Re: [OT] Mouse buttons (was Re: troubling article)
Re: [OT] Mouse buttons (was Re: troubling article)
- Subject: Re: [OT] Mouse buttons (was Re: troubling article)
- From: Jeff Harrell <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 01:52:31 -0500
On Thursday, June 12, 2003, at 01:03 AM, M. Uli Kusterer wrote:
Personally, I'd expect Apple to at least make a concession to the
fact that some users prefer two buttons, e.g. by making the different
kinds of mice an option so people like me don't have a perfectly good
one-button mouse sitting on a shelf gathering dust.
Apple's not in the mouse-making business. I think the built-in driver
supporting second mouse buttons and scroll wheels on third-party USB
mice is fine and dandy.
Or failing that, could they at least ship high-end Macs (like the G4
or the Powerbook) with a two-button + wheel mouse?
They shouldn't do that for precisely the same reason they ship low-end
Macs with one-button mice. Last year I came into some extra cash and
went out and bought a top-of-the-line Power Mac G4 as the home computer
for my family. (Hey, you've gotta splurge sometimes, you know?) We no
more want a multi-button mouse on that machine than we would on any
other.
Or they could ship a "one button plus wheel" mouse, where the wheel
doubles as the secondary mouse button, like it does on my MacAlly
(though that feature should be off by default, to avoid newbies
accidentally clicking while scrolling because their fingers cramp up
pretty often).
I think you just answered your own question. ;-) If my opinion were
sought, I would vote "no" on a product that has to be specially tweaked
to accommodate finger-cramping.
Look, all this hoo-hah about mice (mouses? whatever) is old news. Mice
are not good input devices. Mice with multiple buttons on them are even
worse. We need to solve the problems surrounding touch-sensitive
screens. The three big ones are cost, software (how to discriminate
exactly what the user is pointing at which a big, fat finger mashes
down on a little control object), and smudgery. Once we have those
solved, the mouse will go the way of the light pen and the floppy
drive. Don't make me slide some widget around on my tabletop to line up
a pointer with a control! Just let me point at the damned thing! Direct
manipulation is where it's at. All my life, and I've been using
computers since I was but a wee lad, I've been unable to shake the
feeling that using a mouse is like trying to mix a martini with one of
those remote manipulator things they use in hazardous materials labs:
awkward to the point of absurdity.
--
email@hidden
http://homepage.mac.com/jharrell
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