Mouse recommendation for Allegro use

I have changed the settings in my env file to use the middle button (down) for pan.  The ctrl or shift do the other functions.

Here's what you would have to add or change to the env file:

button wheel_up "roam y -$roamInc"
button wheel_down "roam y $roamInc"
button Cwheel_up "window in"
button Cwheel_down "window out"
button SCwheel_up "roam x -$roamInc"
button SCwheel_down "roam x $roamInc"

Spacemouse does not seem to function well in Allegro.  I gave it for Solidworks as well...looked cool but was not an enhancement to my design style.

Thanks redwire. I will change my env file and give it a try.

Currently, with a normal mouse, I have the following customization done to the mouse buttons:

scrolling the wheel: zoom in and out

pushing the wheel button down while moving the mouse around: panning

The discomfort i experienced with the trackball was that when I pushed the wheel or even the middle button down, i still had to use my thumb to rotate the trackball to pan around.

I will try your settings and see how it goes. Thanks again.

Logitech makes excellent gaming mouses with macro buttons on the side.   Some let you switch between free-spinning or detented scrolling wheel and after 10 years of MGC Boardstation screwed up my right hand, I can map the middle mouse button off of the track wheel, which is a requirement for me.

G903, G502, Excellent tracking and leading wireless link to your PC.  Dramatic reduction in aggravation.

https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/gaming-mice.html

I have the side buttons programmed to switch between etch edit mode and placement mode.  Those macros are stored inside the mouse, not relying on a utility plugin except to change the macro.

Wireless is an option, not a requirement, which is nice.   And, they have been sturdy for me (four years of use and counting with two BNIB spares in a closet.)

Thanks redwire I changed my env variable to what you suggested. it is actually good. However, the problem i am having is with my thumb. I am right handed and I am trying to minimize the use of my thumb. The trackball puts a lot of pressure on my thumb as I have to keep using it constantly.  I used Logitech MX ERGO all day today and I can feel that my thumb is hurts because it is used to constantly move the trackball. The more I try different mice, the more I get convinced that my issue with the size of the mouse. I like the size of the Logitech trackball mouse, but only if they were normal mouse without the trackball because my hands are large. :-)

 RFinley I will order one of the ones you suggested and give it a try. hopefully they have a good size.

I am not sure if it will help. But if you look into assigning funckeys and aliases, that could reduce up to 90% of your mouse movement. However, it does come with a price to your left hand and constant looking at keyboard for hotkeys with double modifiers. So I have been using a gaming keypad (Razer Tartarus now, and Razer Chroma Orbweaver in the past). It contains 20 keys and looks like a numpad, but very ergonomic and can be shaped to your needs. It can hold up-to 160 hotkeys in those 20 buttons. I currently assigned about 50 hotkeys to frequently used commands, macros and scripts and I keep adding more whenever I find that, it takes a lot of clicks and mouse movement to do something very simple. One example is spinning a single via around another via. It is so cumbersome in APD and if you do this so many times a day, this activity alone causes so much mouse movement. I assigned the entire lot to a small funckey like shown below. When I do a Spin on a staggered via couple and I need to snap to the center of the via first:

funckey s "prepopup; pop dyn_option_select @:@Spin; prepopup; pop dyn_option_select '@:@Change user pick'; prepopup; pop dyn_option_select 'Snap pick to@:@Via'"

This reduces my mouse movement a lot and also improves my efficiency quite a bit. Notice that I just assigned one letter to the entire set of actions. And I intend to make it 90% hotkey based and use mouse movement only for actual routing movement.