This article highlights how you can remap the mouse wheel clicking function to something useful that might make your experience on the computer more comfortable and increase productivity.
Default mouse scroll wheel click function
Back in the old days, mice did not come with a scrolling wheel at all. At the time, mice did not have many buttons on them, nor did they have a laser or optical sensors. As technology advanced, a scrolling wheel was introduced on top of mice, which did not only scroll up and down but also had a function to click (press inside the mouse). If you try now, this clicking function on a link would open it in a new tab, clicking it on a tab in the title bar of a web browser would close it, and clicking it in a blank space would enable/disable the page-scrolling feature. Currently, these are the only three functions this button performs. However, you can remap this button using a third-party utility to perform a more meaningful function. One that you may use frequently.
Remap mouse scroll wheel click function using X-Mouse Button Control
X-Mouse Button Control is a freeware you can use to remap the buttons on your mouse. Although there are many such utilities available on the internet, we believe that X-Mouse is the best possible solution as it is easy to use and provides the maximum number of options to choose from. Follow the steps below to remap your mouse’s scroll wheel click to perform another function, such as copying, pasting, and many other options to choose from. As you can see, there is a long list of possible options to choose from as a function of the scrolling wheel click. You can change the function at any time. You can also revert to the default settings by returning to the app, selecting No change from the drop-down menu in front of the Middle Button, and then clicking Apply. You can also temporarily disable the alternate functionality of the button by exiting the app from the Notification Tray and bringing the mouse buttons back to their default functions.
Closing words
The X-Mouse Button Control application has been around for some years now. It is thus reliable and not very heavy for your system to run. It is a great way to remap your mouse’s keys, especially if you are using a gaming mouse and would like to use all of its buttons for regular computer tasks as well.
