Hi all.
This is my first post here on linuxquestions.org...

I've just installed the new Firebird browser from Mozilla.org. Until now I've been using the old Mozilla, and everything has been working perfectly.

As indicated in the topic, I have a Microsoft 5button mouse.
It's correctly setup. And I'm using imwheel to map the sidebuttons for back/forward in history.

The section in my .imwheelrc that does this magic is this:

-------------------
".*Mozilla.*"
None, Left, Alt_L|Left
None, Right, Alt_L|Right
--------------------------------

this way - i'd figure - everything mozilla related should get the correct keyevents from my sidebuttons... And in the old mozilla it works just the way i want it to...

But now with the the firebird it doesnt.

so i tried adding a new section:

----------------------
".*Firebird.*"
None, Left, Alt_L|Left
None, Right, Alt_L|Right
----------------------------------

since the hotkeys are the same my best guess would be that this should work, but It doesnt.

i've tried to 'xprop' the firebird window, and it says that the WM_CLASS string is "MozillaFirebird-bin" so this is correct... Right?

My logic also tells me that the ".*Mozilla.*" section really should have done the job....

Anyone have any ideas on how to make this work?

Thanx

As far as I understand it, the problem isn't with Firebird, per se, as with a peculiar quirk of GTK2, which Firebird uses for it's UI. Apparently, GTK2 programs don't register their class properly with the server (or something... I'm no expert in the inner workings of X, this is just what others have told me), and as a result, none of what you've put in your .imwheelrc is going to affect any GTK2 program, Firebird included.

The solution, which works fine for me, at least, is to include your instructions under the header "(null)". This will cause Firebird to get the hint, and your side buttons should work properly. Like so:

-------------------
"(null)"
None, Left, Alt_L|Left
None, Right, Alt_L|Right
--------------------------------

Hope this helps!

Yay! I've been trying to work this out for ages.

I've got the following in ~/.imwheelrc:

"(null)"
None, Up, Alt_L|Left
None, Down, Alt_L|Right

".*"
None, Up, Alt_L|Left
None, Down, Alt_L|Right

and it works for Konqueror and MozillaFirebird.

Cheers!!

Dave

Yes... Finally!
It worked...
The only problem i see in this is that ALL programs get these keyevents.. Right?

If the problem really lies with GTK2 "overriding" the imwheel events, why dont the firebird team just define button 6 & 7 as back and forward?

I tried looking in the source, but I could'nt even find the file with mousebindings...
Well, I dont even know if this is possible...

Anyways.. Thanx a lot!

Well, every GTK2 program receives the keyevents, yes. I don't think (though I'm not 100% sure) that any programs which properly register their class handle would be affected. In other words, the "(null)" class isn't going to have any affect on anything other than GTK2 programs. You'd need to have the traditional ".*" to affect all other programs.

From my understanding, it's a communication problem: GTK2 programs don't properly identify themselves to the server. It's not a problem with GTK2 "overriding" imwheel; it's an issue of imwheel not knowing how to communicate with GTK2 at all, short of the inelegant fix of the "(null)" trick.

As for why the Firebird team don't designate buttons 6 and 7 as back and forward... I dunno, really. The only thing I can think of is that it might create some "out-of-the-box" problems with the scroll wheel, until you run xmodmap and sort things out. But there may be deeper problems with X's mouse management or something... again, I'm hardly an expert.