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COMMENTS

Helpful Tip: Middle-Click on a Touchpad Laptop Mouse


Touchpad Mouse I’ve never really understood why the idea of creating a laptop that includes a third mouse button never really took off. Would it be all that bad to have some miniature button squeezed in between the left and right buttons on the touchpad?

The middle mouse button is important to me because I use it to activate special actions in all kinds of different applications, especially in my browser. I can middle-click on a tab to close it, or middle-click on a hyperlink to have it open in a new background tab. That kind of functionality is hard to give up once you’ve become accustomed to it, but so many laptop users just forget about it. Well, not me!

–Two Button Middle Click–

I’ve heard that most laptops simulate a middle mouse button when the user presses both the left and right buttons at the same time. I was initially excited, and thought that this would cure all of my problems. Unfortunately, it has never worked on any laptops I’ve tried.

That was my ideal solution, and I searched like a mad monkey trying to find a way to make it happen. To my dismay I was on my own because Google didn’t come through for me. Then it dawned on me that I could easily do this myself with an AutoHotKey script! In fact it only took two lines of code:

~LButton & RButton::MouseClick, Middle
~RButton & LButton::MouseClick, Middle

That essentially checks to see if both mouse buttons have been pressed down at the same time, and if they have then simulate a middle-click of the mouse. Pretty cool, huh? I also put it together in a standalone application that you can throw in your Windows Startup folder without needing to have AutoHotKey installed:

Download the Middle-Click Simulator

There is one downside to using this though. If you use a Rocker mouse gesture (holding down one mouse button and pressing the other) to navigate in an application, such as going backward/forward in a browser, you’ll be disappointed to know that it will no longer work. I’m not quite sure how I can circumvent that problem in the script, but for right now I would rather have the middle-click simulation available. It is possible to “pause” the script (a.k.a. temporarily deactivate it) from the System Tray icon if needed though.

–Middle Click Tap Zone–

Some mouse software also lets you setup a “zone” that you can tap on the touchpad to serve as the middle mouse button. Below is a screenshot from my Synaptics TouchPad configuration screen which shows that I’m about to assign the bottom-left corner of my touchpad to the middle-click action.

Middle-Click Tap Zone

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  1. Michael DobrofskyAll-StarOctober 6, 2007 at 6:21 pm

    Thanks for this…I was wondering how or if I could do this just last night on my brand new lappy. Read my mind. :P

    Reply
  2. AnonymousOctober 6, 2007 at 6:45 pm

    I never really use the left button since tapping the pad does the same job. So my left is assigned as right-click, and my right button is assigned as middle-click, there you go !

    Reply
  3. Sridhar KatakamOctober 6, 2007 at 8:36 pm

    Check out PowerPro. It can do these and more easily w/o using multiple programs.

    Reply
  4. ErhanOctober 7, 2007 at 4:40 am

    The Middle-Click Simulator is very well working. Thank you very much.

    Reply
  5. WardOctober 7, 2007 at 7:29 am

    I use the rocker gesture to navigate between tabs in Opera. Right-Left for next tab, Left-Right for previous tab.

    TBH, it should be default and everyone should be taught this shortcut and worship me as its inventor. :mrgreen:

    Reply
  6. RitterOctober 7, 2007 at 9:04 am

    I have the two buttons however, I rarely have to use them. Pressing both buttons at the same time does not give me the middle click function, pressing two fingers on the pad itself however does the middle-click action.

    Reply
  7. funTomasOctober 7, 2007 at 10:38 am

    I’ve been using both buttons to simulate middle button for ages. It’s a standard feature of Logitech’s touchpads. Nevertheless, isn’t a wireless mouse a better opt?

    Reply
  8. RyanAuthorOctober 7, 2007 at 6:55 pm

    Glad this has helped a bunch of people! :)

    Anonymous wrote:
    I never really use the left button since tapping the pad does the same job. So my left is assigned as right-click, and my right button is assigned as middle-click, there you go !

    That would take a lot of getting used to for me.

    Sridhar Katakam wrote:
    Check out PowerPro. It can do these and more easily w/o using multiple programs.

    I didn’t see anything in PowerPro that would let me configure my touchpad for the middle mouse button though.

    Ward wrote:
    I use the rocker gesture to navigate between tabs in Opera. Right-Left for next tab, Left-Right for previous tab.

    TBH, it should be default and everyone should be taught this shortcut and worship me as its inventor. :mrgreen:

    I do love that gesture as well, but I use middle click more. I normally use the backspace key for navigating backwards anyway.

    Ritter wrote:
    I have the two buttons however, I rarely have to use them. Pressing both buttons at the same time does not give me the middle click function, pressing two fingers on the pad itself however does the middle-click action.

    That’s pretty cool, I wish my laptop’s touchpad did that.

    funTomas wrote:
    I’ve been using both buttons to simulate middle button for ages. It’s a standard feature of Logitech’s touchpads. Nevertheless, isn’t a wireless mouse a better opt?

    I normally have an external mouse hooked up to my laptop, but there are always instances where it is not. When I’m on a plane, or in a public area it can be touch to whip out a mouse and have room to use it.

    Reply
  9. HuguesNovember 6, 2007 at 7:15 pm

    Very nice utility.
    Unfortunately it only seems to detect clicks, and therefore doesn’t allow middle-button drags.
    Would anyone have a solution for that?

    Reply
  10. RyanAuthorNovember 6, 2007 at 8:18 pm

    I only created it to detect clicking. I don’t see any way that I could simulate a drag using AutoHotKey.

    Reply
  11. DavidNovember 11, 2007 at 10:48 am
    Ritter wrote:
    I have the two buttons however, I rarely have to use them. Pressing both buttons at the same time does not give me the middle click function, pressing two fingers on the pad itself however does the middle-click action.

    I recently found out I had this function on my touch pad and three fiingers at once activates the right click. I can’t believe I’ve never realized this no my laptop. I think they need to supply a book with the laptop outlining what all the unique shortcut are.

    Reply
  12. RyanAuthorNovember 12, 2007 at 6:33 pm
    David wrote:
    Ritter wrote:
    I have the two buttons however, I rarely have to use them. Pressing both buttons at the same time does not give me the middle click function, pressing two fingers on the pad itself however does the middle-click action.

    I recently found out I had this function on my touch pad and three fiingers at once activates the right click. I can’t believe I’ve never realized this no my laptop. I think they need to supply a book with the laptop outlining what all the unique shortcut are.

    I wouldn’t mind having that feature, but unfortunately my laptop doesn’t support that.

    Reply
  13. Prashant AgrawalMarch 19, 2008 at 5:06 am

    Thanx a lot for that autohotkey script…….it is really cool…..thanx once again

    Reply
  14. TammyApril 9, 2008 at 10:10 pm

    I have a Dell, and I have been trying to use the “both buttons for middle” for about a year, and couldn’t get it to work (thought I was just clumsy). I just went into the touchpad setup (appears as an icon in the taskbar) and on the “buttons” tab, there was a drop down to define the meaning of both buttons. So I set it to “middle button click”, et voila, I now have middle button click. This is very important to me since I am a programmer, and the systems that I work on use highlight and middle click to cut and paste code (very fast) and also commands. Since I work from home some, I really needed that middle click. So I hope you have a dell – now you can set this up!

    Reply
  15. adolescetMay 31, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    Thank you very much :lol:

    Reply
  16. trevorJuly 31, 2008 at 9:31 pm

    if you use firefox , try instaclick addon .

    Reply
  17. AnonymousSeptember 26, 2008 at 7:02 pm

    Thank you so much, I just bought a new laptop that doesn’t do this automatically and was really upset about it.

    Reply
  18. cgyNovember 10, 2008 at 10:36 pm

    Thank you!!! It was driving me crazy for a while that Synaptics got rid of the middle-click gesture for their touchpad drivers. But now that I found this, I can be at peace again. Works like a charm on Windows Server 2008 x64!

    Reply
  19. AnonymousDecember 30, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    Wow. That works really well, thanks dude! Ever since i got my ibm thinkpad, i missed the middle click on my mouse/touchpad. all it does is scroll :( . but now i can open tabs again =]! thanks

    Reply
  20. unassumingMarch 6, 2009 at 9:46 am

    Thanks much for the application; I was getting incredibly sick and tired of having to right click > Open New Tab in Firefox on my Windows partition, not to mention having no way of using the navigation buttons to open in a new tab.
    I blame Synaptics, for phasing out functionality, especially annoying on touchpads that are too sensitive to use tapping

    Reply
  21. AnonymousMay 16, 2009 at 12:06 am

    :P Hey many thanks to you

    Reply
  22. MikeMay 17, 2009 at 8:39 pm

    First of all thanks very much for this.

    I’m wondering, what is the difference between ’suspend hotkeys” and pause script?

    Also, I wish there was a way to kill the icon, I’m not a fan of taskbar icons lol.

    All in all, very good work. Thanks so much!

    Reply
  23. AddzzMay 30, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    If anyones using the synaptics touchpad and has found your middle click with the two buttons doesn’t work after you’ve installed the new drivers, its because they are trying to phase it out
    best just to stick with the old driver

    [support.us.dell.com]

    Reply
  24. SapanJune 6, 2009 at 8:42 am

    Thanks a lot for the useful post….
    m also quite addicted to the middle button…
    was quite frustrated when i felt that the functionality will be no more with me in the laptop…
    but then found this post of yours and it made my day… !! :)

    i had the tap zone functionality in my laptop but never knew about it… ;)

    thanks again..

    Reply
  25. AnonymousJune 30, 2009 at 7:30 pm

    This works great for opening bookmarks in new tabs, but when I use it for hyperlinks, it opens it twice. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks

    Reply
  26. AnonymousJuly 13, 2009 at 10:42 am

    I’ve been using “Middle-Click Simulator” successfully for two years with IE.

    I just switched to Firefox (3.5), and have the same problem just reported above. Using the simulated middle click on a hyperlink opens the site twice: once in a new background tab, but also in the current tab.

    Reply
  27. AnonymousJuly 20, 2009 at 12:17 am

    Another option is to use the HasBothButtonFeature registry value in Synaptics Software registry. Google for ‘HasBothButtonFeature’, you’ll find detailed instruction.

    Reply
  28. SJuly 29, 2009 at 5:20 am

    Thank you very much, had been a pain in the butt to put dimensions in my pro/e

    Reply
  29. AnonymousOctober 5, 2009 at 12:06 am

    Just what i needed thanks

    Reply
  30. KitOctober 9, 2009 at 4:43 am

    Many thanks! This is just what I needed for fast picture browsing! =)

    Reply
  31. GhmouOctober 31, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    COMODO Internet Security picks it up as a trojan. Probably just overreacting.
    I installed it anyway.

    Thanks for the great script!

    Reply