3-button Optical Mice?

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?"

Comments

Re:Um...

[aleonard]

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

Wheel is fine for clicking

[perlyking]

I use my middle button extensively (clicking on links and closing tabs in mozilla) and find no problem at all clicking it.
I'm not sure why you want something with less functionality.
I suppose you could glue the mouse wheel so it doesn't move and pretend its just a button ;-)

I've kinda got one

[standsolid]

I know what you mean. I have the Logitech dual optical (available at ThinkGeek for the low low price of 35.99)

there is a tumb button that is useful if you think the middle mouse button on the scroll is somewhat useless. of sourse you still have the scroll, but it's worth a shot, yeah?

No and no.

[infonography]

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.

Re:No and no.

[SN74S181]

Huh? Only Solaris users need three buttons?

There are plenty of uses for the third button, even essential uses in some programs, like xfig. But you're a PC guy, and don't use X I assume. Except maybe as a replacement for Microsoft. Pity.

blarg

[E1v!$]

Ummmm,

Try just about any optical mouse over $15. They'll have a middle button, usually in the wheel (as in 2nd and 1st posts).

But then they also may have buttons for your thumb, and other fingers.

The MX700 has 3 middle buttons not counting the one combined with the wheel.

(it also has 2 thumb buttons an the normal click and alt click.)

Last, could we PLEASE have more cool articles? This one is pretty much dog food.

Scroll wheels are indispensable

[xwizbt]

I have a friend who has a three button mouse; no scroll wheel. I find myself sitting there stroking the middle button like some sort of pervert.

The scroll wheel makes life so much easier - just checking through /. this morning I used it at least as often as the left mouse button. Why on earth would anyone want to get rid of it, particularly when you can click it as well?

Re:Scroll wheels are indispensable

[shamus]

With the scroll wheel you can scroll the page without moving your hand, just rolling your finger over the scroll wheel. This makes browsing, especially long pages like /. threads, incredibly easy and comfortable.

I've yet to find a browser where the click and drag scroll method isn't horrendously clunky. For a start you have to do something to stop it scrolling again. And its either too fast or too slow.

I've also seen the wheel scroll horizontally in some applications when there is just a horizontal bar and no vertical.

Re:Scroll wheels are indispensable

[Cyclone66]

I don't know about your mouse but my mouse (logitech) has a clicky wheel. You can feel clicks as you turn it. One click=one weapon. I can easily change to 3 or 4 weapons away from my current weapon without thinking about it.

Scroll wheel click

[Spudley]

I love the scroll wheel. It is possibly the most significant UI innovation of the last ten years.

But I hate having it clickable as the third button.

Particularly in Konqueror, I find myself scrolling through a document, and suddenly I press too hard on the wheel and it jumps me to some random hyperlink that I hadn't even noticed let alone intended to click on. *grrrrr*

Personally I'd rather have a scroll wheel than a third button. The third button is nice, and I always liked having it, but the wheel is better, and the two don't co-exist too well. :-/

Re:Scroll wheel click

[KurdtX]

Open up your mouse (the physical one)

Inside there you'll see that the button under your mouse is just a metal spring that brings two contacts together. Tape over, or break off one of the tabs so they don't connect any more and you're done. No more middle clicking for you. I've looked at three scrolling wheel mice (one was optical) and they all worked the same.

Mouse Systems

[storem]

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.

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Real functionality for mouse buttons

[James1980]

If a mouse is going to have numerous buttons, they need to have clear, discernable functionality within an OS. LMB = select, RMB = context, Scroll = move view. These make sense, but I'm not sure what else would, please feel free to enlighten me. Can anyone make a case for features that other mouse buttons could use? I'm not talking about customising buttons for starting file managers or browsers, as these are just shortcuts, but clear-cut functionality that help users navigate and operate withint the GUI metaphor.

Re:Real functionality for mouse buttons

[Mawbid]

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.

Re:Real functionality for mouse buttons

[rpeppe]

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.

Re:Finer grained detents.

[Gordonjcp]

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...

Ask Slashdot

[tiny69]

I've got a stupid question. Instead of asking my friends what they think or doing a little research online, I'll post the question on Slashdot and see what the largest collection of wannabe geeks on the Internet think. When you flush the toilet in the Southern Hemisphere, which way does the water spin?

Sun

[TRS-80]

Sun makes 3-button opticial USB mice, and they ship with most of their new workstations. You could probably pick them up as spare parts, but they're probably fairly costly.

efficiency

[Ender Ryan]

I find a mouse wheel to be 1000% more efficient than having to move the mouse over and drag a clumsy scrollbar. And of course, wheels also act as a button when pressing straight down. Yes, it's more difficult to press than a normal button, but not too much, and that's why it is relegated to tasks done less frequently and more deliberately.

FWIW, I used to prefer a 3 button mouse over a mouse w/wheel, until I actually started using them.

Of course, YMMV.

Re:One Button

[cloak42]

Even when I use a Mac, I find that having a single button was a hindrance. I'm a guy who's big on shortcuts, so consequently I did a lot of my navigation in Mac OS by using nothing more than keyboard commands (I loved being able to type the name of a folder or file and get it selected, then to expand all trees by hitting Shift-Command-Right Arrow, or collapse). But I always wanted that same kind of ease-of-use with the mouse as well. I always felt that you should be able to navigate solely by using the mouse or keyboard alone.

The idea of context menus was something I was very happy with when I started using PCs. I was very glad when Apple decided to include context menus in OS9, but I was angry that you couldn't use a two-button mouse to accomplish that. What's the point of having context menus if you have to hit Command-Click to use them?

I've got one

[Apreche]

I have the Logitech cordless freedom keyboard and mouse pair. The mouse is the Cordless Mouseman Optical. I got it because it has a third button. A thumb button! I also hate clicking the scroll wheel, but I like scrolling the scroll wheel. The mouse is perfect in every way, I've even made it work in linux and windows. I highly reccomend it.

Sigh

[jazman]

Lots of replies of the form "But I always need my scrolly button so you must be stupid."

I have eight Logitech three button mice. I like them a lot. I reprogram the middle button to double-click, because I don't like RSI and I think the double-click idea really sucks. I use the keyboard 95% of the time and only reach for the mouse when some lazy application programmer couldn't be arsed to take the 5 microseconds needed to put a keyboard shortcut in for a specific function.

I hate the scrolly wheel. I don't want a scrolly wheel. Yes I know they can be clicked, but they are designed to be scrolled, not clicked, so the click spring is much stronger than the spring on the other two buttons. Besides, you can scroll with the keyboard (or at least you will be able to when Mozilla works out that the currently selected tab is the one that should have the keyboard focus, not the one that's just finished loading). I'm not saying YOU, dear Reader, need to, just that I do, and I don't want to be reaching for the mouse when I can move my fingers to the up/down keys.

So, I personally can guarantee a market of eight optical three button mice for Logitech when they come out at a decent price. Oh, I had a look at the MX700. It's a fucking air traffic control centre that needs at least 23 people to operate. OVERKILL, people! I want an OPTICAL version of my three button mouseman, that's all. And the MX700 costs about $90. I'm NOT buying eight of those. (if you're wondering, 8=3 at work+3 at home+2 spare. Yes, I really like them a lot. Every time I get a computer with a mouse with a clitoris I replace it with a 3BMM.) Three button mousemen are currently going for about $25 in the UK. I'd pay $40 for an optical version, cos I'm bored with cleaning dirty balls and rollers. But I'm not going to buy ANYTHING that has a scrolly wheel on; I'd rather stick with my current mice.

So if anyone's with me, mod me up, and someone pass a reference to this article to Logitech.

Simple mouse mod

[Hungus]

Why not just mod a wheeled mouse? The steps would be simple enough.

Parts Needed:

3 button optical mouse with wheel

Set of screwdrivers (prolly just need a #0 and #1 phillips)

X-Acto Knife

McDonald's Straw - I am not sure if other straws will work it needs to be thermo softening while being thick enough for wear and pliable enough for use.

Personal flamethrower or lighter or soldering iron

krazy glue

about 30 minutes of your time.

Heres how to do it:

1. With the X-Acto knife make a faint score on the mouse wheel along the profile where it sticks out of the mouse
2. Remove mouse cover (typically by removing 2 screws maybe 3 in your case)
3. carefully remove the screw holding the circut board to the upper mouse casing
4. Remove the wheel and action spring noting how they were installed.
5. Trim the mouse wheel with the X-Acto knife so that it is almost flush with the mouse case (using your earlier score) - Nice thing here is you have 3 chances if you mess up at first because you can just rotate the wheel 120 degrees and have a fresh surface!
6. Cut the straw latterally so as to be able to lay it flat and cut a section off which is approximately 35% longer than the exposesed mouse wheel opening in the upper shell of the mouse
7. Heat the straw fragment (dont burn it) until it lays almost flat on your work surface (you do still want some curve)
8. place the mouse wheel back on the curcuit board with the flattened side up (away from the board
9. place the now flattened straw fragment over teh mouse wheel centering it.
10. once you have things the way you want them remove the upper cover again and the trimmed straw fragment
11. place a single tiny drop of krazy glue on the former wheel and immediately recenter the star fragment on it
12. wait a few minutes as the off gas of the glue will cloud the optics of your mouse if you re-assembled immediately.
13. Re-assemble the mouse and you now have a 3 button no wheel mouse!

Congratulations!

FPS without a scroll wheel?

[Andy Dodd]

oh god the painful thoughts...

Next weapon - mwheelup
Prev weapon - mwheeldown

And I have no problem using the middle button for alt fire in UT and Q3A mods that have altfire weapons. (Or otherwise for zooming).

Just get a GOOD scrollwheel that has good click action in the wheel (i.e. it's hard to accidentally scroll it.)

Any optical with a wheel made by MS or Logitech usually has a pretty good scrollwheel. I've used both brands (IM Explorer, classic IMs, and a cheapo Logitech non-MX optical), and all of them have good scrollwheels.

IBM

[GiMP]

IBM makes a 3 button no-wheel optical mouse. Try looking yourself next time.

wrong and wrong

[tolldog]

All the artists I know hate the scroll wheel. They want 3 button mice.

Some software apps use all three buttons and combinations of them and keys to do things.

When its button 1 and 2 with a scroll wheel, all day long, it gets uncomfortable.

-Tim