Microsoft Teams – Push To Talk via Mouse Button

Big shout out to Kieran Lloyd for suggesting this: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/kieranlloyd

Teams now has a Push To Talk feature on the desktop app by pressing {ctrl} +{ space}. This is a bit like a Walkie Talkie, holding the PTT keys will unmute you then automatically mute you again upon release. https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/office/using-audio-in-teams-17886394-9a9a-4f04-b4cc-e46589408b28

Whilst discussing Push To Talk, Kieran mentioned he had programmed one of his Logitech Mouse buttons to send {ctrl} + {shift} + M to mute and unmute Teams. He then mentioned he should configure another mouse button to send {ctrl} + {space} to use PTT with his mouse!

I set out to configure this for my own mouse (Anker Vertical Ergonomic) as it has Next & Previous Page buttons I never use. I soon discovered Windows does not let me program the mouse buttons and Anker do not appear to have software to do this. Kieran was using a Logitech mouse which has software to customise mouse buttons: https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/software/options.html

After a quick Google Search I stumbled upon a free tool called X-Mouse Button Control https://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/xmousebuttoncontrol.htm

Once installed, I created a new Application Profile for the Microsoft Teams app. This ensures that the custom mouse buttons only send the keyboard keystrokes when Teams is the Active Window (Useful!)

Once the new Application profile was created, I was able to identify Mouse Button 4 and 5 were the Previous and Next Page buttons on my mouse as each mouse button highlights orange when pressed.

For each button I selected “Simulated Keys” from the drop down menu.

Mouse Button 4 (Back/Next Page) was programmed as Push To Talk.

Custom keys = {CTRL}{SPACE}
How to send the simulated key strokes = 3 During (Press on down, release on up)

Mouse Button 5 (Forward/Previous Page) was programmed as the standard Mute / Unmute button.

Custom keys = {CTRL}{SHIFT}M
How to send the simulated key strokes = 1 As mouse button is pressed