Wheel Mouse

[stac_1]

I have a Logitech Wheel Mouse that worked fine using Filemaker v.6 in system 9 but won't work with Filemaker v.6 in OS X... I have contacted Logitech and they promise that it is the application not the mouse... Will Filemaker v.6 work with any wheel mouse?

[Kurt Knippel]

As far as I know, although I have not tested it in OS X. Does the wheel work correctly in other applications?

[BobWeaver]

When you say it doesn't work, do mean just the wheel part doesn't work, or nothing works?

Did you install the driver under OSX?

[stac_1]

The Wheel Mouse works in the following OS X applications, Internet Explorer, my Mac Mail application, the address book, ichat, Photoshop, Excell, Word and Illustrator. I loaded the driver provided with the mouse from Logitech and I am able to program it using the system preferences in OS X. Is there something that I might be missing?

[BobWeaver]

If it works with other applications, then it sounds like a Filemaker problem.

[Bob White]

I assumed it to be so. I use MacAlly mouses on both of my Mac's. The scroll wheel functions just fine in every OSX app I use except FMP6. And this is with MacAlly's OSX drivers installed. However, this is just an annoyance. I miss the toolbar much more than this scrolling!!

The scrolling works fine on my Windoze NT box with FMP6 at work.

[BobWeaver]

Okay, I have to ask. Why are you running OSX rather than OS9? I haven't really heard of any good reasons for using OSX so far. Well, I guess there is the pretty aqua interface.

I really don't mean this as a snide remark. I truly am curious why so many people are using what appears to me to be a half-baked operating system when OS9 still seems to do everything better and faster. I fired up OSX about a year ago and ran it for about a week until I realized that about the only thing I could do better was web browse with OmniWeb ( which is the best browser I've ever seen BTW).

And when I say "half-baked" I truly believe that if they put it back in the oven for a little longer it will eventually be wonderful, but meanwhile it's still a bit gooey inside.

[stac_1]

I agree with you about OS X being half baked...Unfortunately, I am the "Tech Support" person at work (which is a printing/prepress company) so I get to "test" all the new stuff to "check compatibility". I have struggled with OS X for about 5 months now and in my opinion, it needs work. There are things that we are being forced to live with and work-arounds that seem redundant to OS 9. One of the good things that i have found is speed in accessing files from a Windows Server.

Thanks for trying... I guess I am stuck with "another work-around"

;-)

[BobWeaver]

I generally allow about a year after any major change to an operating system before I even think about installing it. With OSX I'm thinking of revising that to at least 2 years.

[Bob White]

With the single exception of OSX 10.0, I have always been a early adopter starting with upgrading from System 5 to System 6. (In that exceptional case, I waited for 10.1.) Relative to moving ahead on system levels, you take the conservative approach of letting other people work out the problems. I suppose that I'm one of those other people. I didn't play with 10.0 because, as you put it, it was half baked. OS 10.1 was much better and 10.2 has pretty much solved earlier version problems. (Shoot! No system is perfect.)

Another reason is that I have been, for many years, in leadership positions in a 1,200+ member Mac User Group. I have a definite need to keep ahead of most of the crowd because I'm one of the so-called guru's who can answer lots of the how-do-you-do-this type of questions. And I was also the "Mac guy" for supporting the small number of Mac's at my job.

The most compelling reason is that once I've learned the current system, I want to explore and learn the next new one. P.S. It is probably time that you took another look at OSX -- and give it more than one week. Most of the baking is done.

[BobWeaver]

I certainly don't intend to stay with OS9 forever, but I have a bunch of expensive software that will need to be upgraded when I do, unless I want to run everything in classic mode (but then why switch to OSX in that case).

To be honest, I'm really surprised about OSX. Apple's been working on it for years, and they have had a pretty good reputation for not releasing a product until it's working well.

If I had a spare computer, I would have installed OSX on it long ago, but I just don't have the time to fool around with it on my main computer when I need to get work done.

[falkaholic]

FYI: OSX uses a general mouse driver that supports up to 2 buttons and 1 scroll wheel. Any mouse you plug in (even PC ones) work. In 10.2 you can even adjust the scroll speed in the system mouse prefs.

[Bob White]

Re: "I certainly don't intend to stay with OS9 forever, but I have a bunch of expensive software that will need to be upgraded when I do, unless I want to run everything in classic mode (but then why switch to OSX in that case)."

Again, it's a difference in attitude. I figure, irregardless of system upgrades, I'm going to end up upgrading those other programs because they come out with upgrades. As often as not, I will skip an upgrade if there is nothing substantial enough to warrant my spending hard earned dollars. BUT the point is I will eventually upgrade, so I treat system upgrades and program upgrades as separate issues.

On a different level of thought, you can have both systems on the same machine. In fact, many Mac "experts" recommend partitioning your hard drive and installing OSX one partition and OS9 on the other. Then you can have it both ways since you can boot from either partition. When set up this way, you can keep all the OS9 applications on the OS9 partition and you can run them either from OSX Classic or directly when you boot up in OS9. (Example of usage: I have Photoshop 6 installed on the OS9 partition. If I just need to open something, make a change or two and save, I'll open Photoshop via Classic. If I'm going to spend several hours playing in Photoshop, I'll reboot in OS9. Photoshop 7 is an example of not enough change for me to want to spend my dollars.) This is allowing me to change over at my own pace (at least until it comes time to buy a new Mac which won't be able to boot from OS9).

[BobWeaver]

I agree. I have both OS9 and OSX installed on my computer, but have no real reason to run OSX. Filemaker runs much faster on OS9. The other applications that I use have only come out with compatibility upgrades. That is, they brought out new versions just so they would run on OSX, but no new features. So, like you, I'm skipping these upgrades until they actually bring out something with new features. Also, there are no working OSX drivers for either of my printers. Meanwhile, I still have work that needs to get done. If I wanted a computer that I'm always tinkering with to make it work, I could get a PC/Windows machine for a lot less money.

Kind of got off the topic here didn't' we.

Stac_1, did you ever get the wheel mouse to work?

[stac_1]

Unfortunately, the wheel part of my wheel mouse still doesn't work in Filemaker :-(

Thanks for the great commentary!

S.