way to make this work?? Am I a moron confirmed???

 

Edit: just to be clear, I WAS able to assign mouse button 4, 5, and 6 (in different combinations, tried a couple of different bindings while troubleshooting this) to kneeboard, kneeboard forward and kneeboard back, but even when assigned while pressing those buttons in flight kneeboard never came up. And again, couldn't even get to assign any of those buttons to the aforementioned zoom functions as the option in controls menu simply doesn't seem to exist, could click or right click a thousand times on those lines and nothing comes up to allow the assignment. Standard right and left mice buttons work as normal for clicking things in the pit or menus but that's it, basically has same functionality as my 2 button trackball. Also for the hell of it I tried assigning some of the 12+ buttons on my Corsair gaming mouse (Scimitar Pro if it matters) and same thing, the game seems to only recognize right and left buttons. Is this some kind of limitation of DCS period? Am I SOL?

Edited July 24, 2021 by grifnizzle

[Frederf]

A lot of times the mouse software will convert mouse buttons into special desktop-only actions. Mouse buttons 1-5 are natively supported by Windows and DCS.  Buttons 6 and up are not natively supported and will require some kind of emulation software.

 

By default my Logitech mouse with the support software had set buttons 3-4-5 to special actions and not generic button3, button4, button5 outputs. By changing the setup in the Logitech mouse software I was able to generate these generic button outputs which DCS recognized. For use of buttons 6 and beyond it would be necessary to have mouse software convert to output that DCS can understand like key macro.

 

Thankfully your Corsair mouse software should allow a special profile which detects when DCS.exe is running and in focus which changes mouse profile to a special one you make. By this process it should be possible to assign mouse buttons 1-5 to 5 buttons on your mouse and then 6-? to keyboard commands which can then be set in DCS.

[grifnizzle]

Thanks for the reply. I'll have to see if there's some kind of similar functionality with the trackball. I guess that would be the solution to making VR zoom and Spyglass zoom work as well.