Combining Optipac mouse buttons 1 & 2 with I-Pac Joy 1 buttons 1 & 2?

[angryred]

I have a 5 button array on the top tier of my control panel, in an Asteroids/Space Duel/etc. setup.  Right now, the two left buttons are wired to the Opti-Pac as the two mouse buttons, and the other three buttons are wired into the I-Pac as Joy 1 buttons 1, 2 and 3.  Problem is, when I go to set up buttons in Asteroids, it won't allow me to use the "mouse" buttons as input (I'm using MAME32 v0.112), either by setting them in game in the tab menu, or in the specific game options in MAME32 ("enable mouse input" is greyed out). There are many other games that disallow mouse input this way in v112.

My proposed solution is to wire the left two buttons to both the Opti-Pac and I-Pac-- jump the other three buttons down to Joy 1 buttons 3, 4 and 5, and make Joy 1 buttons 1 and 2 also serve as mouse buttons 1 and 2.  My question is, am I setting myself up for any problems or conflicts by having these buttons sending out two signals when pressed?  Anytime I press button 1, it would be acting at mouse button 1 AND Joy 1 button 1. Are there any known headaches that I'm heading for if I do this?

[AndyWarne]

Its very strange that the mouse buttons cant be used in the game.

But using keyboard key buttons is a better solution anyway.
There should be no great problems wiring a button to the Opti-PAC and I-PAC. The only thing to watch out for is that every time you "click" the mouse button in Windows (if you use them) it will of course send the keycode. Some keycodes will cause mayhem in Windows if this happens, such as "ALT". So you need to pick keycodes which dont do anything in the desktop.
Andy