Slashdot Mirror
New Microsoft Mouse Scrolls Both Ways
Library Spoff writes "The BBC are reporting that Microsoft are bringing out a mouse that will use the scroll wheel to tilt as well as roll. The innovation means that users will be able to scroll vertically as well as horizontally without using on-screen navigation bars." How long before I get a trackball embedded in my mouse?
Isn't this pretty much the same idea that Apple had some time ago?
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
At first I thought as you do, but then I started thinking of wide spreadsheets where this mouse would be QUITE handy.
I used to have a mouse that had two scroll wheels on it, and that was 5+ years ago. I used it for both horizontal and vertical scrolling (though it was configurable what you could actually do with it).
Also, in some linux toolkits (gtk I believe, possibly others), you can scroll any scrollbar (no matter what direction it's in) just by putting the mouse over it and scrolling.
For example, in gaim, if your buddy list has a horizontal scrollbar, you can scroll horizontally by putting the mouse over the horizontal scrollbar and scrolling. Even better, it doesn't even have to be a scrollbar: on the experimental bittorrent client, you can scroll the little frob that controls the maximum number of uploads this way.
Fun stuff! I see little point in providing a hardware solution to a problem that was solved with software long, long ago.
The innovation means that users will be able to scroll vertically as well as horizontally without using on-screen navigation bars.
Need I say more? This is a hardware solution for a software problem.
Whats next? WWW and email buttons on my computer? How about a Windows key to get in your way every time you go to use the left control?
When I was a windows developer (I've reformed), I got really loaded on coffee and hot chocolate mix and actually pulled the damned windows key off of my keyboard, drilled a hole in my office wall, and shoved it in there.
OK, what is this mouse for?
I've been asking for a trackball in a mouse for a long time. It'd make working with large OrCAD and AutoCAD files alot easier.
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
Seriously, though, (folks,) I do find tend to find it useful for scrolling around wide program listings or for sites whose text column is narrow enough for my browser window, but is merely offset to the right for some vertical navigation bar or advertising column. I'm surprised it wasn't done years ago. I'm also surprised at the relative failure of the IBM TrackPoint (I think that's what they were called) mice -- a kind of sideways-saddle shaped version of the piezoelectric pencil-eraser-looking mice they like to put in their notebook keyboards, only where the wheel would otherwise be. I have one at work, and it's quite nice. Lots less *roll* *roll* *roll* *roll* when scrolling down a page; just pull it back a little and wait. Or pull it harder and wait less. (Did I just say that?) Anyway, it handles vertical and horizontal scrolling, which I find myself doing much more readily using that mouse. Oh, and there's a small button just past the TrackPoint thingy so you can do the equivalent of wheel-clicks.
The shame of it is, my company has a lot of these mice around, but no one has the drivers installed, and so the TrackPoint becomes completely useless. *Sigh*
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
/.ers lucky enough to use IBM Thinkpads can use the third mouse button to activate scrolling capability for the keyboard mounted TrackPoint. Interestingly, this works better than mouse mounted TrackPoint because you don't have to work to keep the keyboard still as you scroll.
As others have noted elsewhere in this discussion, there isn't nearly as much use for the side to side scrolling as the up/down. It is useful for navigating spreadsheets and large graphics files.
PS I know there is no such mod as CORRECT. However, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I've seen 4-way and 8-way trackballs in mice available. I've seen some models available at .
The trackball is actually fully directional. When used as a scrollwheel, the direction you spin it is treated as motion in one of 4 (or 8) directions. It can also be used to control the mouse pointer, but that disables the use of the optical mouse base as a mouse.
I've thought about getting one, but I'm waiting until it can be used as two independent mice (and driver independent). I'd think it would be good for gaming if you could control motion with the mouse and aiming/head movement with the trackball simultaneously, independently, and accurately. Be able to run any direction and fire at any other (within reason for your avatar's abilities). Running in an arc instead of predictable straight lines while still able to maintain your aim on the target.
I've also thought about a GUI that could handle two pointers usefully. For example, instead of grabbing the edge of a window to resize it, the user could just grab two points anywhere on the window and adjust/move it that way. It would free the user from the implicit paperweight model in current GUIs.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Why not just program the existing scroll wheel so that when held down, it behaves like the "hand" tool in Photoshop. Press down the middle button, and then drag the document around the window.