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Scrolling using mouse wheel
How can I get wheel mouse scrolling working? I'm running free VNC 4.1.3
on Windows XP sp3 and connecting to a Solaris (Sun 5.0) box. I'd like to
be able to scroll the Solaris windows using my mouse wheel.

Jeff Thompson
Senior Software Engineer
Enablence Systems
FTTx Networks Division
1075 Windward Ridge Parkway
Alpharetta, GA 30005
(W) 678-893-5922
(F) 678-339-1030
www.enablence.com <http://www.enablence.com/>

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Re: Scrolling using mouse wheel [ In reply to ]
I'm not using that combination; in either case, I think I'm using TightVNC on my Suns, in one case on Solaris 9 (SunOS 5.9), in another on a development release of what will eventually become Solaris 11 (SunOS 5.11).

You don't actually identify your Solaris release. Solaris 2.x (x = 0-5, 5.1, 6) corresponds to SunOS 5.x (uname -r); for x > 6, it's just Solaris x = SunOS 5.x. I think the earliest to have any
support for scroll wheels was either Solaris 8 with a bunch of
patches, or Solaris 9. That support was in basically a couple of
places: the X server (which you're probably not using if you're using vnc, since I don't think the way of having vnc available in a regular X server to remote control a running session was generally available on Solaris), and the various toolkits.

Solaris follows the convention on other X based systems where (since core X11 only defines X and Y motion for pointers) vertical scroll wheel steps map to clicks of fictional mouse buttons 4 and 5 (not sure which corresponds to scrolling up vs down), and, in much more recent versions, may deal with horizontal scroll wheel steps similarly as fictional mouse buttons 6 and 7.

So the X server (or Xvnc server) has to handle the input (from physical device or from the network, respectively) and send the corresponding mouse button 4-5 (or 4-7) events to applications; but the applications (usually the GUI toolkits they use like Athena, Motif, GTK+ (GNOME), Qt (KDE)) have to know what to do with them too. That didn't happen all at once in Solaris; while GNOME and KDE probably always handled them, Motif was slower to support scroll wheels. But they can typically be added after-the fact with the appropriate magic .Xdefaults (or per-app resource file) entries to define accelerators for scroll widgets. Search google groups (Usenet archives) for info; as I recall, this was discussed quite a bit at the time.

To check if the VNC client and server are even passing the scroll related events, run xev on the remote end; it should report events for pressing and releasing the mouse buttons I mentioned when the scroll wheel is being used, if they work. If they don't work, make sure that it's not the VNC client (try a different VNC server).

Like I said, the one I'm running (TightVNC, 1.2.8 I think, from the blastwave collection of pre-built freeware for Solaris - which may install a bunch of duplicate dependencies since it runs across a range of Solaris versions, the earlier of which may not include suitable versions of various dependencies) handles at least vertical scrolling just fine.

Since Xvnc servers generally start life as X servers with VNC instead of physical device support, I can't rule out that some of them might have some configuration files to fool with, although since VNC protocol hides most of the differences that a physical X server would have to deal with among real hardware, I've never had to do that.

On Jul 27, 2011, at 10:41 AM, Jeff Thompson wrote:

> How can I get wheel mouse scrolling working? I'm running free VNC 4.1.3
> on Windows XP sp3 and connecting to a Solaris (Sun 5.0) box. I'd like to
> be able to scroll the Solaris windows using my mouse wheel.
>
> Jeff Thompson
> Senior Software Engineer
> Enablence Systems
> FTTx Networks Division
> 1075 Windward Ridge Parkway
> Alpharetta, GA 30005
> (W) 678-893-5922
> (F) 678-339-1030
> www.enablence.com <http://www.enablence.com/>
>
> NOTICE: This email and any files transmitted with it are Enablence
> confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity
> to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error
> please notify the sender. This message contains Enablence confidential
> information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are
> not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy
> this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have
> received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system.
> If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that disclosing,
> copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents
> of this information is strictly prohibited.
>
>
>
>
> NOTICE:This email and any files transmitted with it are Enablence confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender. This message contains Enablence confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited.
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