February 3, 2007
Getting Logitech’s MX Revolution to Play Nice with Mac OSX
imagined by: James Mathias
Recently I purchased an MX Revolution wireless mouse by Logitech for my Intel iMac. My purchase was based partly on being unhappy with my previous mouse, partly on wanting something wireless, partly because several of my online friends said it was awesome, and mostly cause I think it’s damn sexy. So I made the one hundred dollar plunge and came home with my new mouse, got it un-boxed—purposefully not filming the process—plugged in the charger base, read the instructions, which told me to download the Logitech Control Center to configure all the new buttons on my shiny—not furry—mouse buddy. This is precisely where my elation turned to despair, the “LCC” did not in fact configure anything. But, instead just crashed and crashed some more. Nothing I did fixed the issue, until I discovered a sweet little driver on the Apple download site.
SteerMouse is exactly what it claims and nothing more, and best of all it works, and well.
I wanted to give you a little more than just my recommendation, so sit back and relax, cause I’ve put together a little walkthrough for using this great system preference pane, with your new MX Revolution.
The MX Revolution is an amazing mouse, but unfortunately due to Logitech’s shortsightedness we Mac owners have been left “out to dry” when it comes to solid support for this great piece of technology, their personal offering (Logitech Control Center) is little more than an insulting joke. Enter SteerMouse.
With SteerMouse, you can—not only—map all of the buttons and wheels on your new ultimate mouse, but you can also remap the mouse for any of your installed applications; mail, photoshop, text-mate, et al.
This functionality allows me to not only improve my productivity in Mac OSX, but in my normal workflow as well, and saves me from repetitively flicking my wrist all over my massive dual 20 inch monitors.
Unfortunately, the draw back to using SteerMouse is the buttons aren’t labeled for any specific mice, instead they’re labeled buttons 4 - 16. The MX Revolution doesn’t have 13 mappable buttons, but it does have quite a few, so I’ve mapped them out for you.
Button 4 maps to the forward arrow button on the thumb-side
Button 5 maps to the backward arrow button on the thumb-side
Button 6 maps to the “Quick Search” button
Button 7 maps to the tilt wheel left
Button 8 maps to the tilt wheel right
Button 9 maps to the thumb wheel pushing forward
Button 11 maps to the thumb wheel pulling backward
Button 13 maps to the thumb wheel clicking downward
Buttons 10, 12, 14, 15 and 16 are unused by the MX Revolution.
SteerMouse also allows you to adjust the speed of the scroll wheel, left, right and middle click functions, tilt wheel speed and cursor tracking speeds and acceleration.
In order to map buttons to a specific app, click on the drop down menu at the top of the configure pane and choose “Add/Remove Applications” this will open a new dialogue window, click the “add…” button and choose your desired app, then click “choose”.
Clicking choose will add your chosen app to the app list window, click “OK” to close the window or “add…” to keep adding.
After an app is added you can choose it from the drop down and start mapping your mouse buttons for that app, any buttons you want to leave the same as the default mapping can be mapped to “Same as Default”.
I hope this helps, my fellow MX Revolution brethren get the most out of their new “right hand”.
Getting Logitech’s MX Revolution to Play Nice with Mac OSX
- 02.3.07 at 10:58pmthrown down:
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52 comments
Feb. 04, 2007 (12:33am) [#1]
Kennedy
Wow, that looks awesome! I’m so tempted now.. although I need a new keyboard first. Thanks for the info =).
Feb. 04, 2007 (12:38am) [#2]
Jeff Smith
Very handy article, thanks James. I haven’t had any problems with LCC yet (only got my MX today), but I may look into Steermouse anyway.
Feb. 04, 2007 (12:56am) [#3]
James Mathias
Kennedy, it’s definitely a good mouse.
Jeff, yeah a couple others have said they haven’t had an issue with LCC either, but I couldn’t get it to work, and found the link to SteerMouse on Mac Update in the comments for LCC, as others had experienced the same thing. I wish I’d been able to get the LCC to work, but it wasn’t in the stars.
Feb. 04, 2007 (10:53am) [#4]
Matt Brett
Very nice James. I’ve had LCC crash on me a couple times, but nothing that prevented me from being able to setup my mouse properly.
One thing I’m wondering about is the ability to toggle between free scroll and the standard click scroll. Does SteerMouse cover this? I have mine set to free scroll unless I manually invoke click scroll by clicking on the wheel. But I know some people would probably have it switch automatically between apps.
One thing I haven’t been able to get working is app switching using the thumb wheel. Mind you, I haven’t put any effort into finding a solution, but something I noticed didn’t seem to work out of the box with LCC.
Feb. 04, 2007 (12:54pm) [#5]
James Mathias
Hi Matt,
Yeah, LCC crashed on me every time I launched it, wouldn’t even let me make a single configuration change.
SteerMouse seems to handle the free scroll fine, although I’m not able to toggle between free and click scroll, which I only realized after you pointed it out.
I use expose, so the application switcher wasn’t a big deal for me, although with SteerMouse you can map the app switcher to any button you want including the thumb wheel.
Feb. 09, 2007 (11:36pm) [#6]
Shawn Grimes
Well, I got my MX Revolution and installed the LCC. It crashed and crashed some more. It was very inconsistant and just all around bad for me so I feel your pain. I did try SteerMouse as you suggested and it is working great. The only thing that bothers me is I can’t switch to smooth scroll or anything now :-/ All my other buttons are configured though. Also as we chatted about on IM, it states on the Steermouse website that it is only a 15 day trial till you have to buy it. Not sure what I’m going to do at this point.
Feb. 10, 2007 (12:04pm) [#7]
James Mathias
Yeah, I’m not sure what I’ll do yet either, I might use another app that Derek suggested, as it’s cheaper and seems to have more options, the downside is it doesn’t seem as user friendly.
It sucks about the LCC.
Mar. 07, 2007 (3:34pm) [#8]
free
Awesome! Thanks for the tip! I was totally dissapointed with the facty that the thumb wheel was pretty useless with Logitech’s implementation. Zooming useing “-” and “plus” doesn’t work anywhere in OS X. Steermouse let me set up the thumbwheel to zoom in and out using Universal Access in the System Preferences to zoom the whole screen. Killer! Thanks again.
Mar. 19, 2007 (1:40am) [#9]
Reg
With the latest update, Logitech’s LCC wasn’t crashing for me. However, the way it’s written causes the Mac OS X “update_prebindin” process to start after every boot, and it carries trhough for both Universal Binary and PowerPC modes. Normally, this process should only launch when new apps have been installed or reconfigured.
It consumes memory, which is given back once finished, but more importantly means the hard drive is crunching away for 30 seconds after booting, making the computer unresponsive because the drive is tied up doing other things.
SteerMouse is far cleaner in its operation. Sadly, the MX Revolution free-wheel scrolling (see SteerMouse support page for how to place the mouse in free-spin mode) doesn’t seem as smooth when gliding through long web pages.
I’m facing a dilemma - smooth gliding and bloated, annoying driver software, or basic scrolling and an optimal driver.
Going to try SteerMouse for a while.
Mar. 19, 2007 (1:21pm) [#10]
James Mathias
Hi Reg,
yeah I had a similar problem with the scroll wheel, but then I had a worse issue when the steer mouse trial expired. It crashed my mac.
So I switched to controllermate
Cheaper, faster, more flexible, doesn’t interfere with the smooth scroll.
Mar. 20, 2007 (1:56am) [#11]
Reg
I checked out ControllerMate (and got very confused!) but I don’t think it’s the answer to smooth scrolling with the MX Revolution. What Logitech have done to achieve nice scrolling is bundle the Unsanity Application Enhancer module “LCC Scroll Enhancer.” This improves Mac OS X’s handling of special scroll wheels such as the MX, particularly in apps such as Safari.
Without something like this, I don’t think any mouse driver can provide the “gliding” experience of spinning through long web pages with frictionless, stutter-free control.
What I’ve done to improve my particular problem is install the Logitech LCC 2.1.3, then updated to the latest version of Unsanity APE, which is currently 2.0.3. (Logitech installed 2.0.2.)
This seems to have cured the “update_prebindin” issue, and the machine is now snappy and responsive immediately after boot, but most importantly I can glide through web pages with ease using the wonderful frictionless scrollwheel.
However, I’m keeping an eye on Activity Monitor and I’ll keep SteerMouse in reserve if the problem comes back.
Mar. 20, 2007 (2:02am) [#12]
James Mathias
I promise that it takes full advantage of the smooth scrolling, I use it everyday.
Mar. 21, 2007 (3:46am) [#13]
Reg
ControllerMate seems powerful, but while I was able to install it, have it working with the mouse, and started configuring actions in response to different mouse buttons, getting it configured for smooth scrolling must have been a bit beyond me.
I’m not sure we are talking about the same thing though. Does it really give the smooth, “coast-to-a-stop” scrolling that the Logitech install provides? (To test, open up a complex news page such as the NYT and give a slight finger spin on the wheel. The page should scroll down smoothly, and slowly come to a stop. There should be no juddering or stop-start changes in motion.)
Because, as far as I know, this isn’t actually a function of the mouse driver, it’s provided by a separate process (namely, the scroll enhancer).
Howerver, I’m certainly open to the ControllerMate recommendation if it can achieve the same thing. Maybe you need a new blog entry: setting up ControllerMate for MX Revolution nirvana!
Mar. 21, 2007 (11:35am) [#14]
James Mathias
I’m 100% aware of the difference between smooth scrolling and standard scroll wheel behavior.
My scroll wheel works as intended with smooth scrolling that I can switch to standard scrolling by clicking the scroll wheel.
I didn’t have to configure anything in controllermate to get this to work properly. I did however, install the controllermate plugin for the MX revolution, which may or may not have added the functionality you claim is missing from controllermate by default.
Mar. 23, 2007 (4:23am) [#15]
Reg
Okay, I’ve done some further checks, including uninstalling other drivers & re-installing ControllerMate with its associated MX Revolution module, and we do indeed seem to have been talking at cross purposes.
I was using the term “smooth scrolling” when I should have perhaps been clearer about a software enhanced scollbar movement. What you thought I was referring to was the free-spinning feature of the MX Revolution’s scroll wheel.
Enhanced scrolling != free-spinning.
The latter is a feature of the MX Revolution mouse and a mode which the driver can engage or disengage.
But enhanced scrolling goes a step further and actually changes the Mac OS X scroll behavior to better coordinate with a frictionless wheel.
Although both SteerMouse (with a Terminal command)and ControllerMate do allow the MX Revolution to engage the free-spinning mode of the scrollwheel, they don’t install anything which provides this enhanced scroll effect.
The benefit is subtle, but very hard to give up when you compare the system with and without it.
(It is actually the Unsanity Application Enhancer which provides this behavior, and as mentioned, updating it to the later version than installed by Logitech is highly recommended.)
So, until I have any more trouble, I’ve reinstalled LCC and will continue to glide through Safari pages with ease!
Mar. 23, 2007 (10:02am) [#16]
James Mathias
Whatever you say. I’ve got smooth scrolling working, I know the difference. So each to his own I suppose.
Mar. 24, 2007 (4:10pm) [#17]
Tom
Hi James, I found your site and article because I am getting an MX Revolution as a replacement from Logitech for my MX1000 which has a non-responsive middle click now. I have a few questions which I am not sure of and I’d love the input if you have the time:
1. I’m not sure if I am following or not, but am I correct in understanding that with the LCC, there is no way to reassign the scroll wheel’s push function to a middle click? I don’t need the fast fly free scroll function.
2. Does the scroll wheel also click to the left and right (tilt) and can I assign those tilts to functions or keystrokes as well?
3. I have USB Overdrive already, but I have heard that it does not recognize a lot of the buttons on the Revolution. Can anyone confirm which buttons? I would rather not have to pay for another program if the one I have works already.
4. The thumb wheel click down function; can I assign that to anything using LCC or will I still need to have Steer Mouse or Overdrive?
5. Basically, what i would like is a setup similar to my MX1000: A Middle click, a button for Expose (show Desktop), Expose (Show all Windows), Dashboard, Foward, Backward, and if able Scroll Left and Scroll Right.
It seems like if I want all of this, I cannot use just the LCC (even though the LCC does work this way perfectly with my MX1000… until the stupid middle click crapped out on me!)
It seems ridicuolus that Logitech would not update their software for Macs with new mice! has anyone ever tried writing them and seeing what their answer was? Sorry for the length of this. Very nervous about getting the replacement and wishing they just had a MX1000 in stock for me. Can anyone put my fears to rest? Thanks!
Mar. 25, 2007 (12:18am) [#18]
James Mathias
Tom, I’m not a Logitech expert, so I don’t have the answers for you. I’m sorry. In fact I stopped using steermouse since I wrote this article due to some bad customer service and software issues.
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.
Mar. 25, 2007 (12:44am) [#19]
Tom
No problem, James. Maybe someone else has an answer. If not, I’ll just have to wait and see how it works when I get it “in 7 to 10 business days”.
Mar. 25, 2007 (12:55pm) [#20]
James Mathias
Anyone is open to answering, I hope you get your answers. I think you’ll like the MX revolution it is really nice.
Apr. 02, 2007 (4:54pm) [#21]
djangone
My MX Revolution is just plain goofy. It brings up the Zoom feature of Universal Access when I combine a few key commands that I use regularly in Cinema 4D. I’m still not sure which keystrokes are doing it, and it doesn’t involve the thumbwheel. Nothing in Google world about this problem.
Even funnier, the way to stop the Zoom is to turn Zooming ON in preferences. Then it’ll happen again, and I turn Zooming OFF. Repeat process. It’s kinda funny the first fifty times, but sadly the humor has worn off, and I’m ready to throw this mouse through a plate glass window.
Apr. 11, 2007 (4:13pm) [#22]
Tom
Thanks for this page, it helped me a lot after finding out just how much LCC sucks.
Also an update: The 3.6 version of SteerMouse has a nice feature that shows you which button is which when you click it. No need to guess anymore.
Apr. 22, 2007 (5:19pm) [#23]
Patric
Here’s a simple way to get the fast scroll wheel to work:
1. Turn on the mouse.
2. When the wheel is in “click”/“one row at a time” mode, it will automatically go to “fast scroll” mode if you scroll it quickly. scroll it as quick as you can!
3. When you feel that it spins quickly and fast spin is engaged - turn the mouse OFF on the button under the mouse.
4. Stop the wheel
5. Turn ON the mouse
Voila! You now have a mouse wheel with fast scroll.
May. 06, 2007 (4:25pm) [#24]
Michael
Logitech has released a new driver set 2.1.4 (05-04-07) that has so far cured the issues I was having with my Macbook pro and a VX revolution. Issues? daily kernal panics and lost button assignments. I haven’t had a kernal panic in the 36 hours I have had the driver installed nor have I had any button assingments lost. Perhaps this is a complete cure?
May. 07, 2007 (12:46am) [#25]
Michael
I spoke too soon. When I removed the receiver dongle before placing my macboo pro to sleep, OS-X crashed. Although I still don’t feel like I am in XP land, I am bitterly disappointed that I have to wonder when the next use of my spiffy mouse will cause my system to crash moments before I badly need information. At least a mouse driver didn’t cause XP to crash
May. 07, 2007 (9:25pm) [#26]
James Mathias
Michael,
I’m gun shy to try any drivers by logitech after the original fiasco. But thanks for the heads up and then confirmation of the suck.
May. 11, 2007 (9:40am) [#27]
rc
thanks, just got mine today and this helps a ton!!! nice designwork btw
May. 17, 2007 (3:31pm) [#28]
Jackson
What are you using in place of SteerMouse now? I’m having a lot of “fun” trying to find something to let me handle the MX Revolution that doesn’t do weird stuff like constantly switch the scroll wheel back to free spin mode.
LCC is out of the question, it doesn’t recognize the MX Revolution NOR the S530 keyboard I have plugged in right now.
May. 17, 2007 (6:07pm) [#29]
James Mathias
Hi Jackson. here is the answer to your inquiry
Jun. 20, 2007 (7:23pm) [#30]
Bit
Awesome! Thank you so much. I love the Revo but didn’t love the scrolling until now… SteerMouse.
Jun. 25, 2007 (11:18pm) [#31]
Michael
Not sure if anyone is still reading this but for those that have installed the 10.4.10 update, have you noticed that the kernal panics have disappeared? I haven’t had one since I installed it last week. I have even tried inducing one to no avail. I’ll be ready to cry “Hallelujah!” after a week or so.
Jun. 26, 2007 (3:51pm) [#32]
Darren
so im a bit confused here james, read the article and checked out the comments, should i go with steermouse or not? what are you using now? help me out bro.
Jun. 26, 2007 (6:04pm) [#33]
Oronet Commander
Yes, I have had many kernel panics (to the point of getting rid of the VX revolution) after upgrading to 10.4.10
Jun. 26, 2007 (11:24pm) [#34]
James Mathias
Darren I use ControllerMate now. Steermouse did me wrong. I actually need to update this post, I never expected it to get so much traffic.
Jul. 08, 2007 (12:11am) [#35]
Michael
Alright. Has anyone noticed that with the upgrade to 10.4.10 and the subsequent audio patch that they have lost the ability to use the back/forward buttons? I did on my VX revolution - I had been using the standard Apple mouse driver and just gave up on using the other buttons on the mouse. So I caved and installed the “latest” version of the LCC - 222. Here’s hoping that there is good luck with that number. I’ll report back in a week.
Jul. 09, 2007 (10:54pm) [#36]
Pix
So LCC 2.2.2 is out couple days ago… I wonder if it still makes the osx crash?
Because not having the ability to switch between free scroll and click scroll is bugging me. I hate how it does it automatically. If i scroll too fast it just switches to free scroll and over scrolls >.
Jul. 12, 2007 (10:56pm) [#37]
Michael
So far so good. What I noticed though is every time you remove and replace the dongle you get a XP like message saying that the VX mouse has been detected. Not sure if I need to be told the obvious (this is why I left Windows land!) but if it makes it play nice with OS-X, so be it.
Jul. 14, 2007 (12:33pm) [#38]
Pix
Good to hear!!! I might just jump back to using LCC because Steermouse won’t let me manually change free scroll and click scroll
Jul. 19, 2007 (10:03pm) [#39]
Michael
No crashes and it is almost two weeks after I installed the 222 drivers. Looks like Logitech finally “cured” the OS-X kernal panic issue. I can remove and replace the dongle at will, sleep and “unsleep” the laptop without having a kernal panic! yah!!!!!!
Jul. 20, 2007 (8:28pm) [#40]
Andrew Carter
I have had a very good out-of-the-box experience with LCC 2.2.2. No crashes and I’m impressed with the depth of configuration options. You can configure per application. I wish you could export your configuration since I have a MX Rev at home and at work on two machines.
Jul. 29, 2007 (1:37pm) [#41]
Pix
I just installed LCC 2.2.2 but somehow when I click on LCC in system preferences it would say “No Logitech Device Found”.
Could it be that I have 10.4.10?
Aug. 01, 2007 (11:57pm) [#42]
Tim
If you don’t like the LCC notification messages and want to be rid of them (say, if you use VMware Fusion and are sick of seeing the CapsLock Off notification every time you move your mouse in or out of a VM) your solution lies here.
I second that I’ve had no major problems with LCC v2.2.2 (although my MBP crashed once when switching my KVM back to it - could have been LCC, I just don’t know).
Does anybody else find the acceleration annoying? My MX Rev responds like a dream in XP; in OS X the acceleration profile is exponential - when it’s slow, it’s very slow. It makes it feel like the mouse is lazy or dragging and it’s incredibly off-putting and I constantly have to pick my mouse up to move it back on the mousepad. Is there a solution for it?
Aug. 08, 2007 (7:04am) [#43]
Maarten
You’ve been a great help!
SteerMouse works fine, now for me to optimize my new MX Rev. Thanx for taking the effort of writing these intructions!
Aug. 09, 2007 (4:46am) [#44]
gt
Awesome. More than awesome… SUPER AWESOME.
I really did want to use that side “scroll wheel” in WoW…
Sep. 10, 2007 (5:16pm) [#45]
Michael
Tim,
Having the same issue with VMWare and the constant capslock warnings from the Logitech driver. Wondering if there is a solution that will silence the messages?
I can’t believe that I haven’t had a single kernal panic since I installed 2.2.2 a few months ago. Bravo!
Oct. 26, 2007 (6:17pm) [#46]
Tara Johnson
i just bought the MX Revolution and was so psyched to find your little tip about SteerMouse. Thanks so much!
Nov. 03, 2007 (5:43pm) [#47]
Jayson
WOW! What a heap of time this saved… Thank you SO MUCH!
Nov. 15, 2007 (8:33am) [#48]
grandma
I’ve just bought an MX Revolution mouse for my new 24-inch Intel iMac and have already uninstalled the Logitech LCC set-up software in favour of Steermouse. My problem is that clicking twice on the left click button has no effect at all. I’ve set the right button to double click but this isn’t good enough, especially for my work in QuarkXPress. Does anyone know what I’m doing wrong, please?
Apr. 06, 2008 (12:22pm) [#49]
Salman
Great stuff. I had all kinds of issues with LCC. It would go in and out as far as recognizing my MX Revolution. Now, with SteerMouse I am good to go with all buttons working like a champ. Thanks.
May. 11, 2008 (1:41am) [#50]
Cobleaudio
You are a friggin genius !
Thanks BIG TIME, I was just getting ready to Bootcamp this box to Vista Premium 64 bit when I found your awesome site. Now the MX is ready for Mac.
Thanks again James!
May. 13, 2008 (10:43am) [#51]
Henrik
Ok, this may be stupid to ask (I’ve read all comments, but just need to double check before removing LCC in favor to evaluate Steermouse
Q: Is there a way to set click-to-click and free-spin modes separately, on a per-applicatoin basis? I.e. having different modes in different apps?
May. 13, 2008 (5:25pm) [#52]
Henrik
UPDATE:
I just thought I’d come back here, to say I found this on SteerMouse’s support page.
To get the Free-spin mode, enter the following command in the Terminal application which is located in /Applications/Utilities and relogin your account. (This command does not work with the Bluetooth version of the MX Revolution.)
defaults write jp.plentycom.SteerMouse LOGITECH_MX_REVOLUTION_WHEEL -int -2
You can select other modes by changing the values as below:
-3 : Manual Shift. Changes between the Free-spin and the
Click-to-click by clicking the scroll wheel button.
-2 : Free-spin.
-1 : Click-to-click.
0-12: Automatic Shift. Smaller values reduce the timing for its shift.
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