Mouse Test

What the Mouse Test checks

The test checks whether your browser receives each of the mouse's controls. Five buttons are tracked (left, right, middle, which is the wheel press, back and forward) along with four scroll directions: up, down, left and right. Each control turns green the first time the browser receives it, and the counter at the top shows how many of the nine you have covered. Two more readouts sit below: the time between your last two left-button presses, and how many movement events the browser delivers per second.

How to run it

1. 01

   Move into the dashed box

   Inside it the page blocks the right-click menu, the page scroll and the back/forward navigation, so you can test those controls without leaving or scrolling the page.

2. 02

   Press every button once

   Left, right, middle and, if your mouse has them, back and forward.

3. 03

   Scroll in each direction

   Up and down with the wheel. Left and right need a tilt wheel, a horizontal-scroll gesture or a trackpad; not every mouse can scroll sideways.

4. 04

   Press the left button twice

   The interval between the two presses appears in milliseconds.

5. 05

   Move the mouse around

   The movement counter shows the current rate and the highest rate reached this session.

Reading the readouts

The interval is measured between your last two left-button presses, at the moment the page handles each one, and it always shows the latest pair however far apart they were: a value of several thousand milliseconds only means you waited. It's a rough reference for how quickly you clicked, not a double-click setting and not a measurement of the switch. If you press once and the log shows two presses, that's worth a closer look, and the double-click guide explains how to narrow it down.

The movement number is how many mousemove events the browser handed to the page during the last second. It depends on how fast you move, on your display's refresh rate and on how the operating system groups events, so a higher number doesn't mean a better mouse and it isn't the mouse's polling rate.

Below the readouts, the “Last events” line lists the twelve most recent events, newest first, as short codes. The number after down: is the button index the browser reports:

This is handy when a button seems to do the wrong thing: if a press you made with one button is logged under another number, the mouse or its software is sending a different button.

Where this test stops

• It doesn't measure DPI or the real polling rate in hertz; the browser doesn't expose either.
• It records presses, not releases, and it doesn't report click or dblclick events.
• Back and forward can stay dark on some mice: manufacturer drivers sometimes send a keyboard shortcut such as Alt+Left instead of a real button press, and the test can't see that.
• Scroll direction comes from whichever axis moved more, so a diagonal gesture counts as vertical or horizontal, not both.
• A scroll only lights up its direction. The test doesn't show how far or how evenly the wheel moved, so it can't tell a smooth wheel from one that skips.
• It can't see drivers, macros or profiles that change what a button sends.

What to do next

If a button never turns green, try another USB port, or the mouse on another computer, before blaming the mouse, and close any manufacturer software that remaps buttons. If a single click looks like two, work through the double-click guide. To see how many clicks you register in a fixed time, the Click Speed Test is the next step, and the Reaction Time Test shows how your pointing device behaves in a timed response.