Hot on the heels of an initial public beta released last week, Alessandro Levi Montalcini has announced the release of
USB Overdrive beta 2 for Mac OS X.
USB Overdrive is a universal USB driver. The software recognizes input from USB devices like mice, trackballs, joysticks and gamepads. Support in this beta version is limited to mice and trackballs only, but the rest are coming soon. With USB Overdrive, you can program your input devices to emulate the keyboard, execute complex macros, support control-clicking, scrolling and more.
The developer advised that the final version of USB Overdrive X will be distributed as shareware; users who registered the original version after Mac OS X’s release will be entitled to a free upgrade, and users who registered before then will be entitled to a reduced-cost upgrade.
Changes in USB Overdrive beta 2 include:
Added separate Speed and Acceleration settings for greater control over the mouse speed.
Restored the functionality of the Enabled check box. When the Enable option is unchecked for a given application or for the Global Settings, the Overdrive behaves exactly like the standard Mac OS X mouse driver, including both the mouse speed and the buttons/wheel behavior.
Added Middle Click, Fourth Click and Fifth Click to the list of actions that can be performed. This is useful for applications that handle the extra buttons on their own. For such applications, you can either uncheck the Enabled option, or assign Middle Click to the middle button to have the middle button behave as expected.
Restored the ability to press modifier keys alone (without typing a keystroke or clicking a button) by checking one of the modifier keys when Do Nothing is selected. This is useful in applications like Timbuktu, where a modifier key alone is used to invoke a command.
Fixed a problem where the USBOverdriveHelper was not added to the Login Items, so that the USB Overdrive X application had to be launched manually after every login to enable to Overdrive. This caused many people to report that the Overdrive had no effect whatsoever on their system.
Fixed a problem with the Microsoft Wireless Explorer that caused the mouse buttons to be randomly released every 30 seconds or so.
USB Overdrive is distributed as shareware. Registration costs US$20.