workbench.editor.mouseBackForwardToNavigate setting not working to trigger the goBack or goForward actions

Bug Reports
1

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Describe the Bug

The setting workbench.editor.mouseBackForwardToNavigate should allow using the global Back/Forward buttons to navigate in Cursor. This works properly in vanilla VS Code. In addition, a difference in VS Code ↔ Cursor is that in Keybindings assignment, VS Code will detect “ctrl±” when pressing the mouse back button, but Cursor will not detect any input.

Steps to Reproduce

  • Example hardware: Logitech MX Master 3 mouse
  • Enable workbench.editor.mouseBackForwardToNavigate setting
  • Press the mouse back/forward buttons

Expected Behavior

The mouse back/forwards buttons should trigger the workbench.action.navigateBack and workbench.action.navigateForward commands.

The keybinding editor should detect back/forward mouse buttons as ctrl+- and ctrl+shift+-

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 0.44.11
VSCode Version: 1.93.1
Commit: fe574d0820377383143b2ea26aa6ae28b3425220
Date: 2025-01-03T07:59:06.361Z
Electron: 30.5.1
Chromium: 124.0.6367.243
Node.js: 20.16.0
V8: 12.4.254.20-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.2.0

Additional Information

This has been my only major pain point converting from VS Code → Cursor. It’s a critical part of my workflow, so while Cursor isn’t unusable, this negatively impacts my flow with Cursor several times per day.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

2

Hey, I’m having this too (and I’m a dev!) but it looks to only affect the Logitech MX Master 3, as I have that too and it’s not working. We are looking into it though!

1 Like
3

Hey, managed to figure it out!

The Logi Options+ app seems to block the back and forward command from ever reaching Cursor, but if you uninstall that, the buttons start working again immediately!

If you still want the remapping capabilities, there are other (usually paid) apps available, like https://better-mouse.com/ which I’m testing myself as of 5 minutes ago.

4

Fantastic, yes that worked for me as well! Turns out I didn’t even have any true customization in the Log Options app enabled, so it was kinda pointless anyways.

It is definitely odd that they must whitelist VS Code somehow to allow the back/forward buttons there.

5

I noticed it in a few other apps too, (including a tiny Electron app I built specifically to test the back and forward keys) so I don’t believe it is exclusive to Cursor!

6

Instead of removing Logi Options app, after selecting your mouse, you can click Add Application and select Cursor.
Then edit Back and Forward buttons’ actions to use following:
Back: ^Ctrl + -
Forward: ^Ctrl + Shift + -