Mouse buttons necessary?

[Ninten-doh]

I'm designing a 2 player CP that will have a Happs USB trackball.  I wasn't planning on including mouse buttons on the CP, which I'm hoping to keep relatively uncluttered.  Is this a mistake?  I'll have a regular mouse inside the cab with the keyboard for when I need to make software or PC adjustments.

[jelwell]

Some people like Mouse Buttons (that are clearly labeled). Others like to hide the "PC" stuff away.

So I don't have to fish out my mouse (and so I can play fun arcade-like PC games) I simply hide the mouse buttons as player 1's buttons 4, 5, and 6. Mame can map mouse buttons to game buttons. And no one is the wiser.

This can lead to problems if you run an emulator that doesn't support mouse mapping (Zinc?) - so I suggest that you be sure the Mouse buttons aren't buttons that are going to be used by all your emulators. This is why I chose the rear end of Player 1's buttons. This still means I can't play Tekken 3 using Zinc though. If I didn't mind the buttons further away I could put them as player 4's final buttons - that would keep them pretty clear of use in random emulators. Or maybe coin buttons? It doesn't matter to me, because I dropped Zinc. But it might make a difference to you.
Joseph Elwell.

[SQrL]

...
This can lead to problems if you run an emulator that doesn't support mouse mapping (Zinc?) - so I suggest that you be sure the Mouse buttons aren't buttons that are going to be used by all your emulators. This is why I chose the rear end of Player 1's buttons. This still means I can't play Tekken 3 using Zinc though. If I didn't mind the buttons further away I could put them as player 4's final buttons - that would keep them pretty clear of use in random emulators. Or maybe coin buttons? It doesn't matter to me, because I dropped Zinc. But it might make a difference to you.
Joseph Elwell.

You can get around this "problem" with the emulators that dont support mouse mapping by writing an "Auto Hot Key" script that maps mouse buttons to keyboard strokes.  This was the emulator will think you are pressing keyboard keys.  so I say use player 1 buttons 4, 5, 6 if you really can't bare the look of dedicated mouse buttons (which really dont look bad imo).

[miles2912]

I love mine.  Use em all the time.  I have a switch that will turn off the mouse buttons, esc and pause if I need to.

Don

[zarex]

I'm facing the same dilemma, but I'm instead considering wiring the mouse button inputs in parallel with some of the other regular buttons (going to the JPAC).  Since pushbuttons are "active ground" this should work.

[Tahnok]

I considered going the way of wiring the mouse buttons into the regular buttons, but decided against it. It could cause errors, since every time you click you also press a key. It is only a matter of time before a program uses both the mouse and that key, and you run into problems.

[Kremmit]

You could always double wire to the game buttons, but install a switch, so that those buttons are only mouse buttons when you want them to be. 

Heck, with that method, you could even wire to joystick switches- push left to left-click, push right to right-click, push twice to double click.  I'm not sure just why you'd want to, but for some reason it sounds cool to me.

[DrumAnBass]

If there a way to do mouse buttons with a GPWiz encoder?

Will Joy2Key or RBJoy support mouse clicks?

Just curious... I was planning on soldering some wires onto my hacked Kensington trackball, but if I could avoid doing that it would be great, as I have hardly done any soldering before...

[TOK]

I kept my mouse buttons from the Happ separate, but I kind of wish I did what jelwell suggested. I'd like a little bit cleaner look for my panel.

Anyone know of programs that can run into the program Tahnok mentions? I never considered this, but I really only use MAME on the cab.

[AtomSmasher]

I kept mine seperate and if I did it over again, I would still keep them seperate.  2 extra buttons shouldn't cause too much clutter on a CP.