Windows 8 Start screen mouse wheel scrolling
2014-07
Josh Kelley
I have my mouse wheel set to scroll one page at a time. I'm usually happy with this, but the behavior for the Apps page of the Windows 8 Start screen isn't too good.
The problem is that whatever column of apps happens to be on the right edge of the screen gets split between two screens, so I tend to overlook it (since either apps' icons or their descriptions are cut off) while scrolling back and forth. I know this is kind of minor, but it regularly annoys me.
Example: The right edge of my Start screen. I tend to overlook "Cppcheck," because I'm looking for an icon with "Cppcheck" next to it.
My start screen after scrolling one to the left. The other half of Cppcheck is even easier to overlook.
Is there any way to improve the behavior of scrolling through Apps with the mouse button, such as by...
- configuring the Start screen to snap to the next fully visible column instead of always scrolling one screen exactly?
- tweaking the widths of columns so that they're not cut off?
- changing the mouse to scroll N lines at a time only for the Start screen?
Carlos
I am using Windows 7 x64 on an iMac (via BootCamp) with the button-less Magic Mouse that comes with the iMac. I would like to disable the horizontal scrolling that happens when you move slightly the finger horizontally while doing a vertical scrolling.
In the Control Panel, Mouse section, Wheel tab, Horizontal Scrolling section, the minimum value that you can enter is 1, not 0. Is there a way (in the Registry) to disable horizontal scrolling using the mouse wheel? Or to set that value to 0 to see if it does the trick?
Notice that this is a Windows specific question, not Mac OSX or Apple or Magic Mouse question, it can apply to any mouse in Windows whose wheel supports horizontal scrolling apart from vertical scrolling.
Matthew Lock
Maybe AutoHotkey could be setup to catch (and ignore) mouse horizontal scrolling?
Check out WheelLeft and WheelRight: http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/Hotkeys.htm
Drewmate
I'd just like to add that Matthew's solution worked for me for a related problem. I was using Chrome on Windows 7, and when I tried to middle click a bookmark that was in a folder in the bookmarks bar, it would frequently close the folder and send the middle click through to the bottom of the page. It turns out it was registering the side scroll clicks of my mouse (which I never use) and dismissing the active folder dropdown.
I tried to vote the answers up, but apparently I have no reputation... Anyway, if google picks this up and I can help solve someone else's problem, that'll be enough for me!
Andy
I use MagicMouse on iMac with Windows 7 running (installed through BootCamp). Got sick of annoying horizontal scrolling. The solution described above has helped me to disable it. Here is what I've done in steps:
1) go to http://www.autohotkey.com/ and download an app (a script editor).
2) Install and run the program - please note that it will not open as it runs in the background
3) Rightclick on the desktop -> choose "New" -> "AutoHotkey Script" (a new script file will be created on the desktop) -> name it as you wish (e.g. "Mouse_HScroll")
4) Rightclick on the file you've just created and choose "Edit Script" from the menu.
5) Add these three lines below existing text in the file:
WheelLeft::return
WheelRight::return
#MaxHotkeysPerInterval 5000
6) Save file
7) Run "Convert .ahk to .exe" program from the package installed earlier and browse the file you've just created, hit ">Convert<" -> .exe file should be created. Run this file -> the scrolling should be disabled now.
7) You may wish to move this file to Start/"Autorun" folder, so it would be launched automatically each time you reboot your Mac/PC.
Hope this helps! Good Luck
blackmastiff
When you tried to override the side to side movement of the mouse with AutoHotKey, what did you use? If you wrote
WheelLeft::return
WheelRight::return
it should have globally disabled horizontal scrolling. Anyhow, I guess my question is, what did you say in AutoHotKey?