Middle Mouse Button to Pan

[justchris]

Pan with middle mouse button is essential in many apps. I was very shocked that I have to touch the keyboard to pan things. or to extend the rubberband selection in the MIDI editor.

[Scoox]

Pan with middle mouse button is essential in many apps. I was very shocked that I have to touch the keyboard to pan things. or to extend the rubberband selection in the MIDI editor.

This happens because most users are dumb or lazy and can't be asked to request features. They just live with the annoyances and become full-time fanboys, flaming anyone who dares criticise Live.

[justchris]

Or most users use only there touchpads and have no middle mousebutton to push?
But everyone with a mouse will automatically try to use the middle mouse button to pan.

[Scoox]

Or most users use only there touchpads and have no middle mousebutton to push?
But everyone with a mouse will automatically try to use the middle mouse button to pan.

I don't have a MacBook so I have no idea how the trouchpad works in Live, but I assume there's a way to pan left/right/up/down with a two-finger swipe (maybe someone can confirm). If that is correct, I see no reason not to use the middle button, especially considering it is 100% unused in Live. Adding functionality to the middle button would literally not interfere with anything in Live. Oh, and while we are on the subject, I would like an option to enable the mouse wheel to control hovered parameters. I type the word 'option' in bold to prevent anyone unleashing their anger on me.

[Tarekith]

Anger unleashed!!!

[justchris]

Or most users use only there touchpads and have no middle mousebutton to push?
But everyone with a mouse will automatically try to use the middle mouse button to pan.

I don't have a MacBook so I have no idea how the trouchpad works in Live, but I assume there's a way to pan left/right/up/down with a two-finger swipe (maybe someone can confirm). If that is correct, I see no reason not to use the middle button, especially considering it is 100% unused in Live. Adding functionality to the middle button would literally not interfere with anything in Live. Oh, and while we are on the subject, I would like an option to enable the mouse wheel to control hovered parameters. I type the word 'option' in bold to prevent anyone unleashing their anger on me.

Oh yes change values with mouse wheel is very fine, I like this a lot in other applications.

And get rid of DirectX and MME Support on Windows Systems, WASAPI is the standard audio interface for onboard sound on Windows for many many years until Vista I think.

[Scoox]

And get rid of DirectX and MME Support on Windows Systems, WASAPI is the standard audio interface for onboard sound on Windows for many many years until Vista I think.

Good point

[jezric]

I'm a recent Ableton migrant and I have to agree, coming from other DAWs and art/production apps (3d modeling, CAD, etc.), It really surprises me that there is no customization of keyboard shortcuts.

Just allow users to remap all the shortcuts (ctrl+alt map to middle mouse button), and done! Also, can't change the Quantize shortcut (ctrl+U which is really not convenient with the left hand).

Anyway... Let us remap all the shortcuts. Obviously, key/midi mapping is a strong point in Live that they have focused on already, but not supporting remapping keyboard/mouse shortcuts... What???

Well... I guess we all just need to hope that the Ableton devs are listening...

[railpressureflip]

Don’t even get me started. For years I’ve not seen anyone request this feature but I’m glad I came across this now.

Ableton’s user experience as a while is extremely clunky, the software barely follows any modern UX laws and the biggest crime is the lack of middle click pan. That’s a very basic UX functionality that almost every other (DAW or otherwise) has. For crying out loud, adobe has implemented middle click pan in a bunch of their products, comparing to that is extremely embarrassing.
Having grown up with FL studio, I really have been spoiled with exposure to god-level UX. Right now we’re only talking middle-click-pan, but the middle click should be able to (and easily can) do so much more. Like clip colour, QUICK RENAME (Holy shit Ctrl+R is a painful macro.)

Its not like middle click button is currently mapped to something by Ableton that it’ll clash with the new features. Even worse, I’ve seen some of the most insane producers move their cursor all the way to the top of the screen just for a short zoom in / out function. That or press the + - keys on the keyboard. Ctrl / cmd + scroll works for now, even that needs to be smooth and not as jaggadey as it is right now.

Unfortunately, the only ways are either Live Enhancement Suite - if you’re on Windows. It no longer works on MacOS - at least not for me - as the extension itself has been abandoned for a few years now.

Either that, or get a mouse that lets you program macros to the mouse buttons (and program ctrl + alt, I think is what it is, for middle click pan)

Judging by the way Ableton is updating, I have absolutely no reason to have any hope they’d implement something as simple as this in the future updates.
Better to not have expectations altogether than be disappointed over and over again.

[jezric]

Yep, seems basic "industry standard" usability features are not a priority (also like, you can't remap any of the keyboard shortcuts).

I have started using AutoHotKey in Win10/11 to capture and remap keyboard input for things like quantize and show/hide plugin windows (because when you close a plugin window with the [x] it completely unloads that plugin's UI memory allocation and the next time you open it, it will have to load again which takes longer, where show/hide keeps it in memory so it's instant, having this on a single keypress is SUPER convenient). I believe AutoHotKey can send mouse commands too, so might look into capturing middle mouse button and mapping it to ctrl + alt and left click/hold. Hmm...

It's so lame that we need to do hacks like this for basic UX functionality.

I know Live12 is in the queue and I just watched a demo highlighting new features (sonicstate) and no mention of anything around quality-of-life updates like keyboard customization, mouse functionality, etc., they mention accessibility but only keyboard UI nav support... So not getting my hopes up... But maybe we'll all be pleasantly surprised.

[milkformycoconut]

Here is Autohotkey to remap Ctrl+Alt+Left Mouse Button to Middle Mouse Button

#IfWinActive, ahk_exe Ableton Live 11 Suite.exe
#InputLevel 1
MButton::^!LButton

Old shortcut will still work, but with this script now Middle mouse button will also do panning

and here is for Undo/Redo

^+z::
Send, ^y
Return

I just switched Ctrl+Y to Ctrl+Shift+Z like it should be

[jezric]

Hey thanks! Super helpful.

I have quantize and show/hide plugins, in case anyone wants those:

^w::Send, ^!p
^q::Send, ^u

Ugh! It's so lame we have to do this... Why not just allow us to remap all the keyboard shortcuts, I mean come on, they already have this whole Key/Midi mapping thing, just no way to do it with already set keyboard shortcuts. Does Ableton read these? lol