Wire one button up to both mouse click and alternate key press

[markronz]

I'm starting work on a new cabinet soon.   One of the things that I wish I could rid of on my own cabinet are the extra two buttons that I have designated just for the mouse's left and right clicks.  I only use these buttons while playing around with Windows itself (seldom).

On the new cabinet, I will be doing a 2 player cp, with six buttons per player.    I've heard in the past that some people wired up buttons 5 and 6 for player one so that they are the left and right mouse button clicks.    I know that MAME will allow you to assign mouse clicks to the control config, but I am a little concerned about other emulators.   I would venture to guess that not all emulators would support the mouse clicks when mapping buttons.    So my initial thought was that maybe I could wire up one button so that when you press it, it does both a mouse click, but also a key press.  That way, I could use the two buttons as the mouse during Windows operation, but could have normal key assignments for emulators.

Thoughts everyone?   Or if the above scenario would not work, what have other people done to remedy this situation?

Thanks!

[Bobulus]

I was thinking about this, too, but my worry is that if, say, button 6 is mapped to both a keyboard key and right-click, then in an emulator I'll hit that button and the menu will be brought up because I'm right-clicking. So I'm not quite sure how to solve this one.

Hoping someone with more knowledge weights in.

[Endaar]

Well, I did pinball buttons on my CP, so one side's buttons are wired as mouse buttons. I'd be hesitant to use the "main" buttons as a mouse, since I think you're right that not every emulator will support them.

Endaar

[BobA]

You could hard wire the mouse buttons and then use a switch to select or deselect them so accidental clicks would not occur. A single double pole switch that can switch the grounds would suffice.