When you are using KMouseTool, you do have to learn new mousing habits.

First, keep in mind where it's safe to click — clicking on gray parts of windows or non-link areas of web browsers won't hurt anything, so you can safely rest the mouse over those areas until you need it.

Second, you need to know where you're going to click before you move the mouse. Most of the time, when we know we're going to use the mouse, most of us grab the mouse and start moving it around randomly until we figure out where we want to click. With KMouseTool, you need to know where you're going to click before you move the mouse in the first place. It is also a good idea to keep your hands off the mouse when you're not using it.

Yes. If your mouse sticks, it means you need to clean your mouse. This is usually easy to do; the trick is that you have to clean not just the mouse's ball, but the rollers that the ball rolls against inside the mouse.

First, you have to remove the ball. The method for doing this varies from mouse to mouse, but it's usually pretty clear how to do this if you look at the bottom of the mouse.

Once you've removed the ball, you should be able to see the rollers on the sides of the hole that contained the ball. The dirt and grime on them can be easily scraped off with a flat blade or with a fingernail.

In some rare situations, the system suspends KMouseTool when a drag starts; if you are using Smart Drag, this means that KMouseTool can never finish the drag by clicking up.

This happens when you use KMouseTool under a non KDE window manager and then use it to move a window.

The solution is to simply click manually; this resets KMouseTool, and you can then continue to work normally again.

Problem: When you're typing text, KMouseTool keeps dropping clicks and moving the cursor away from where you want to type.

Solution: Use the mouse to place the cursor where you want it, but when you're ready to type, park the mouse on a neutral area on the screen. Then, if you bump the mouse, or if it moves a few pixels, any random clicks that it sends won't matter. Safe places to park the mouse include the gray areas around toolbars and menus, and on the title bars of windows.

Smart Drag is an advanced feature of KMouseTool, and takes some getting used to. It is very possible to use it to select text, to cut and paste, and use it in almost any situation where you would normally want to drag the mouse. But you probably won't be able to do this at first. Here are some suggestions: