USB Overdrive for Mac OS X b3 released

Alessandro Levi Montalcini has released a new beta version of USB Overdrive for Mac OS X. The new version, beta 3, can be downloaded from the Web site.

USB Overdrive is a universal USB driver designed to work with USB-based mice, trackballs, joysticks and gamepads (although this beta version only supports mice and trackballs). The software enables you to register either global or application-specific settings, and registers input from the various wheels, buttons, switches and controls on your input device. USB Overdrive supports scrolling, keyboard emulation, application launching and complex macros, along with clicking, control-clicking and other functionality. It also supports more than one USB device simultaneously.

According to the developer, changes in beta 3 include:

Fixed problems with mice that stopped working after some time, or when coming back from sleep.

Hopefully fixed the problem where the settings wouldn’t be enabled after login until the USB Overdrive X application was launched.

Single-button mice now always perform a normal mouse click when their only button is pressed, no matter what has been assigned to the left button in the USB Overdrive. This allows you to use the Apple mouse normally while assigning different actions to a second mouse. For example, left-handed users can reverse the left and right buttons of a wheel mouse and still use the Apple mouse as usual.

Added more Speed and Acceleration settings, based on beta 2 user feedback. All existing application settings will revert to the system default, and should be manually updated by the user. Note that this beta does not have variable acceleration curves yet.

The Options menu now displays the list of connected devices, although it doesn’t display their exact names yet.

The user interface has visual feedback when the mouse wheel is rolled up or down.

USB Overdrive X 10.0.0b3 is offered as US$20 shareware — you’re welcome to download it and give it a try. The developer said that users of the OS 9 version who registered following X’s release are entitled to a free upgrade using their existing registration code; new registrations cover the OS 9 and OS X versions both. Users who registered before OS X was released can get a special price for the upgrade, and all registered users of ALM Share will receive a free registration upon request.