9 ms·

LinearMouse – A minimal app to get rid of scrolling acceleration on macOS

52 points by lujjjh 5y ago

deagle50 5y ago
This is great. Scroll Reverser + scroll acceleration fix in one app. If you can also figure out cursor acceleration, you'll have a hit. The only app that correctly disables cursor acceleration is SteelSeries ExactMouse.
- rosstex 5y ago
  Explain this?
  - deagle50 5y ago
    Which part?
    - rosstex 5y ago
      Oh sorry, I misread this! Nevermind.
- Twixes 5y ago
  +1, ExactMouse is a must for me as a macOS non-Magic mouse user. Would love for this tool to replace SteelSeries's app too.
- jtth 5y ago
  SteerMouse does this just fine, and has for years and years. I can't use a Mac without it.
  - deagle50 5y ago
    I tried SteerMouse in the past and it didn't feel right. ExactMouse feels like Windows.
- akhuchdy 5y ago
  +1, I've also been using the paid Mac app Smooze (smooze.co) to get smooth mousewheel scrolling animation like I get on Linux and Windows out-of-the-box when web browsing and so forth because I haven't found a free app that can do this. And while we're talking about the effort needed to get sane mouse behavior for serious CAD/3D editing/art/gaming, it is way too hard to reliably disable cursor acceleration on Linux. There are at least three different X11 mouse drivers on Ubuntu: the really old one, the evdev one, and the newest libinput one. (I don't even know what you have to do for Wayland... never got there....) So if you web search "disable mouse accel linux" you likely get the wrong directions (at least I did) because you might be using the libinput driver and the instructions you found are for evdev. One unreliable method I tried involves setting a matrix. This at first works and then you eventually discover some apps like Blender develop cursor jump bugs.... So the reliable method is.... If using libinput mouse driver you do something like this: $ xinput --set-prop 'Cooler Master Technology Inc. MM710 Gaming Mouse' 'libinput Accel Profile Enabled' 0, 1 If using evdev mouse driver you do something like this: $ xinput --set-prop 'pointer:Cooler Master Technology Inc. MM710 Gaming Mouse' 'Device Accel Profile' -1 To figure out your mouse name string like the MM710 example I used above you do this: $ xinput --list The number of tweaks I've needed to research and implement for both Mac and Linux are one reason I'm now currently using Windows + WSL for getting stuff done. I want to solve computer science problems more interesting than configuring my mouse and my window manager vsync tearing / compositor issues....
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Thankfully, KDE and Gnome have both added easy settings menus that allow you to toggle this. Not sure how recently it was added, but it sure is a nice addition now that Linux is starting to break into the gaming space, where disabling mouse acceleration is one of the first things you'll probably end up doing.
- lujjjh 5y ago
  Thanks for your suggestion. I've released a new version which could disable cursor acceleration as well.
Jare 5y ago
I have to try this. I already have a reverser (how on earth is this not the default, and not even an OS option to begin with?!?) but scrolling with the wheel on a usb mouse jumps randomly. Crossing fingers this may help there.
- jagger27 5y ago
  You have always been able to reverse the scroll direction in the Mouse/Trackpad options. It’s a checkbox that says “Scroll direction: Natural”. As for your jumping issue that sounds like a hardware problem. It might just be that your mouse wheel is dirty.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    It's struck me as peculiar but with a trackpad or a mouse the "drag down to move screen content up" feels natural, but on a touch-screen, phone, or tablet it's the opposite. So on a Mac I always have to change the default trackpad preference.
    - pimlottc 5y ago
      I think it makes sense for touchscreen scrolling to work the way it does, but for mouse, I don’t think either way is really more natural, it’s just what you’re used to. I used the “old” way in Windows and Linux for years, but it was pretty easy to “relearn” when I switched to Mac.
      - Jare 5y ago
        For me, relearning the scroll direction on the touchpad was trivial, however on the wheel it just never worked at all.
  - Jare 5y ago
    You can reverse on both or neither, but not for just one. That's why there's 3rd party software like this one. Scroll jumping should be a hardware issue but I've swapped mice and same issue; both also work fine on windows. It could be the USB hub, I've still to try something with that, but it sounds... unlikely.
sitzkrieg 5y ago
isnt it kind of ridiculous that these apps have to exist because usable input isnt high on apple's list? like paying fir window snapping is one thing, but non wacky input.. ugh
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- delgaudm 5y ago
  Rectangle [0] is FOSS and may satisfy your window arranging needs. [0] https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I think the larger concern is that the world's most valuable company can't find the time to fix their window manager.
    - rustyemu 5y ago
      It's not really broken, it's just not meant for power users
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Broken might be a bit heavy-handed, but it's not like I'm chiding some tiny mom-and-pop store for writing bad software. This is Apple, a company that has been developing their current operating system for nearly a decade. In that time, the closest their window manager got to a glow-up was the introduction of split-screen tiling. Pretty pathetic if you ask me, which is why I have to install Yabai on every godforsaken Mac I own. I'm not following them into the ARM transition if they don't fix the basics of their OS.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      It’s not ‘broken’ just because it’s not quite designed as you’d like.
jzelinskie 5y ago
I've been using Mos[0] for this. Don't be scared away by the language in the README, it supports an English UI. [0]: https://github.com/Caldis/Mos https://github.com/Caldis/Mos
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  The website[0] has English copy. Unfortunately on mobile the screenshots are cropped in a way I still can’t tell what it does 0: https://mos.caldis.me/ https://mos.caldis.me/
- Shank 5y ago
  Do you know how this compares to the aforementioned SteelSeries ExactMouse Tool?
speedgoose 5y ago
Since the discussion is about making MacOS more usable, do you have something to recommend to switch between windows and not applications using command+tab, and to have a dock that shows all the windows easily, grouped per application. Because the default MacOS windows manager is really crappy when you have more than one window of the same application. I would also enjoy a maximize button that does maximize the window and not create a virtual space with the application in full-screen. I think people at Apple should probably use windows 10 for a few days on a dual screen setup, because MacOS is not very good compared to it. Thankfully it looks like a lot of people produce tools to make it better.
- jmole 5y ago
  Command ` (or Command ~) switches between app windows. You can also use exposé, recently renamed to mission control to view all app windows. It looks like the default key binding for application windows is Control-↑ and for all windows is Control-↓ edit: you can also bind these to mouse buttons in system preferences.
  - speedgoose 5y ago
    Thanks. I should try to rebind the shortcuts to make mission control a bit more convenient to use. I have it in a hot corner, but this is useless on dual screen. Maybe a button on the mouse will be better.
- joombaga 5y ago
  Contexts is a good cmd+tab replacement/supplement. You can try it for free. https://contexts.co/ https://contexts.co/ Hold option while clicking maximize and the window will do what you want.
  - speedgoose 5y ago
    Thanks! Contexts looks like an improvement. It's still missing the window previews though. I had mixed results with the option key pressed while clicking maximize, some apps such as safari gets slightly bigger by a random amount that is probably a failed tentative to guess the optimal size.
burlesona 5y ago
Interesting. I like scrolling acceleration and miss it when using other platforms. I agree it should be a system setting, though. Silly that we need apps for this and for having the mouse and trackpad scrolling to be different.
smoldesu 5y ago
This is one of the reasons I ended up using Linux, it's nice to see that current Mac users don't have to suffer with the asinine mouse controls anymore.
- oneplane 5y ago
  I don't get all the mouse hate. It works fine for me yet I'm not calling other's mouse preferences asinine.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I wouldn't be mad if it was a matter of preference, but Apple doesn't give you the choice to disable acceleration. Across every device I've ever used (even Android phones), I've always been able to disable mouse acceleration. For most people who aren't using a trackpad, it feels imprecise and terrible, and it absolutely doesn't make sense in the age of the modern optical mouse. I'm just tired of Apple refusing to add settings for the most basic options. I want to use MacOS, but Apple keeps removing features that I use religiously and refusing to extend their desktop in ways that compete with the rest of the market. Is it too much to ask them to spend some of their 2 trillion dollar valuation on adding a mouse menu?
    - oneplane 5y ago
      I use a mouse too. I've also started using trackpads more, but for the last 20 years it's been mice in various incarnations (currently a razor deathadder elite), no problems so far. Had a steelseries before that, and a roccat before that, Logitech before that. I suppose the difference is the religious use of a specific configuration. I usually use the same mouse (buy them 2 or 3 at a time) on Linux (Gnome 3 mostly) and Windows. No problems there either. All on mostly default settings, perhaps a little faster tracking speed but that's about it.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > For most people who aren't using a trackpad, it feels imprecise and terrible Are you sure it's for most people? Or just you and some people you know?
ribs 5y ago
I’ve always considered Apple’s scrolling acceleration to be among its most important features. For, like, 30 years. Since the Mac debuted. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that someone out there wants to disable it.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  I like it for some things and not for others. I like choice.
- gruez 5y ago
  Last time I used a mac with a scroll wheel mouse, I found the scroll acceleration to be rage inducing. If I was slowly turning the wheel (eg. reading through an article), it would scroll one or two lines on the screen, or maybe nothing at all. If I scrolled faster the speed would ramp up and cause me to scroll past half the page. All the muscle memory I had from linear scroll wheels (ie. windows/linux) was basically useless. Maybe macs weren't supposed to be used with clicky scroll wheels, or that mac users can somehow get used to it, but I doubt anyone coming from windows/linux could get used to it.
  - monkpit 5y ago
    It feels natural if you’re using Mac hardware, like a Magic Mouse or the trackpad.
    - gruez 5y ago
      maybe my muscle memory is different for touchpads, but the difference between scrollwheel on mac vs windows is significantly more jarring than touchpad on mac vs windows.
  - lilyball 5y ago
    Could your mouse have had built-in scroll acceleration?
    - gruez 5y ago
toomanyducks 5y ago
So it takes a dedicated app to adjust mouse acceleration curves? Is this an accurate reflection of the platform as a whole?
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  It is in general to be used as designed rather than configured, yes. I don’t think I change any configuration options at all in macOS for example - not even the wallpaper.
albertzeyer 5y ago
Funny: I implemented the opposite: A minimal app to increase the scroll acceleration, and also enable scroll acceleration on Linux and Windows. https://github.com/albertz/mouse-scroll-wheel-acceleration-userspace https://github.com/albertz/mouse-scroll-wheel-acceleration-u... I really missed scroll acceleration when switching over from Mac to Linux. Scrolling long web pages or big source code files was so annoying. And just increasing the scroll speed is also not useful, as I still want to have the possibility to only scroll a little bit (pixel by pixel) when I want to. So I really want the dynamic acceleration. This simple tool just implements that in user space, by injecting further scroll events. Later I tested it also on Mac, where it would just increase the acceleration. And after getting used to it, I really like the increased acceleration. There is also a long discussion for libinput on adding mouse wheel acceleration: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/-/issues/7 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/-/issues/7
- rbreaves 5y ago
  I am actually not often bothered by the scroll of a wheel or touchpad on any OS, but I do often need to crank things up on all of them, especially on Windows. I need sensitivity. I am also the author of https://kinto.sh https://kinto.sh so if you want some good mac style keybinds it'll have you covered.
- atoav 5y ago
  I have a scroll wheel with a fly wheel so I just push it hard and break it once I am there.
satya71 5y ago
I want an app to disable mouse acceleration altogether (not just scrolling) in macOS. The mouse acceleration on macOS is just bonkers.
baxuz 5y ago
I've been using SteerMouse to disable scrolling acceleration, which is absolutely atrocious on a Logitech mouse with hyperscroll.

52 points by lujjjh 5y ago

This is great. Scroll Reverser + scroll acceleration fix in one app. If you can also figure out cursor acceleration, you'll have a hit. The only app that correctly disables cursor acceleration is SteelSeries ExactMouse.

rosstex 5y ago
Explain this?
- deagle50 5y ago
  Which part?
  - rosstex 5y ago
    Oh sorry, I misread this! Nevermind.
Twixes 5y ago
+1, ExactMouse is a must for me as a macOS non-Magic mouse user. Would love for this tool to replace SteelSeries's app too.
jtth 5y ago
SteerMouse does this just fine, and has for years and years. I can't use a Mac without it.
- deagle50 5y ago
  I tried SteerMouse in the past and it didn't feel right. ExactMouse feels like Windows.
akhuchdy 5y ago
+1, I've also been using the paid Mac app Smooze (smooze.co) to get smooth mousewheel scrolling animation like I get on Linux and Windows out-of-the-box when web browsing and so forth because I haven't found a free app that can do this. And while we're talking about the effort needed to get sane mouse behavior for serious CAD/3D editing/art/gaming, it is way too hard to reliably disable cursor acceleration on Linux. There are at least three different X11 mouse drivers on Ubuntu: the really old one, the evdev one, and the newest libinput one. (I don't even know what you have to do for Wayland... never got there....) So if you web search "disable mouse accel linux" you likely get the wrong directions (at least I did) because you might be using the libinput driver and the instructions you found are for evdev. One unreliable method I tried involves setting a matrix. This at first works and then you eventually discover some apps like Blender develop cursor jump bugs.... So the reliable method is.... If using libinput mouse driver you do something like this: $ xinput --set-prop 'Cooler Master Technology Inc. MM710 Gaming Mouse' 'libinput Accel Profile Enabled' 0, 1 If using evdev mouse driver you do something like this: $ xinput --set-prop 'pointer:Cooler Master Technology Inc. MM710 Gaming Mouse' 'Device Accel Profile' -1 To figure out your mouse name string like the MM710 example I used above you do this: $ xinput --list The number of tweaks I've needed to research and implement for both Mac and Linux are one reason I'm now currently using Windows + WSL for getting stuff done. I want to solve computer science problems more interesting than configuring my mouse and my window manager vsync tearing / compositor issues....
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Thankfully, KDE and Gnome have both added easy settings menus that allow you to toggle this. Not sure how recently it was added, but it sure is a nice addition now that Linux is starting to break into the gaming space, where disabling mouse acceleration is one of the first things you'll probably end up doing.
lujjjh 5y ago
Thanks for your suggestion. I've released a new version which could disable cursor acceleration as well.

Jare 5y ago

I have to try this. I already have a reverser (how on earth is this not the default, and not even an OS option to begin with?!?) but scrolling with the wheel on a usb mouse jumps randomly. Crossing fingers this may help there.

jagger27 5y ago
You have always been able to reverse the scroll direction in the Mouse/Trackpad options. It’s a checkbox that says “Scroll direction: Natural”. As for your jumping issue that sounds like a hardware problem. It might just be that your mouse wheel is dirty.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  It's struck me as peculiar but with a trackpad or a mouse the "drag down to move screen content up" feels natural, but on a touch-screen, phone, or tablet it's the opposite. So on a Mac I always have to change the default trackpad preference.
  - pimlottc 5y ago
    I think it makes sense for touchscreen scrolling to work the way it does, but for mouse, I don’t think either way is really more natural, it’s just what you’re used to. I used the “old” way in Windows and Linux for years, but it was pretty easy to “relearn” when I switched to Mac.
    - Jare 5y ago
      For me, relearning the scroll direction on the touchpad was trivial, however on the wheel it just never worked at all.
- Jare 5y ago
  You can reverse on both or neither, but not for just one. That's why there's 3rd party software like this one. Scroll jumping should be a hardware issue but I've swapped mice and same issue; both also work fine on windows. It could be the USB hub, I've still to try something with that, but it sounds... unlikely.

sitzkrieg 5y ago

isnt it kind of ridiculous that these apps have to exist because usable input isnt high on apple's list? like paying fir window snapping is one thing, but non wacky input.. ugh

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
delgaudm 5y ago
Rectangle [0] is FOSS and may satisfy your window arranging needs. [0] https://rectangleapp.com/ https://rectangleapp.com/
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I think the larger concern is that the world's most valuable company can't find the time to fix their window manager.
  - rustyemu 5y ago
    It's not really broken, it's just not meant for power users
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Broken might be a bit heavy-handed, but it's not like I'm chiding some tiny mom-and-pop store for writing bad software. This is Apple, a company that has been developing their current operating system for nearly a decade. In that time, the closest their window manager got to a glow-up was the introduction of split-screen tiling. Pretty pathetic if you ask me, which is why I have to install Yabai on every godforsaken Mac I own. I'm not following them into the ARM transition if they don't fix the basics of their OS.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    It’s not ‘broken’ just because it’s not quite designed as you’d like.

jzelinskie 5y ago

I've been using Mos[0] for this. Don't be scared away by the language in the README, it supports an English UI. [0]: https://github.com/Caldis/Mos https://github.com/Caldis/Mos

eyelidlessness 5y ago
The website[0] has English copy. Unfortunately on mobile the screenshots are cropped in a way I still can’t tell what it does 0: https://mos.caldis.me/ https://mos.caldis.me/
Shank 5y ago
Do you know how this compares to the aforementioned SteelSeries ExactMouse Tool?

speedgoose 5y ago

Since the discussion is about making MacOS more usable, do you have something to recommend to switch between windows and not applications using command+tab, and to have a dock that shows all the windows easily, grouped per application. Because the default MacOS windows manager is really crappy when you have more than one window of the same application. I would also enjoy a maximize button that does maximize the window and not create a virtual space with the application in full-screen. I think people at Apple should probably use windows 10 for a few days on a dual screen setup, because MacOS is not very good compared to it. Thankfully it looks like a lot of people produce tools to make it better.

jmole 5y ago
Command ` (or Command ~) switches between app windows. You can also use exposé, recently renamed to mission control to view all app windows. It looks like the default key binding for application windows is Control-↑ and for all windows is Control-↓ edit: you can also bind these to mouse buttons in system preferences.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  Thanks. I should try to rebind the shortcuts to make mission control a bit more convenient to use. I have it in a hot corner, but this is useless on dual screen. Maybe a button on the mouse will be better.
joombaga 5y ago
Contexts is a good cmd+tab replacement/supplement. You can try it for free. https://contexts.co/ https://contexts.co/ Hold option while clicking maximize and the window will do what you want.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  Thanks! Contexts looks like an improvement. It's still missing the window previews though. I had mixed results with the option key pressed while clicking maximize, some apps such as safari gets slightly bigger by a random amount that is probably a failed tentative to guess the optimal size.

burlesona 5y ago

Interesting. I like scrolling acceleration and miss it when using other platforms. I agree it should be a system setting, though. Silly that we need apps for this and for having the mouse and trackpad scrolling to be different.

smoldesu 5y ago

This is one of the reasons I ended up using Linux, it's nice to see that current Mac users don't have to suffer with the asinine mouse controls anymore.

oneplane 5y ago
I don't get all the mouse hate. It works fine for me yet I'm not calling other's mouse preferences asinine.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I wouldn't be mad if it was a matter of preference, but Apple doesn't give you the choice to disable acceleration. Across every device I've ever used (even Android phones), I've always been able to disable mouse acceleration. For most people who aren't using a trackpad, it feels imprecise and terrible, and it absolutely doesn't make sense in the age of the modern optical mouse. I'm just tired of Apple refusing to add settings for the most basic options. I want to use MacOS, but Apple keeps removing features that I use religiously and refusing to extend their desktop in ways that compete with the rest of the market. Is it too much to ask them to spend some of their 2 trillion dollar valuation on adding a mouse menu?
  - oneplane 5y ago
    I use a mouse too. I've also started using trackpads more, but for the last 20 years it's been mice in various incarnations (currently a razor deathadder elite), no problems so far. Had a steelseries before that, and a roccat before that, Logitech before that. I suppose the difference is the religious use of a specific configuration. I usually use the same mouse (buy them 2 or 3 at a time) on Linux (Gnome 3 mostly) and Windows. No problems there either. All on mostly default settings, perhaps a little faster tracking speed but that's about it.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > For most people who aren't using a trackpad, it feels imprecise and terrible Are you sure it's for most people? Or just you and some people you know?

ribs 5y ago

I’ve always considered Apple’s scrolling acceleration to be among its most important features. For, like, 30 years. Since the Mac debuted. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that someone out there wants to disable it.

fartcannon 5y ago
I like it for some things and not for others. I like choice.
gruez 5y ago
Last time I used a mac with a scroll wheel mouse, I found the scroll acceleration to be rage inducing. If I was slowly turning the wheel (eg. reading through an article), it would scroll one or two lines on the screen, or maybe nothing at all. If I scrolled faster the speed would ramp up and cause me to scroll past half the page. All the muscle memory I had from linear scroll wheels (ie. windows/linux) was basically useless. Maybe macs weren't supposed to be used with clicky scroll wheels, or that mac users can somehow get used to it, but I doubt anyone coming from windows/linux could get used to it.
- monkpit 5y ago
  It feels natural if you’re using Mac hardware, like a Magic Mouse or the trackpad.
  - gruez 5y ago
    maybe my muscle memory is different for touchpads, but the difference between scrollwheel on mac vs windows is significantly more jarring than touchpad on mac vs windows.
- lilyball 5y ago
  Could your mouse have had built-in scroll acceleration?
  - gruez 5y ago

toomanyducks 5y ago

So it takes a dedicated app to adjust mouse acceleration curves? Is this an accurate reflection of the platform as a whole?

chrisseaton 5y ago
It is in general to be used as designed rather than configured, yes. I don’t think I change any configuration options at all in macOS for example - not even the wallpaper.

albertzeyer 5y ago

Funny: I implemented the opposite: A minimal app to increase the scroll acceleration, and also enable scroll acceleration on Linux and Windows. https://github.com/albertz/mouse-scroll-wheel-acceleration-userspace https://github.com/albertz/mouse-scroll-wheel-acceleration-u... I really missed scroll acceleration when switching over from Mac to Linux. Scrolling long web pages or big source code files was so annoying. And just increasing the scroll speed is also not useful, as I still want to have the possibility to only scroll a little bit (pixel by pixel) when I want to. So I really want the dynamic acceleration. This simple tool just implements that in user space, by injecting further scroll events. Later I tested it also on Mac, where it would just increase the acceleration. And after getting used to it, I really like the increased acceleration. There is also a long discussion for libinput on adding mouse wheel acceleration: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/-/issues/7 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/libinput/libinput/-/issues/7

rbreaves 5y ago
I am actually not often bothered by the scroll of a wheel or touchpad on any OS, but I do often need to crank things up on all of them, especially on Windows. I need sensitivity. I am also the author of https://kinto.sh https://kinto.sh so if you want some good mac style keybinds it'll have you covered.
atoav 5y ago
I have a scroll wheel with a fly wheel so I just push it hard and break it once I am there.

satya71 5y ago

I want an app to disable mouse acceleration altogether (not just scrolling) in macOS. The mouse acceleration on macOS is just bonkers.

baxuz 5y ago

I've been using SteerMouse to disable scrolling acceleration, which is absolutely atrocious on a Logitech mouse with hyperscroll.