Apple Requires Three-Button Mouse for Shake 2.5

SpillerC writes "The requirements for the newest version of Shake (cross-platform: Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Irix) will require a three-button mouse on the Mac. Are there any other Apple-produced applications (Apple owns Shake) that require a three-button mouse? Will Apple release its own three-button mouse now?"

Comments

Temporary

[Aram Fingal]

My understanding of Apple's position on multi-button mice is that they unnecessarily complicate the user interface. They give the user one more place to have to look to figure out how to do something. OS X supports multi button mice if you want an alternate way of doing things but Apple ships one button mice to keep programmers from writing stuff that depends on the additional buttons.

Shake is something which Apple acquired from another company. I suspect it will only require a three button mouse until Apple has a chance to rewrite it.

Having said that, one other Apple product which used a three button mouse was, the now long gone, A/UX (Apple UNIX).

Who cares, really?

[webToy]

I use Apple's ONE button mouse and works just fine. Control-click is not that hard, and if I wanted a two or three button mouse I would probably just buy one from Kensington...
Is it really that big of a deal that Apple doesn't produce one of their own?

Re:Who cares, really?

[BitGeek]

This is the silliest reason not to buy a TiBook I've ever heard.

You should buy it. you'll quickly discover that you don't need the extra buttons and the machine works fine without them.

The idea that you need more than one button is a false one, it simply isn't true, and you only think you do because you've been using poorly designed operating systems that make you use absurdly complicated controls (like three button mice when only one is *necessary*.)

Something tells me that TiBook would have to be an X86 running at 1/4 speed under battery too, and THEN you'd really buy it.

Re:Who cares, really?

[snafu]

(preface: I'm a Windows *, Linux, Solaris, and OS X user.)

I have come to realize that on a laptop (like my iBook) with a touch-pad or a pointy-stick, one button is much easier to use than two buttons. Using the pointer devices on laptops requires you to contort your hand to use the other button (to right drag or get a menu, usually what I'm doing with it).

However, with OS X and one button, I simply use 'ctrl' with my left. Both hands stay in a natural position and (IMO) this is much faster than right clicking in windows (on one of my pc laptops).

When using a mouse, however, I like the convenience of having two buttons and a scroll wheel, so that's what I plug in (right clicking yields a context-menu, even in "classic" which I don't use).

Re:Who cares, really?

[blukens]

But with macs. You have to CTRL + click.

I think you, and others, are making a inaccurate assumption here. Unlike Unix or Windows, in a properly designed Mac application there should never be a time where an operation is accessable only through a context-menu. This is, you should never have to ctrl-click (or right-click) on anything.

One of the core interface elements to the Mac environment is the unified menu bar. In many ways, it behaves like an omnipresent contextual menu. Switch from one app to another, it changes to reflect the new context. Within an application, items will enable/disable as they pertain to the currently selected object.

For instance, in Windows it is very common to have a window without menu bar - like in an installer perhaps. If that window contains a text input element, and you want to access Copy and Paste commands (ignoring ctrl-key shortcuts) you have to get them from the context-menu. On a Mac, there will always be an Edit menu in the top menu bar, with those commands ready and waiting.

The fact that Shake requires a 3 button mouse says to me that it is not a properly designed Mac app. That can be okay in some instances. Here, time to market was obviously an issue. And these types of professional apps tend to be an environment unto itself. You'll start the app at the beginning of the day and quit it when you go home, rarely switching between other programs. In such a case, having its own set of rules isn't quite as unforgivable. But I expect Apple to clean it up in time.

Re:Who cares, really?

[Golias]

My only real problem with Apple (yes, I am currently drooling over 700MHz 12" iBook), is that they upgrade the OS to force people to buy more of their hardware. It is not a easy thing to upgrade a CPU in a Mac and get much more than 10 or 20% gain in performance.

But that's changing the subject, isn't it? Pretty much nobody upgrades the CPU in their laptop computer, Mac or PC, so it has nothing to do with it.

I could get into the "desktop Macs are too hard to upgrade" debate with you, but it's way off the topic of the thread.

Getting back on topic, you simply will not get more ! for your $ in a laptop than buying a Mac. Their CPU's run cooler (and on less power) than either AMD or Intel chips, which allows them to run full-speed and fanless for hours on a single battery. They've got pretty much every feature you need already built in (modem, Ethernet, external video, USB, firewire) and an antenna for adding 802.11b wireless networking for a mere C-note. They are built rugged, have nice screens, and are reasonably priced.

Apple may never be able to compete on raw cost-for-hardware in the destop arena, where a home-built PC remains the ideal choice for penny pinchers (unless a Mac OS machine is worth the slight premium to you)... But their laptops take a back seat to nobody.

Re:Who cares, really?

[Lars T.]

Well, I'm not surprized that using the Shift key is also too much work for you.

that explains the price cut...

[anothy]

Apple computer today announced that Shake, a recently-aquired software product, will sell for half price on Apple's own computer systems. The savings is approximatly $5,000.
In a seperate, unrelated announcement, Apple announced it would be releasing a new, multi-button mouse for use with Shake. The new mouse, initially available in a three-button model, will sell for $5,000.

Nice theory, but...

[fm6]

Shipping one-button mice is not much of a safeguard -- half the Mac people I know use aftermarket mice. The real safeguard is the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. Alas, Apple itself no longer seems interested in enforcing these guidelines, even for their own products. I've never used OS X, but I've heard complaints that it violates the MHIG right and left.

Re:Nice theory, but...

[BitGeek]

This is because OS X apps are not supposed to conform to the MHIG. There is a new set of Human Interface guildines called the Aqua HIG.

These aren't guildines that are "Enforced" -- you can make your app look and work like windows if you want. But Apple certainly does encourage it.

The interface builder has the guildlines built in and will tell you where to place your controls in relation to each other, comes with a default menu layout and the default hotkeys set up. etc.

As to 3 button mice, Apple is correct in not shipping them out of the box. It breaks the paradigm and actually slows people down. I use a three button mouse, though, I got it because its a trackball, the scroll wheel and other button are useful, and I like them.

But for most users, a one button mouse is the correct choice to ship. Billions in productivity have been wasted by microsoft choosing to ship the 2 button mouse (not to mention the billions lost wasting time reinstalling your os, etc. on windows.)

article about apple mice

[trianglecat]

an article on the subject of apple and mice at
macobserver