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3-button Optical Mice?

Posted by Cliff on from the we-can-get-mice-with-big-ears-but-not-3-buttons? dept.

proclus asks: "Does anyone else think that scroll wheels are a clunky replacement for the middle button? Mice are supposed to have three buttons, right? It was such an improvement when the three button mice started appearing for PC hardware, but I'm wondering, where are the optical ones?"

8 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Um... by Surye · · Score: 0, Interesting

    This is a pathetic article. I have never seen an optical mouse without 3 buttons. You see, the wheel is pretty much ALWAYS a button. and that makes for a great combination. I don't know where you are seeing your mice....

    1. Re:Um... by aleonard · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You misunderstood. He want a third button, but he doesn't like the scroll wheel being the third button. He considers it clunky.

      To the asker: Sorry, but it's not going to change. People are used to clicking their mwheel as the third mouse button, and it seems a waste to add a third button and remove the mwheel's click.

      If you really don't want to use the mwheel to click the third button, perhaps you can get an Intellimouse Explorer and remap the fourth or fifth button to the functions the third button typically handles, and use those instead? Otherwise, I don't think it's going to happen, unless a company brings out an optical mouse without a wheel. And some things are too useful to discard - How many keyboards don't have the numpad? Not many, if any at all. It's a lot more useful than ScrlLock. :P

      --
      "In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -Dostoevsky
    2. Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have a Logitech MX-300, which has a clickable scroll whell, and a small button under it that performs the same function (i.e. the button and wheel both map to the middle button). The wheel could be easily removed if you didn't want it. I had the mouse open so I could tape it up and prevent the sides of the mouse from glowing red (optical mouse manufacturers seem to think everyone wants a brightly glowing mouse - I haven't seen an optical USB mouse without this "feature"), and the wheel falls right out. Or you could just adjust the spring tension so the wheel can be easily clicked (IMHO, it's a bit too hard to press by default).

  2. No and no. by infonography · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wheel mice are great, only Solaris users really need three and even then wheels are usable under Solaris. Considering I am looking at a banner ad for mice I can only think this is astroturfing. Next we'll see you spouting off about the joys of using a one button mouse. Be gone ye layer of phony shrubbery.

    --
    Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
  3. Mouse Systems by storem · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Mouse Systems was one of the original makers of optical mice, since back in the early 1980s, and made a nice simple & solid three-button optical mouse. Unfortunately they got bought out recently and the new owners, KYE International, are making the same two-button/scroll mice as everyone else.

    Here's a picture of the actual three-button optical mouse.

    --
    StarTrek.org Free Webmail
  4. Re:Finer grained detents. by Gordonjcp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well now, this can be done... On most "el cheapo" scrolly mice, the detents are an exposed toothed wheel, that a plastic roller on a spring engages with. So, get that Dremel out and cut detents between the existing ones...

  5. Re:Real functionality for mouse buttons by Mawbid · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Some kind of function to help with multiple selection could be good.

    I sometimes use the computer with the mouse only. The thing that makes me reach for the keyboard is usually a need press shift or ctrl to add files to a selection.

    Then again, the whole selection mechanism, as commonly implemented, is not perfect to begin with. Selections are too ephemeral. A single wayward click can undo all your selection work. A "toggle persistent selection" button in the UI would be a general improvement and solve my problem as a side effect.

    --
    Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
  6. Re:Real functionality for mouse buttons by rpeppe · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I use plan 9, and spend most of my time inside acme, which in my view has one of the nicest developer interfaces around.

    The mouse interface feels particularly natural once one is used to it and not only do all three buttons have distinct (and consistent) uses, combinations of buttons do too!

    • button 1 selects text.
    • button 2 selects text; it then executes the selected text as an editor command, or a shell command.
    • button 3 selects text; it then looks for that text: if it's a filename, it opens it in a new window, or moves to it if already open; otherwise it looks for the next occurrence of that text inside the current window.
    Note that acme is basically a text editor: everything in it (including the titlebars of the windows) contains editable text. There are no menus, buttons, widgets or icons. To delete a window, you middle-button click on the text "Del" (I could do it now on that text!). To paste some text from the cut&paste buffer, select the text to be replaced, and middle click on "Paste".

    For operations like cut & paste, that's a little time consuming so there are mouse short cuts, using mouse chords. If you've selected some text with button-1, before you let go of the button, you can click button-2 to cut the text, or button-3 to paste some text. (button-2 followed by button-3 leaves the text unchanged, just copied into the copy&paste buffer).

    This is immensely convenient - you can do without the keyboard for a great deal of editing work, shuffling pieces of code around, browsing looking for variable declarations, running compilations, etc, etc. Rather than having my hands always on the keyboard and occasionally moving to the mouse, I find my hand is always on the mouse, and only occasionally moves to the keyboard (to enter text! - exactly what the keyboard is for).

    Here's an example of a system that uses 3 mouse buttons in a completely consistent way to really leverage the expressive power of a mouse.