I have kinda bad RSI, and the RSI is far more pronounced for clicking than it is for typing (and even more pronounced than that for heavy scrollwheel use).

I wonder if I could alleviate the RSI any if I could somehow find a mouse that lets me click with my thumb.

@mcc Aren't thumb buttons pretty common on mice?

@Tijn I don't know.

@mcc I think so!

@mcc Have you looked into a trackball? That was my mom's goto with her RSI and it worked wonders. Logitech used to have some amazing ones.

@thegpfury @RogerBW @tomasino Trackball is moving in the wrong direction. Now the problematic muscle I was previously using for clicks and scrollwheels is being used to *move* the mouse, making the problem worse.

@mcc trackball maybe? I think they do thumb click

@mcc I've seen trackballs with thumb buttons. (You may not get on with trackballs at all, but at least it's a different set of movements.)

@mcc Where do you stand with trackpads? You can techically click with any finger on those. I migrated to that on the Mac years ago, partly so that when I was in laptop mode I'd already be familiar, but I found it did a wonder on my own carpal tunnel issues.

@mcc a vertical mouse! I found those helpful for my own (non-RSI) finger joint issues. Acer makes a good one with two thumb buttonss.

@mcc does your mouse have thumb buttons by any chance? I'm sure a lot of those could be reconfigured to act as a click

@zandra no, I think I'd have to go looking for one.

One thing I'm not sure about is how the scroll wheel and right click would work in this configuration. If I could get kinda a scroll joystick, or a switch, that would work, but I don't think such a thing exists in the wild.

@mcc not sure about other os’s, but I’m pretty sure you could remap the horizontal scroll wheel and thumb buttons to be the normal scroll wheel and buttons on something like an mx master under Linux, that would be fully thumb operated mouse control

@syn I'm still trying to work out how to remap the trackpoint on my Thinkpad to issue scroll events instead of mouse events.

@mcc @Tijn I think there are quite a few mice around with things like buttons 4, 5 and 6 on the thumb. I'd assume it'd be possible to find tools to remap those.

@mcc do you have a model with the buttons above the trackpad?

@mcc if so you should be able to hold the middle button and the pointer becomes a scroll button

@mcc (or that’s how it worked on my t470 anyways)

@mcc oh I know a few that work kinda like that! there are scroll wheels that are very free-rolling, and the mouse I use has a few buttons near it - and they can all be reconfigured to be whatever you need them to be

I can follow up in DMs if you'd like more info, I'm sure there's a way to make your specific situation work ^^

@mcc a few people suggested a trackball and I second that. I use a ploopy adept at work, I like it and left click in on thumb. Right click too but I have to move my hand to reach it.

If you have a keyboard with a qmk firmware, you can set a key or combo to click

@mcc

i know this isn't what you are asking, but i found that switching to a vertical mouse did noticeably alleviate the clicking strain. the thing is you want your hand to be as close as possible to true vertical, and most ergo mice do not go nearly far enough.

evoluent sells the best ones i could find when i bought mine, and they come in multiple sizes (important for me because i don't meet ansi standard human being conformation standards apparently) but they are kind of overpriced. one potential plus is that they have models with two thumb buttons you could remap to left and right click.

@mcc I love my trackball from ploopy & they have a mouse too with side buttons (https://ploopy.co/mouse/). I also click a lot of the time by using a function key on my fancy keyboard (palm key + F on my keyboardio model 100, but I would imagine any qmk keyboard or macro pad could be mapped for that?)

@mcc don't go for a Logitech MX Master 3S or prior if you want to use it like this; the thumb button has a widely known mechanical fault where it fails way too early.

the MX Master 4 is much better (they redesigned the thumb button). that said I have absolutely no idea what the situation is for running it on anything but Windows or macOS, since it uses Logitech Options+.

@gsuberland i have basically stopped buying logitech projects completely since the advent of options+. i usually don't even keep it installed on my windows machine >_>

@mcc my coworker with bad RSI swears by this https://www.penguinmouse.com/ I realize its not thumb scrolling/clicking as you requested but it does do scrolling with different movements

@waldo this is very interesting

@mcc

ah, and something else i appreciate about evoluent's mice is that the scroll wheel and middle click are completely separate. that might be less important to you, but it's a killer feature for me

@gutmunchies i appreciate that.

i wish apps more consistently supported the scrollwheel-click-to-scroll verb.

@bob @Tijn I have made things worse for myself by accidentally using only the simplest mice possible

@mcc @Tijn most gaming mice have them

@mcc Depending on your budget, and the new/second-hand market, a tablet could be worth a look.

I have RSI in my forearms, especially the right one. I used a mouse left-handed for years to mitigate it, but that ceased to be practical. I remembered that I have an ancient Wacom tablet, tried that, and... problem gone.

It does bring problems of its own, like the desk-space it occupies, but for some reason using a stylus does not aggravate my RSI.

To the people recommending a trackball: That would mean using the exact muscles I'm trying to avoid exercising to *move* the mouse, something you do more often than clicking. That makes the problem worse

@mcc I have an upright mouse (that you grip like shaking hands), and it has buttons on the thumb side

@mcc sorry if you have already looked into it yourself, but a vertical mouse might help. It lets your wrist take a more natural position so the sinews can move freely.

A lot of those also have thumb buttons iirc.

@KatS @mcc Switching from right-handed to left-handed mousing was how I fucked up my _left_ arm, having already fucked up my _right_ arm.

100% touchpad now. Yeah, I lose a bunch of mouse functionality, but, well, I'd rather have working arms.

@moira @mcc Oh, damn.

@mcc Maybe something like leap/ultraleap motion sensor. I never quite got mine to work, but the rsi went away through reduced mouse use anyway.

@mcc

'foot pedal mouse' seems to be a thing.
No idea if that would suit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footmouse

@mcc if you just want a regular mouse with thumb buttons, I like my Logitech G203. It's cheap, precise, has two thumb buttons, and does not need any proprietary software.

@mcc trackball is a slightly different movement for me but your millage will vary. Best solution for RSI is surgery I've done both wrists now . I use a trackball and/or vertical mouse to avoid future problems.

@mcc I put off moving to Options+ for a very long time but the Master 4 doesn't work with Options (classic) so I had to swap. I'm... honestly actually kinda pleasantly surprised? I expected it to be a mess, but they didn't make me make an account and it hasn't done anything annoying yet. and the side scroller wheel on the mouse works a *lot* better under Options+, it's much more responsive.

@mcc trackpads wih tap to click always helped me with this. the downside is that there are a lot of bad trackpads.

@mcc I can only recommend a graphic tablet with a stylus. Even when I had RSI really bad operating a stylus didn't cause any problems.

@ianturton @mcc 3M vertical mouse here, I click with my thumb.

@mcc in the past I was developing a CTS (I realized what I had when I opening the fridge door started to cause me pain) and, among other things, I forced myself to alternate between using my right and (clumsily) my left hand on the trackpad and an external mouse.

@mcc Are you familiar with the Rollermouse? you click with your thumb, or will all your fingers together.

@mcc I think when they first released it there was a bunch of super irritating junk in there that was the impetus for everyone avoiding it. maybe it had mandatory login or something? but whatever it was, I haven't run into it, so I guess they removed it.

@mcc I have a friend with similar problems who uses a rollermouse, (one of those rolly things that go below your keyboard)

@ianturton @mcc This one.

@gsuberland it seems to be running an entire electron app in there, seemingly to some degree loaded even when in the task tray, and last i checked it had an "ai chatbot"

@mcc I've been using a used one from eBay as my daily driver outside of work and I really like it.

@mcc I used an Apple Magic Touchpad 2 for a couple of years when I developed RSI in my index finger. I didn't click with my thumb but I used my middle and ring fingers.

Until I developed RSI in those, and now I'm back to a standard mouse. IME that's how it goes: there's no one fix, you'll have to rotate to something else eventually.

@gsuberland @mcc I'm currently on MX Master 3S, but I only installed Options long enough to set the wheel to switch to glide mode automatically, then I removed it, because everything else it does gets in my way. That said, I never found any use for the thumb button, I use an AutoHotKey script to reconfigure the back/forward buttons, and I edited the Registry to flip the horizontal wheel direction.

@mcc at the risk of being another trackball reply, I switched hands when I moved to a trackball since I had to retrain my brain anyway and my left arm wasn't having rsi.

@th hm interesting but i can get typing rsi on both arms so i imagine mouse rsi could also happen on the left

@mcc @th I use a trackball on the left and a mouse on the right, and I alternate between them to spread out the damage

@mcc @syn doesn't middle button + move issue scroll events? It seems to work as scroll for me on Linux (Wayland + wlroots + river)

@IngaLovinde @syn if i could press buttons i wouldn't be in this situation. and the way you have to contort your hand to simultaneously press the middle button and also use the trackpad is *really* awkward. but yes, that's the behavior i want, i just want to make it all-the-time as opposed to when-middle-button-down. i am willing to fuck with the kernel source if it gets me what i want.

@mcc I'm using a regular IBM/Lenovo keyboard with trackpoint, with left button right under my thumb (when my index finger is on trackpoint)

@IngaLovinde maybe i should start using a trackpad on my desktop as well. dunno.

@mcc

🤔 Just a thought:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=eye%20tracking&iar=shopping&ko=-1

@mcc I also have RSI problems and have kept my original IntelliMouse Optical because I figured out I can hold it at an angle (allowing more fingers to use the scroll wheel to spread out the load) and hit the long left side button with my thumb (which I can map to left click).

@mcc @syn I don't understand; trackpad? As in touchpad?
When I scroll, it's usually with right thumb on middle button and index finger on trackpoint fwiw.
But yeah I think on windows there was some "sticky trackpoint" feature that showed one to just switch between navigation mouse and scrolling mode with a single click of middle button (i.e. to have middle button work more like caps lock rather than more like shift). But maybe I misremember things...

@mcc @Tijn I use a "redragon" ("SINOWEALTH Wired Gaming Mouse" is what it says it is on usb) and it has fast update rate and all the buttons but it's just a normal USB HID device

@jernej__s @mcc I used to use the thumb button as a gesture button for switching virtual desktops. but I had two warranty replacements on my first 2S for the exact same mechanical failure where the thumb button gets stuck down, then another warranty replacement on the second one I bought. and I was only pressing it less than once a day on average, so I'd estimate the lifetime to only be around 500 presses. really not fit for purpose. I bought the 4 specifically 'cos they fixed that issue.

@IngaLovinde @syn sorry uhhh apple intermittently brands their touchpads as "trackpad"s and it messed up my vocabulary

@mcc my SK-8855 keyboard is wonderful, it's a pity that they don't make them anymore

@gsuberland @mcc I wore out the rubber on my 2S without using the thumb button (also, IIRC the thumb button on whatever mouse I had before 2S got stuck without me using it at all).

@mcc @syn I'm just not sure whether you're talking about touchpad (the large usually recessed capacitive area under the keyboard, the one that users are supposed to caress gently), or trackpoint (the small prominent sexual organ between G/H/B keys, the one that users are supposed to apply sideways pressure to, with three keys right under the keyboard and above the touchpad if it's present)?
Because I was talking about the latter.

@mcc just looked. it has an "AI prompt builder" thing, which seems to be an interface to ChatGPT, but it's behind a toggle in the settings and it's switched off for me (idk if I switched it off, or if that was default).

the frontend is Electron. the background services aren't.

@mcc
Once I "inherited" a device called "roller mouse" from a colleague in the office. You have a wrist rest and a bar to steer the mouse pointer with your thumb, the ball of the thumb or - what is the part between the pinkie and the wrist called? And you can click with that bar as well, and it had a left and right mouse button to be used with the thumb, and a doubleclick button, too. I loved it. Unfortunately it is rather pricey.

https://www.contourdesign.eu/product/rollermouse-pro

@mcc Now that I've been thinking about it, would reconfiguring one (or both) of the back/forward buttons to act as left click work? On Windows at least this should be easy with AutoHotKey.

@gsuberland I launch the frontend. I do something. I close the frontend. Does the frontend remain in virtual memory?

a piece of software with "well, it has an interface to chatgpt, but you can switch it off" is a program i uninstall from my computer. i have switched away from SwiftKey and Microsoft Windows over this and I have greater need for either of those programs than I do for Logi Options +.

@mcc @Tijn Anker and Logitech vertical mice both have them but they don't necessarily do what you want so there is remapping involved.

@KatS @mcc
I’ve been using a series of Wacom tablets for maybe 20yrs. Totally intuitive, no discomfort. If regular pen/pencil use remains comfortable for writing, a pen+tablet might be a solution.

@mcc fwiw, I had similar issues and found switching to a finger-trackball with thumb buttons helped significantly, as it was definitely the clicky action that was ruining my fingers. I did use a left-hand mouse for a while before the trackball, which might have left my right hand heal a bit.

As far as scroll goes, I use a kensington orbit trackball with a “scroll ring” at home. It isn’t so great that I wanted one for work as well, but being able to flick the wheel with my middle finger and have it spin for a bit is quite satisfying and useful for long documents.

@mcc but yeah, obviously would vastly prefer it if the silly prompt builder thing would not exist at all.

@greg_harvey @ianturton @mcc Ooh, interesting!

@neil @ianturton @mcc I've had one for over 20 years. Dow Jones bought me my first one and said I could keep it when I left because nobody else wanted it. 😂 I think I'm on my third now. My wife has one too.

@greg_harvey @ianturton @mcc I will have to see if they make a left handed one. Thank you!

@mcc the frontend process closes.

but yeah, fair on the second part. (fwiw the chatgpt prompt thing is a separate executable that doesn't get launched at all for me)

@gsuberland thanks for explaining

@jernej__s @gsuberland @mcc I mostly forget that the button is even there, probably pressed it 10 times total (17% service life). After 6 years my 2S's mousewheel started getting flaky, at which point I didn't mind getting another one for $50.

The stupid thing is that I could open it up and clean out the wheel sensor, but that means removing/destroying the glides. Replacing them would be too expensive to be worth it.

@mcc Soo...TrackPoint? 🔴

@pawv if i could use it for scrolling, yeah.

nice nails btw

@mcc I have a Logitech M585 (which I think was pretty cheap) which has two buttons on the thumb side: https://www.logitech.com/en-us/eol/mice-eol/m585-wireless-mouse.html
I believe they wind up mapped to back/forward by default.

@mcc ☺️ Thank you 😊. Speaking of scrolling, you can actually. The middle button makes the Trackpoint act like a pan/scroll button. Hold it down and push pull the nub (🔴) in the direction you want to move.

@mcc 3M ergonomic mouse is exactly what you want. Only downside is no scroll wheel

@elplatt hm… but i don't want a scroll wheel

@mcc oh no, I just checked and they don't make them anymore :(

@elplatt true of every good computer thing

@mcc Dramatization. 😊

@pawv i am aware of this hotkey/trick/thing, and i don't do it, because it is unbelievably awkward. i feel that if i am using linux i should be able to configure the os in any way i want. i may experiment this week with libinput+lua

@mcc

i have a portable with a decent multi touch trackpad and i'm kind of a freak so i usually use my left hand on the trackpad to scroll, but i find the flat button so much more comfortable than trying to press down a hard little lump...

now if only gamepad manufacturers would get the memo and stop making their buttons so small and steeply arched. ouch

@mcc Have you looked at Wacom tablets to replace your mouse?

@mcc It's not actually a hotkey, but how TrackPoint works out-of-the-box across OS's. The middle button on older ThinkPads was more obviously different (it would depress several mm before triggering). This current iteration though is just a funny shaped button.

@mcc Applications see it as scroll events, and I didn't do anything to enable this.

@pawv yes but. You do have to depress the middle button. I'm trying to avoid that. My hand would have to bend into a weird shape and my chief goal here is to not make my hand muscles do anything that might 8 to 15 hours later turn out to have been weird

@mcc I can't use thumb trackballs at all for maybe a similar reason, but I do like the ones where you use the ball with other fingers like my https://elecomusa.com/products/huge-trackball-mouse-wired?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=ab03c5d68&pr_rec_pid=15293060513865&pr_ref_pid=15293059465289&pr_seq=uniform

@mcc Are the "vertical" mice like https://www.contourdesign.com/product/contour-unimouse https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-MICE-BO-V-MSE/dp/B09CH95JMK/ or https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BIFNTMC an option? I tried the Anker for a few days but didn't like it. I prefer trackballs (Kensington Expert wired and Elecom EX-G Pro) which isn't what you're asking.

@rlonstein the unimouse is a very interesting design…

@mcc my wife has this issue some years back. I plugged in a second mouse (this is pre-Bluetooth) and put it on the floor, so she could click with her foot. Worked a treat!

@mcc Ah okay. I gather the gesture wouldn't be so bad if the placement of the toggle didn't require a contortion.

This sounds like custom ergonomic keyboard territory.

@mcc Cool debate you started :) love seeing people's setups. Anyway, as a Thinkpad guy who had the same issue a couple of years ago, what helped me was exercising and taking a break from computers and work for about 6 months. It actually turned out to be a blessing.

@mcc Oh and BTW, you might wanna consider using xmouseless as well...

@thekhanj does this work with wayland [mutter]?

@mcc I guess not, I'm not sure, but the code is small, you should be able to easily rewrite it for Wayland, it would be fun too :)

@mcc Oh apparently this one does
https://github.com/jbensmann/mouseless

@mcc the mouse i have (tuf gaming m3) has 2 rebindable buttons on the left side (but one of them will probably be awkward to click), maybe that could work?

@mcc ive been using a Corsair Scimitar for years, and it's held up very well. You might say, as I once did, that that's really too many buttons, but Ive since discovered they're the best thing for modded Minecraft, especially changing jetpack modes while flying. Unfortunately, it's just as difficult to clean as it looks. There's a FOSS project called ckb-next which lets me set key bindings, colors, and dpi on Linux Mint. I haven't tried it on other distros.

@mcc my mouse (Logitech G203 LIGHTSYNC) has two buttons on the left which send BTN_SIDE and BTN_EXTRA (according to libinput debug-events)