Re: question about RMB

[Mark Tearle <mtearle tearle com>]

On Sun, 15 Oct 2000, Telsa Gwynne wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 08:59:43AM +1300 or thereabouts, Michael Koziarski wrote:
> > > By specifying what button to use, you're going 
> > > to maybe confuse a few users who do use a system like that.  Comments?
> > 
> > I work on the helpdesk and consequently deal with 'southpaws' all the
> > time. I've never heard any complaints from them.
> 
> You missed several threads on here last year and several discussions
> on IRC then. I -hate- "left-click, right-click, middle-click". I don't
> see what's so hard about "button 1, button 2", etc. 
> 
> And I am in a minority here. But..
> 
[snip]

> None of those are straightforward "one mouse, three buttons". 
> It is easier to translate all of those to and from button 1, 2, 3
> than it is to translate them to "left, middle, right" and then 
> translate them to "that's usually 1, 2, 3". 
> 
> One of the reasons I dislike ee as an image viewer is that it
> imitates xv and says "right-click for the menu" on the splash screen.
> Even if you have a leftie mouse. The authors of each program just
> didn't consider that it might not be the right button for some people. 
> Ditto for the enlightenment help balloons. When you don't know a window 
> manager, that is very confusing: is it aware your mouse is 'backwards'? 
> Or do you have to convert in your head? When I started using Gnome, I
> was dead impressed with how much it carried over between applications,
> and it was by no means obvious that actually, e had no idea about the
> mouse buttons. I really thought it might have found out and altered
> the help balloons for me. You can imagine the results :) It was one
> reason I started looking for a different window manager. (You can't 
> change this nomenclature in these apps either. Well, short of 
> recompiling after swapping all the lefts and rights round in the help 
> ballooons.)
> 
> Window Maker's help stuff tells you about button 1, button 2
> nomenclature. It then uses left and right (I think, long time since
> I read it!) but at least it tells you. wmakerconf uses "Button
> one (left button)". sawfish seems to use button 1, 2, 3 in its
> help, and it's one reason I keep thinking "must learn sawfish".
> 

I agree with Telsa, left and right is confusing.  I work with at least
two left-handed people in an office of about 10 who have the mice set
up for left-handed use, it's darn confusing to say "left button" when you
actually want them to press the button associated with the function.
Button 1 has a much closer action/reaction mapping than saying left or right.

In terms of documentation, the way around it would be to use something like
  "Button 1  (Left)"  with the thing in brackets indicating the normal
assignment.

Yours
Mark "Button 99 (That's a keyboard, not a mouse :) ! )"
-- 
Mark Tearle - mark tearle com                          "You howl and listen
                                                    Listen and wait for the
                                          Echoes of angels who won't return"