While mainly labeled by manufacturers as "internet" buttons, they are widely supported in many other applications besides web browsers, e.g.: Windows Explorer, Media Player, Photo Gallery / Picture and Fax Viewer, iTunes, Picasa, Media Player Classic.
Also, in Vista these buttons are supported in all native wizards and common file open/save dialogs.
When I bought my first mouse with X buttons (Logitech MX400), I thought that they are redundant and unnecessary, but after some time I found myself using them more and more. Indeed, it's much faster to press the button on the mouse than to reach and click the the tiny toolbar button.
While many mice come with manufacturer's drivers that install all sorts of crap (Logitech SetPoint , Logitech Desktop Messenger etc.), XP and Vista have native support for these buttons in their built-in drivers.
All that is needed to add support for back/forward buttons in the application is to process window message WM_XBUTTONUP:
Code: Select all
switch (msg) {
case WM_XBUTTONUP:
switch (GET_XBUTTON_WPARAM(wParam)) {
case XBUTTON1:
GoBack();
return TRUE;
case XBUTTON2:
GoForward();
return TRUE;
}
break;
}