How does one enable Natural (a.k.a. "Reverse") scrolling for attached mice?

[Portreve]

So, two things...

The old "Natural Scrolling" package I'm assuming is gone because it's no longer in the repos, as far as I can tell.

The built in Reverse Scrolling function only seems to work with on-board tracking devices; i.e. a touchpad on a laptop. There are no options under the "Mouse" tab related to said scrolling functionality, and no options under "Touchpad" to extend the functionality to other devices.

When I have done Google searches on this, I'm really basically only finding results which are pretty out-of-date.

Thoughts, folks?

[all41]

I had this same request a couple weeks ago and I was able to reverse the direction of the scroll
wheel using:

Code: Select all

xinput --list

In this screenshot you can see the id=10 for my mouse, yours may be a different id#

Screenshot at 2016-08-05 21-40-30.png

Then I look at the parameters for dev=10 in a terminal:

Code: Select all

xinput list-props 10

Screenshot at 2016-08-05 21-53-421.png

Scroll down to find Endev Scrolling Distance. It will also have a parameter number in parenthesis.
In my system it is 513 (bottom of the second screenshot. It is followed by the attributes 1, 1, 1. These need to be changed to -1, -1, -1.
To do that in a terminal:

Code: Select all

xinput set-prop 10 513 -1, -1, -1

Screenshot at 2016-08-05 21-44-58.png

of coarse substitute your device number for the 10 and your parameter number for 513
This will all get reset at boot but a small startup script can take care of that.

[DeMus]

Maybe a stupid question, but what does it do differently now than what it did before?

[all41]

Maybe a stupid question, but what does it do differently now than what it did before?

I first encountered the "natural scrolling" on a different OS--I have never liked it.
Normally when you scroll down (rotate the mousewheel toward you) the viewed page moves upward on the screen.
I personally don't get the point of reversing the direction of movement but at least a few people do.

[DeMus]

Normally when you scroll down (rotate the mousewheel toward you) the viewed page moves upward on the screen.

When I rotate the mousewheel towards me, the screen scrolls down. So in your book, that is not normal. This is however the way I always use it and I never, and I really mean never, do anything to change it after an installation of an OS. In other words this must be normal, this must be default. How else can it work like that if I don't change it?
I looked in the mouse settings just now and "Reverse scroll direction" is not on, still pulling the wheel towards me makes the screen scroll down.
Are you sure your way is the default way or do you change the setting and call it "normal"?
Don't get me wrong please, I am just trying to understand it.

[all41]

When I rotate the mouse wheel towards me the scroll bars move downward but the page text moves upward---which is how I have always used a mouse wheel for scrolling.
I mostly use a usb trackpad for scrolling and this feels comfortable for me on that device as well.

Mint 17.3 and 18 has the Settings choice for 'Natural Scrolling' when a trackpad is present. This reverses thedirection of scrolling. It was my understanding the OP wanted to incorporate this for a standard mouse/mousewheel.
There must be some who use this feature but as I have said it is not my cup of tea.

[musicin3d]

For the lazy...

Code: Select all

regex='Mouse.*id=([0-9]+)'
mouseline=$(xinput --list | egrep "$regex")
[[ $mouseline =~ $regex ]]
mouseid="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"

regex='Evdev Scrolling Distance \(([0-9]+)\)'
scrollline=$(xinput list-props $mouseid | egrep "$regex")
[[ $scrollline =~ $regex ]]
scrollid="${BASH_REMATCH[1]}"

xinput set-prop $mouseid $scrollid -1, -1, -1

Copy/paste that or save it as a shell script.

[wackywalt]

I had this same request a couple weeks ago and I was able to reverse the direction of the scroll
wheel using:

Code: Select all

xinput --list

In this screenshot you can see the id=10 for my mouse, yours may be a different id#
Screenshot at 2016-08-05 21-40-30.png
Then I look at the parameters for dev=10 in a terminal:

Code: Select all

xinput list-props 10

Screenshot at 2016-08-05 21-53-421.png
Scroll down to find Endev Scrolling Distance. It will also have a parameter number in parenthesis.
In my system it is 513 (bottom of the second screenshot. It is followed by the attributes 1, 1, 1. These need to be changed to -1, -1, -1.
To do that in a terminal:

Code: Select all

xinput set-prop 10 513 -1, -1, -1

Screenshot at 2016-08-05 21-44-58.png
of coarse substitute your device number for the 10 and your parameter number for 513
This will all get reset at boot but a small startup script can take care of that.

Thanks all41!
I found the device id for my mouse, which is 12
then I followed that up with:

Code: Select all

xinput list-props 12

I then see these 2 properties:

Code: Select all

libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled (278):	0
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled Default (279):	0

Changing the value to 1 for the first of these seems to do the trick for me:

Code: Select all

xinput set-prop 12 278 1

[all41]

Good report and you're welcome @wackywalt
You are wielding the power
Enjoy

[wackywalt]

I have a shell script started up and it works fine on startups and reboots.
However, I do find that when my laptop wakes up from sleep it no longer is natural scrolling.
I have to rerun the script to get it working again.

Is there a better solution?
Thanks in advance!
Walt

[mvamos]

Thanks wackywalt.

My output for xinput showed one 0 for natural scrolling direction. Tried changing to a 1, but got this message:

xinput set-prop 10 293 1

X Error of failed request: BadAccess (attempt to access private resource denied)
Major opcode of failed request: 131 (XInputExtension)
Minor opcode of failed request: 57 ()
Serial number of failed request: 20
Current serial number in output stream: 21

Can anyone help with this? What do I have wrong?