Best uses for extra mouse buttons [closed]

Question

I use Windows XP, and I have a 5-button mouse. My question is: what is the most useful thing you have used your extra mouse buttons for?

Right now, I have set button 4 to be the middle click, and button 5 to "paste". What, in your experience, is the best use of the other mouse buttons?

Answer 1

Hotkeys.

Answer 2

Beyond the obvious gaming use case, a button that does back is useful for web browsing, and a button that emulates the Windows Key or Control Key (depending what you use more) can be useful for preventing awkward arm positions.

Answer 3

I take advantage of the ability (at least with Microsoft mice) to set different actions in different programs. Especially useful are the keyboard/mouse macros you can write. In the intellipoint settings, check "enable program-specific settings", then add a program. Under one of the buttons, choose "macro editor" from the dropdown box. Now you can put in any sequence of keys. In tab-based programs other than browsers (text editor, IM client, etc.) I'll usually set a macro for Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab to use the buttons for cycling between tabs. In browsers I just keep forward/backward. I set up PowerPoint for advance/back slide. In Windows Media Player I set it to next/previous song, and middle click to pause/play.

Answer 4

Well, in CAD work, assigning a button to Polyline, Offset and Trim functions (depending of course, on your way of work - I use these, ..., well, to say very often would be an understatement) can be nice, in contrast to constantly typing pl, tr and off.