Frequently Asked Questions on MouseExtender
- How can I add my favorite program to the utility?
- What else I can keep in Mouse Extender?
- How can I group my icons?
- Okay, how can I move my games from Main tab to Games?
- How can I sort items within a tab?
- Icon on item is ugly. How can i change it?
- I’d like to use Mouse Extender with Alt + Left click. Can I change a Middle button click
- I accidentally turn off my computer by double click on system buttons. I don’t want to repeat it anymore
- Sometimes when I want to hide Mouse Extender I accidentally close it by pressing Close button. How can I escape this error?
- There are many options for managing my computer with Mouse Extender: shutdown, restart, hibernate, sleep. But what if I want to Lock my desktop? How can I configure it?
- I’d like to open/close CDROM door (tray) with ME. Will you implement this feature?
- How can I add shortcuts for My Computer and Recycle Bin to the panel? Is it possible?
- How can I add Show Desktop shortcut to MouseExtender?
- I have question not listed here. Who can help me?
1. How can I add my favorite program to the utility?
Use one of the following ways:
1. “Add File” dialog (picture of this menu item)
2. If your program is currently running and it’s window is visible – “Add running program dialog” (gif pic here ask me for details)
3. If shortcut to your program is on desktop or you have opened folder with your program – use drag&drop (pic with example)
These ways are also eligible for adding files to ME.
2. What else I can keep in Mouse Extender?
Files, folders, URL’s. For files see Q1. Adding folder is easy with “add folder” menu item or drag&dropping folder to ME. (pic with these ways)
Urls are added using “Add URL” menu item (pic here)
3. How can I group my icons?
You can use Tabs for this. Tabs are logical groups for items in ME. It’s very useful feature if you keep a lot of stuff in ME.
For example user can have 3 tabs (or even more): Main, Games, Development.
Main tab contains everyday used programs and sites.
Games is self-descriptive 
Development tab contains items related to development – IDE’s, tools, urls to forums, MSDN, blogs.
4. Okay, how can I move my games from Main tab to Games?
Use context menu on item you want to move and select “Send to Tab”, and then – “Games” tab.
5. How can I sort items within a tab?
You can reorder items with drag&drop.
6. Icon on item is ugly. How can i change it?
Use “Edit Item” dialog and change icon to anyone you want. You can use exe, dll, ico files or even images.
7. I’d like to use Mouse Extender with Alt + Left click. Can I change a Middle button click
You can change mouse configuration in Settings dialog. Hold “Alt” system key and press click by left mouse button on “Mouse button configuration” text box. Then press OK.
8. I accidentally turn off my computer by double click on system buttons. I don’t want to repeat it anymore
You can hide system buttons from ME. Use Settings dialog and uncheck “Show system buttons” check box.
9. Sometimes when I want to hide Mouse Extender I accidentally close it by pressing Close button. How can I escape this error?
- You can hide ME by pressing middle mouse button (or what you had configured). You need to check “Hide on mouse click when opened” check box in Settings dialog.
- You can hide Close button. You need check “Hide Close button” check box in Settings dialog.
10. There are many options for managing my computer with Mouse Extender: shutdown, restart, hibernate, sleep. But what if I want to Lock my desktop? How can I configure it?
There is no special button in ME to lock computer, but you can add a usual item with link to this function.
Add any file to ME and then chage its configuration by clickin Edit Item in its context menu. Change each field correspondently:
- File: rundll32.exe
- Tooltip: Lock descktop
- Arguments: user32.dll, LockWorkStation
- Change Item Icon: something from C:\WINDOWS\system32\shell32.dll for example.
You should got something like this:
11. I’d like to open/close CDROM door (tray) with ME. Will you implement this feature?
You can download CDR.exe file from http://www.codeguru.com/code/legacy/system/cdr.zip (thanks to article)
Then, you drag this file to the ME and in “Edit item” popup set the “Arguments” field to the value you want.
Examples of arguments are below
To OPEN or CLOSE the first logical CD Drive:
C:\> CDR open
C:\> CDR close
If you have more than one CD Drive, you can specify a drive letter:
C:\> CDR open g:
C:\> CDR close g:
If you have more than one CD Drive, you can specify ALL drives:
C:\> CDR open all
C:\> CDR close all
12. How can I add shortcuts for My Computer and Recycle Bin to the panel? Is it possible?
Yes, it is possible. But you can’t just drag and drop these objects directly to the panel. Instead of this you should add shortcut to the windows explorer (%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe) and enter the follwing Arguments:
- /E,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} – for My Computer
- /N,::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} – for Recycle Bin
13. How can I add Show Desktop shortcut to MouseExtender?
You can just drag Show Desktop icon from quicklaunch bar and and drop it in ME.
If you have no such icon at desktop or quicklaunch bar you can create create it manually. Following are your steps:
1. Open Notepad
2. Type in Notepad following text:
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
3. Save file as “ShowDescktop.scf”
4. Drag it onto MouseExtender