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?

Comments

Re:/. parrotting Micro$oft product announcements?

[Arker]

Just get a proper editor. Long lines should be wrapped in a way that makes that fact recognisable. Emacs, for instance, has been doing this for ages.

Re:I'll be the first to say....

[Deusy]

As sarcastic as the parent is, there is a point. It's not new, nor is it useful otherwise it would have been adopted by now.

I've found a moderate use of the scroll wheel on my mouse to give me severe aching in those particular fingers. I've used mice and keyboards fairly heavily for years and suffered very little RSI. Yet as shortly after adopting a scroll wheel to scroll rather than using scroll bars - and more out of laziness than practicality since a scroll bar gives you more control over the scroll - I've found the pain so bad in my right index and middle fingers (I switched to my middle finger after it became too painful using my index finger) I've had to stop using the scroll wheel altogether.

With the world's dominant technology force behind it, this kind of trackball-on-mouse will probably become ubiquitos. But probably not widely used.

I suspect I'm not unique with my aversion to using the scroll wheel, given the speed with which RSI set in on my fingers. (And I'm a lad, for those of you with dirty minds - so, no, 'that' is not the cause!)

Back to the nice scroll bars for me - which I now prefer for usability reasons since I can easily control the scrolling of a page rather than the guess work that came with using a scroll wheel.