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Why Apple Makes a One-Button Mouse
IdiotOnMyLeft writes "There is a short article at Gear Live that tries to explain why Apple still sticks with a one-button mouse. It points out the fact that although it is perfectly possible to use a two-button mouse on a Mac for 7 years now, developers are forced to rethink their design approach and can't flood the right-click menu. No article of this kind would be complete without mentioning that users get confused with two buttons. There's a rumor that John Carmack once asked Steve Jobs what would happen if they'd put one more key on the keyboard."
... they can't afford to pay for the second button.
more to do with differentiating the apple than anything else. Man, they love to be apple users, and 2 buttons... "thats a windows crazy thing. we know better!"
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Me? I use a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth both at work and at home. I didn't have to install any drivers or anything. Just pair the mouse to my PowerBook (with built-in Bluetooth), and I'm done.
Mouse button 1 = regular click
Mouse button 2 = contextual click
Mouse button 3 = not used because it's too easy to scroll with the wheel when clicking, but it used to be mapped such that when I clicked it and scrolled, the Mac screen would either zoom in or zoom out (really nice Quartz Extreme feature)
Mouse button 4 = Expose show all windows
Mouse button 5 = Expose show desktop
My wife is the opposite. She prefers a single button mouse for her iMac and PowerBook. I bought her a multi-button mouse with scroll wheel for playing Jedi Academy. When she's done playing, she unplugs the multi-button mouse and plugs in her white Apple mouse.
Apple's got the right idea. Ship a single button mouse to make sure that developers don't start hiding things in the contextual menu, but support multiple button mice out of the box with no need for drivers. The scenario Gear Live describes is pretty common: "left click or right click?" On a Mac, that statement doesn't come up.
However, I'm sure some people will still complain about the single button mouse. Some people are just looking for nits to pick, and they're looking for excuses to deride Macs, though not necessarily reasons.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Just put one of these six button mice on their desk and watch their head explode.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
...to bring down a site before the first comment is even posted, apparently... *sigh*
Because when your grandmother uses Windows, she clicks the left and the right button at the same time. Watch her the next time she's using the computer-- really, she does this. She doesn't understand there's a difference.
You, you are smart enough to understand the left and right buttons do different things. You aren't apparently smart enough to understand control-clicking, but that's ok. However, since you are smart enough to understand the right mouse button, you are also smart enough to understand that you can buy a two-button mouse. So if your computer comes with a one button mouse, this is not a problem for you. Your grandmother however does not even understand the right mouse button is a button, so if her computer came with a three button mouse she does not have the option of going and getting a one button mouse.
Apple wants to sell computers that are usable by both you and your grandmother.
No, it's because Apple thinks its' users aren't surfing the web with one hand, if you know what I mean...
Anyway, the numbers tell the story... If Windows has 90% of the market share and Windows uses two mouse buttons, then at the very least having two mouse buttons is not an impediment to computer usability.
To be honest, this sounds more like a years-long pissing match ("I insist, two buttons on a mouse will destroy the world!") than anything of real substance.
Three year old children aren't the problem. I know from experience that it takes no more than ten minutes to teach a three year old child perl.
The problem is 48 year olds, who it can take many years to force into their heads no, you just press the left mouse button, the button on the right does something different, don't do it, and to whom the idea of "copy and paste" will never be explained.
developers are forced to rethink their design approach and can't flood the right click menu.
What? In a lot of applications, if you hold down the button, you get the equivalent of a right-click menu. How in the world does this restrict developers?
The coolest voice ever.
I've never understood the point of limiting a mouse to one button. I mean, I have a three-button mouse with a scroll wheel, and I've got it set up so I can use all four buttons in conjunction with World of Warcraft.
And yet, every time I use the Mac at work, it's an exercise in frustration. Part of it is the unfamiliarity with the way to do things on a Mac (bass-ackwards, it seems, is the rule of the day), but part of it is sheer torture (font handling, for instance). And every time I use it, I find myself trying to use the one-button mouse as though it were a two-button mouse.
Ah well. Luckily, I don't have to use it that often... save for those projects that unfortunately require the Mac version of Quark Express.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
A three year old child is easy, try explaining it to my mother
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Although you and I actually would prefer 3 buttons on the contraption, we are not the typical tech-ignorant consumer. The typical consumer more closely resembles the folks in Florida in 2000. They could not understand even simple instructions on how to complete a paper voting ballot. Sometimes, the sheer ignorance in society can shock us tech-savvy folks who have no hope of ever dating a gorgeous blonde babe.
Admittedly I'm not up on current Apple hardware, but what about a scroll wheel? Do you mean you actually scroll *manually*? Explain how this works exactly.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Good luck to Apple then, as my Grandmother hasn't been using anything for the past ten years now. Well, except, she was apparently able to use a ballot box last election in Chicago.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
An article completely unrelated with Apple or anyone who works for Apple in any way writes its own justification for Apple shipping a one-button mouse standard, and this article gets flooded with comments essentially along the lines of "Apple sucks" because they ship a one-button mouse, even though you can use ANY USB or Bluetooth multi-button/scroll mouse/trackpad/trackball on earth, and they all function by default with no drivers for left/right/scroll (and center where applicable, e.g., X11), and Apple even sells NUMEROUS multi-button mice and speciality input devices right on the Apple online store and in all of its retail stores, and Apple just announced what will likely be their highest volume computer ever, which does NOT ship with a mouse, meaning you're free to choose any mouse you please, and the right button functionality will instantly work across the whole OS and all applications, which has supported this for years?
With the introduction of the Mac mini, Apple is implicitly getting AWAY from shipping a one-button mouse, since the computer comes with no mouse at all!
So, is there a problem because Apple doesn't make its own branded two button mouse? Maybe we should bash Dell for Logitech making its mice, then! Or is this simply just another opportunity to bash Apple? Frankly, the assertion that it forces developers to actually THINK about shit they're butting into contextual menus instead of just flooding them with crap is a perfectly reasonable one.
Confusing the left and the right mouse button is as hard as confusing your index and your middle finger. If you then call one "action" button and the other "menu" button, label them appropriately - how is dealing with two mouse buttons any harder than dealing with 12 buttons on a touch-tone phone?
The reason they keep the one-button mice on the desktops is so that developers don't expect users to have multi-button mice.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
...that you can use any USB or Bluetooth (if your computer is equipped) mouse or input device on earth, for as little as $5, and they will instantly work for left/right/center/scroll without any additional drivers or configuration of any kind, or even any requirement that you have any kind of administrative privileges. Sounds like your employer sucks if they won't get you a mouse...(not to mention you could use that same three-button mouse with scroll wheel with WoW on a Mac, too, or any other application).
The rest of your message is a nice anti-Mac troll, though. D- for effort, F for creativity.
Using a touchscreen is easy on a UI designed for a single button. Using one on a UI designed for 2-3 button mice is painful.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
that costs eighty fucking dollars :P
My university's video editing facilities got a whole bunch of new G4s a few years ago. I can remember when they came in the very next day you could find about 12 of the one-button mice Apple bundles with its systems in the trash as you walked into the lab; all immediately replaced by two-button mice.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
This reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where a salesman is trying to sell him the most user-friendly computer ever:
Vendor: It only has one button, and we press it before it leaves the factory
Dilbert: What does that button do?
Vendor: Whoa! I'm in way over my head! Let me give you our tech support number.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Because certain people are purposefully ignorant about computers. It doesn't matter how simple it is. My mother cannot handle a two button mouse. She's convinced "oh, I can't use computers", and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Anything that I have to explain to her, is not retained. She just instantly forgets it until the next time it comes up and I have to explain it again.
If Apple dropped the option of the one-button mouse like you people seem to be demanding, my job of tech supporting relatives would get just that much harder. "It isn't letting me check my email! I click the button and nothing happens!" "You're pressing the wrong side of the mouse... again..."
While I won't judge Apple for refusing to ship a 3-button mouse, I will say it's the one thing that keeps me from buying one of their laptops. When I'm using X applications, the PRIMARY buffer is my best friend. Copying text via simple selection and pasting just by clicking the middle mouse button does actually help me work faster.
And please don't tell me that I can just plug in a USB mouse. My Apple-owning friends have suggested that, but it's really not a solution. I want a laptop for portability, not for lugging around external devices to compensate for poor design decisions on the part of the manufacturer.
I'd pay the extra $5 for some more buttons. A wheel would be cool, but I'd settle for 3 plain buttons, like the Thinkpads have. I'd also like to have the option of using a nipple for pointing instead of a touchpad because it just feels better to me, but that's another discussion...
The parent might have been rated as "funny", but it is a fact.
One of the reasons my brother and I decided to recommend my mother an iMac is because of the fact that you are able to do most things with one mouse button. She just cannot see the difference between left and right mouse buttons. She is not retarded at all, but she is not used to computers. Since MacOS can work with only one mouse button, that's something else to worry about whenever she uses the machine or we are teaching her to do so.
Anyways, if you have an interface that needs two mouse buttons to do most tasks, there is something wrong with your interface.
Well, I'm one of those that would prefer zero buttons - nobody would get confused then. It'd nicer to just hold the mouse over an area of the screen and keep it there for around 5 seconds. Waiting that time would be the equivalent of a 'click'.
Seriously, two buttons is one of those things that might be harder to use initially, and then over time (i.e. 5 minutes), the increase in productivity, and general ease of use is all worth it. Even my mum can use 2 buttons, and if she can, anyone can.
Can any of the browsers use the the right mouse button to 'lock' the cursor, and then you move the mouse to scroll the page up and down (or even left and right) ? The idea is that the cursor doesn't move while you do so. I think that'd be a really neat idea - better than the usual scroll bar.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Well, a touchscreen (be it stylus or finger optimized) is a specialized case of one-button mouse, just like tapping a touchpad for those who use that feature.
It'd be a lot easier to use a touchscreen Mac than a touchscreen Windows or GNOME/KDE box, because they don't make touchscreens where you can right-click.
I imagine an interface optimized for one-button use also has applications in accessibility to disabled users.
part of it is sheer torture (font handling, for instance)
I'd like to know what is wrong with OS X's font handling. I assume you're comparing it to Windows. They both use a fonts directory, and they both work the same way: put a font file in the directory and it will be available to all programs instantly.
The key differences being that in OS X you can organize your fonts into sub folders, you can use both Mac and PC fonts (even windows TTFs) and - the really big plus for multi-user machines - each user can install fonts that only they have access to.
So what was it you preferred about Windows's font management?
Indeed. I work IT, and that includes user support. I still have to explain to people when to click, and when to right-click, and yes, when I say click I really mean the normal click, which is on the left. Except for the users who are both idiots and south paws, in which case the normal click is on the right, and the context click is on the left. And, heaven forbid I have to deal with a southpaw idiot who has a 5 button mouse... We are pretty good about who gets the 5 button mice, but somethimes an idiots mouse breaks, and the 5 buttons are all we have to replace them with!
When I say "right click" I mean the button that is left of center, but not the far left on the side, okay?
All that said, it royally pisses me off that I don't have three mouse buttons and a scroll wheel on my iBook!
While on the face of it, this statement sounds ridiculous, I have experienced cases where it has proved true. I relate the following Tech Support True Story.
me: Okay ma'am, I want you to move your mouse pointer over the My Computer icon and click your right mouse button.
caller: The right mouse button?
me: Yes ma'am.
caller: Which one is the right button?
me: (starting to get annoyed) You have two buttons on your mouse, One on the left and one on the right, I want you to click the right button over the My Computer icon.
caller: Um, your right or my right?
me: (putting my phone on mute and desperately trying to avoid laughing hysterically)
"I'm making perfect sense, you're just not keeping up."
If Windows has 90% of the market share and Windows uses two mouse buttons, then at the very least having two mouse buttons is not an impediment to computer usability.
If Windows has 90% of the market share and Windows crashes a lot, then at the very least crashing a lot is not an impediment to computer usability.
If Windows has 90% of the market share and Windows is prone to viruses and spyware, then at the very least being prone to viruses and spyware is not an impediment to computer usability.
If Windows has 90% of the market share and Windows applications' user interface standards vary wildly, then at the very least user interface is not an impediment to computer usability.
If Windows has 90% of the market share and Windows only works when you stuff carrots up your nose, then at the very least the carrot-stuffing requirement is not an impediment to computer usability.
-Waldo Jaquith
If this is the last barrier, hesitate no more. Order a Mac, plug in the exact same mouse you've been using....and voila! It works exactly like it's always worked. No driver install or reboot required.
I switched from 14 years of PC use to Mac OS X, and I have to say that while it did take a while to get used to-- the one button mouse is much more intuitive than a 2-button mouse.
You can do everything on OS X just using the mouse and clicking to get it, everything in a contextual menu can be found either in a button or the apple menu.
Also another beauty in OS X is that everything can be controlled through the keyboard which some people find very intuitive.
If you really 'need' to invoke a contextual menu you just hold down control and click-- it really isn't that hard, and it probably isnt necessary anyway.
because two buttons on a trackpad is obnoxiously uncomfortable, and because the keyboard is right there next to the trackpad so it's perfectly reasonable to use the modifier keys and the mouse at the same time.
But if it's really killing you, there's also sidetrack.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Show me an example of some application somewhere that ONLY has an option in a context menu and nowhere else.
What happens on a mac, is that the menus on the top bar get cluttered to hell with option because most people won't ever see context menus. So you can look at it either way.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
The problem is spatial differences and the human mind. As fast as you can, do the following: raise your right hand. A significant number of people will either pause to figure out which is their right or raise their left hand in error. Makes you wonder how many people that correctly raise their right hand do so accidentally.
Our minds are not perfect and it takes a lot of learning, error and experience to handle left/right button clicks quickly. Most people would rather just work than build up the experience to use a multi-button mouse effectively. An example of this is the number of experienced computer users that type with hunt-and-peck.
And that's also the reason why people have trouble with multi-button mice and not phones: people do not look at the mouse while they use it.
No, that's a Windows computer. Try getting right-click to work when Explorer's "thinking" about something. Then the damn thing flashes the context menu all over the place. :) Now that's a fun and happily ergonomic way to use an OS.
Everyone's such a troll about this whole thing.... It WAS funny, but still. It's getting old. So what? One button? Who cares? How many people still use the pack-in mouse they got with their Wintel PC? If they did, there'd certainly be no market for replacement mice would there? Look at the aisle in CompUSA.. SOMEONE'S buying replacement mice. And they're not just "like the one they got with their Dell", either. They're fancy wireless optical monstrosities with 20 buttons.
If you don't like the Mac mouse, go spend $19 on an MS cordless optical.
*shrug* I still use my G4 pack-in mouse. My G5's got a nice optical cordless, simply because the cord kept tangling.
Seriously, though... give it a rest with the one button thing. It's an OLD joke.... that has been lame for years....
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
> I know (from experience) that it takes no more than five minutes to explain left- and right-clicking to a three-year-old child.
Okay, I'll bite.
I know (from experience) that it takes at least six years to explain left- and right-clicking to my father, who was 57 in 1999 when he got his first Windows PC. Ever since he found the right button, he has insisted on using it for literally everything, all the time, for no reason at all. Everything that you or I would just click on, he right-clicks, moves the mouse the requisite six inches up to the top menu choice, "Open," and clicks. No amount of explaining will do. He just will not use the left button. Every time I give him instructions and use the verb "click," he asks me, "Right or left click?"
So don't pretend that just because you told your three-year-old, "Only use this button," that everyone else has the luxury of such obedience from users. Many users (yes, PC users) have asked me repeatedly, "Right or left click?" because to them, it's simply not self-explanatory. They don't really understand what a context menu is, let alone the rule that "the right button always makes a context menu appear." My father would waste a lot less of his time if I plugged in an Apple USB mouse to his PC (it works, I tried it.) Of course, it'd be impossible to do certain things, but it's poor software design that requires two mouse buttons. There's nothing wrong with having the option, though. When I'm at my desk, I use a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer with five buttons. But the right-button is probably my least-used one. When I'm not at my desk (which is usually), I rarely reach for the control key to bring up a context menu. It just doesn't come up.
It's really a pretty unfair comparison to be making. Most cheap PC vendors (Dell, Gateway, etc) were still distributing mice with balls up until a year or two ago. No actual geek uses the mouse that came with his computer. (Heck, no real geek even buys a pre-built PC for that matter.) So why bitch about the Apple mouse? Even if the Apple mouse had two buttons, you'd replace it for the cool MS or Logitech one anyway, for gaming or whatever. The OS supports the context menu. But it also, as a rule, gives you another way to do anything you can do in a context menu. And that has to be a Good Thing.
The problem with control-click is that its not ergonomically correct. I hate applications that make me use the mouse and keyboard at the same time (I realize sometimes its necessary). Having to use one hand on the mouse and one on the keyboard is annoying. Keyboard shortcuts are good for the same reason, you can do all the work with the keyboard, and not have to move to the mouse and then back to the keyboard.
"brxref
Maybe you should just stop trying to copy that 17 meg file...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Figure out how many mouse buttons you like, buy a mouse with that many, and shut the hell up about it.
Even nicer than extra buttons!
SideTrack
SideTrack is a replacement driver for the Apple PowerBook and iBook trackpads. With SideTrack installed your standard trackpad becomes a powerful multi-button scrolling mouse.
Leave your external mouse at home and take full control over your trackpad:
Vertical scrolling at left or right edge of pad.
Horizontal scrolling at top or bottom edge of pad.
Map hardware button to left or right click.
Map trackpad taps to no action, left click, left click drag (with or without drag lock), or right click.
Map trackpad corner taps to mouse buttons 1-6 or simulated keystrokes.
Extensive control over accidental input filtering.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12800[i]Why put all the effort into making proper context menus when most people won't even see them?[/i]
That's the WHOLE POINT! The user can't see the options until they start right clicking everything!
Not burying functionality into invisible menus is good UI design. Context menus should replicate functionality that can be accessed through visible controls.
Funny!? It's _true_. After my Mom started using a computer, it literally took her a year to get the left-click right-click thing down. She knew what I meant when I said left click or right click, but she would forget which did which, and still generally has to be told to give the right mouse button a shot when she's trying to figure out how to manipulate things in certain ways.
Damn phpBB tags!
Heh. That's when it's time to whip that black Sharpie out of your pocket protector and (just like you do with 4-year-old's shoes) put a big 'R' on the Right-Click button, and a big 'L' on the Left-Click button. I've never seen anyone using such a mouse, but I found one marked R and L in the garbage at work once.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Perhaps it's just me, but the one button mouse lends itself to a touch screens much better then a two button mouse. Try to right click with your index finger.
Here's what absolutely kills me here, folks. I think very few people at this point would argue that a one-button mouse is somehow more intuitive or user-friendly than a 2 button mouse. When using anything, ask yourself, "What's the meaning of what I want to do here"? With a two-button mouse, the left one is "select or execute", and the right one is "give me a choice of things that I could do with this object". With a one-button mouse, the latter option is gone, and users are left out in the cold. One Apple salesman once asked me if I "knew about" the Apple-click option, which would bring up the context menu. "Knew about"? This is about as ringing an endorsement of a user interface as "you'll get used to it after a while". By the way, Steve Jobs himself knew the superiority of the 2-button mouse when he put it on the NeXT cube back in friggin' 1988. Here is a picture of it, if you don't believe me. http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c =277&st=1
Apple, ship a damned scrollmouse with your computers, if you want people to switch. Everyone's used to it now, and your OS is designed for it. Stop this madness.
[i]no, you just press the left mouse button[/i] But I dont have a left mouse. Onyl the one on the right.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
It works just fine, including the scroll wheel. Right-clicking brings up the context menu like Control-Clicking does with an Apple mouse. I'm using a Microsoft 2-button scroll mouse on my Mac mini right now.
I'm looking at my Logitech mouse, and it seems to me that this isn't Grandma's fault. The mouse buttons seem designed to look like one button. They're the same color. There's no outline to delineate where one starts and the other begins. They look like one damn button with a crack in it.
-Dave
Historically, Macs had only one mouse button because desktop computers only used one mouse button at the time, and Apple had a thing for simplifying anything they could reasonably.
But Macs have supported right-clicks for the better part of a decade now, and you can control click, and the right mouse button is suddenly useful. As are scroll-wheel mice. Given that, I don't think you can claim that Macs get along just fine without two (or three) mouse buttons. So why don't Apple computers ship with them?
I'm sure you can make lots of vague hand-wavy excuses based on human-computer interaction theory and research, but the HCI arguments against the splat-click that Apple gives us as a replacement are far far stronger. And you can't really give strict adherence to HCI standards as a serious reason when you're talking about Apple's reasons for doing things anymore - a Google search will turn up scads of pages listing all sorts of UI blunders in OS X.
I think the real reason why Apple uses one-button mice is because Apple, especially now that Steve Jobs is at the wheel, is obsessed with visual appeal. From a design standpoint, a one-button mouse is almost naturally sexier to look at. The standard Apple mouse looks like something that raver kids would suck on, while I have never seen a three-button mouse that gets any better than wavering between unappealing and ugly.
The Apple mouse has become simply another great example of the 'function follows form' attitude that Apple has taken in recent years.
Because when your grandmother uses Windows, she licks the left and the right button at the same time. Watch her the next time she's using the computer -- really, she does this.
Every user has their own font directory, ~/Library/Fonts. These are fonts that only they have access to. The system font directory, /Library/Fonts is shared by all users.
HBH
"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
There is absolutely no reason for my mother to attempt to understand quantum physics. There are plenty of reasons for her to use a computer. Bad comparison.
Why is it so difficult to understand that the one-button default is great for those older new-computer-users (I deal with my 75 year old aunt on the phone and my near-60 parents as their computer phone-support all the time)? And then what is so tough about figuring out that if you aren't one of those new users, you can pick up a 5 dollar multi-button mouse? That is if you don't already have one from your old computer. The one-button mouse complaint isn't a valid complaint. Period. Get a life, move on, worry about things that actually are broken. This whole thing has got to be the least educated, most moronic complaint about a computer manufacturer I have ever heard. Forcing developers to actually think about their UI and streamline it is brilliant. It's actually considered a design imperative by anyone who knows anything about design. I wish other companies took a lesson from Apple in this respect.
...SideTrack:
SideTrack is a replacement driver for the Apple PowerBook and iBook trackpads. With SideTrack installed your standard trackpad becomes a powerful multi-button scrolling mouse.
Leave your external mouse at home and take full control over your trackpad:
- Vertical scrolling at left or right edge of pad.
- Horizontal scrolling at top or bottom edge of pad.
- Map hardware button to left or right click.
- Map trackpad taps to no action, left click, left click drag (with or without drag lock), or right click.
- Map trackpad corner taps to mouse buttons 1-6 or simulated keystrokes.
- Extensive control over accidental input filtering.
SideTrack is multiuser aware and fully compatible with MacOS X 10.3 fast user switching (FUS). Every user on your PowerBook can have different settings depending on their needs.
Then Microsoft eventually adopted the mouse, and made the design decision they often do, that if one is good, more is better, and two-button mice became common. As GUI applications adopted contextual menus off the right mouse button, Apple adopted CMs via control-click. Now the complaint from Microsoft users was that Apple required you to keep one hand on the keyboard. (Assuming they didn't need two hands to use the mouse, I wonder what they needed the other hand for.)
One advantage to using the keyboard modifiers for the mouse clicks is that a meticulously designed application can provide visual clues about what will happen if a modified click is performed ahead of time. For example, when the Control key is down, Apple's Finder decorates the cursor with a small menu graphic to indicate the availability of the contextual menu.
Look, a user is not brain-damaged or deficient for not caring to remember the function of alternate mouse keys. A large number of users (probably 0% of the /. crowd) view the computer as an auxiliary device that's supposed to assist them at their Real Job while distracting them as little as possible with the need for special training and knowledge.
Even some of us who are power users and unafraid to learn non-intuitive gestures (I used to "fat-finger" bootstrap code into PDP-11 consoles using binary switches) are just as comfortable with a single-button mouse and alternative techniques to accelerate our work. It's neither better nor lamer; it's just another way of getting things done.
Finally, Apple is perfectly accommodating to those of you who prefer something other than what they offer as standard. If you prefer another mouse with 2, 4, or 7 buttons, the online store will sell you one, and the OS will support it. No, you won't get a credit for deleting the standard mouse (where offered), but last time I checked (three minutes ago), neither does Dell.
And yet, every time I use the Mac at work, it's an exercise in frustration. Part of it is the unfamiliarity with the way to do things on a Mac (bass-ackwards, it seems, is the rule of the day), but part of it is sheer torture (font handling, for instance). And every time I use it, I find myself trying to use the one-button mouse as though it were a two-button mouse.
That's the whole problem. To a neophyte computer user, a one-button mouse may well be easier to manage than a two (or more) button mouse. Problem is, how many neophyte computer users are left? Most people have some computer experience, and for better or worse, it's usually on a Windows machine with a two-button mouse. Like it or not, Windows is the lingua franca of personal computers. Telling users that a one-button mouse is simpler is like telling me Esperanto is easier than English. That may well be true, in a technical sense, but since I already speak English, and all my friends speak English, and everyone who posts on Slashdot speaks English, having to learn to speak Esperanto wouldn't make my life any simpler.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love my (several) Mac notebooks, but the fact is that through my experience with Windows and X-based Unix user interfaces I'm accustomed to interacting with the user interface in a certain way out of habit, and when I go for the non-existent right-mouse button and it isn't there, it's a bit of a jarring experience. I understand that Apple doesn't want developers to become reliant on the second mouse button, and I'm fine with that. I also recognize that you can get a mouse with as many buttons as you like, which is also fine.
My problem is with their notebooks, which, while you can get an external mouse for them, that doesn't really solve the problem. Unfortunately, a number of situations you're going to use a notebook in (such as on a train, waiting in an airport, or lying on your couch with your feet in the air) make using an external mouse a royal pain in the ass. Why don't they just make the trackpad/mouse assembly user replacable so third parties can accomodate the needs of people who want a multi-button mouse on a notebook?
Mostly, I agree with you completely. The one button mouse idea is exactly what Apple stands for, and I'll buy into replacing the mouse if I want more buttons.
But there's one broad situation where you often DO use the mouse that came with your computer - your laptop.
I've given this suggestion before, and I'll give it again. Apple should ship all their laptops with at least 2 mouse buttons (preferably 3), and a control panel allowing you to map them places.
AND THE DEFAULT SHOULD BE THAT THEY ARE ALL MAPPED TO LEFT CLICK. This means that it ships with exactly Apple's paradigm, but I don't have to carry around extra external hardware just to use right click - I just have to change settings in a control panel.
I'm aware of some hacks involving tapping on the trackpad, but they're, well, hacks. And while they're better than not existing, they're not better than at least one more button. Heck, I'd take a three button laptop and the clicks to give me 4 or 5.
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Get Sidetrack. Google for it. It lets you have a "scroll wheel" on your trackpad. I couldn't live without it. How anyone manually scrolls is beyond me..
Sure, if you want to go back to the days where only "professionals" could use computers and the only computers in the world were incredibly expensive mainframes locked away in university labs and corporate data processing centers.
Nine years after Microsoft invented it, there's no justification for Mac mice to not have a scroll wheel (or capacitve strip, or IBM trackstick scroller, or rocker switch, any of the other alternative scroll devices that have been tried since 1996) on either mouse or the left side of the keyboard.
The on-side-of-window click-and-move scroller is a vastly inferior interface. It's simply inexcusable for Macs to have a crippled scrolling interface by default. Make a mouse with an unclickable scroll wheel and only one button, if one button is better -- but drop the Not Invented Here blinders and admit that Microsoft actually had a good idea.
The way I figure, on the train, using my Powerbook, my hands are so close to the keyboard already (cuz the trackpad's right there) that having a finger from my left hand on the ctrl button isn't a problem... unless of course you only have one hand. Either Apple is discriminating against people with one hand, or Powerbook users that complain about one-button trackpads are always doing something else with their other hand.
I remember the Acorn Archimedes computers. They had 3 mouse buttons, which was pretty unusual 15 years ago. However, they did something really clever. They named the buttons. Left was Select, right was Menu, and middle was Adjust. All programs adhered to the standard and they all did the same sort of thing regardless of the application.
They went a step further, though, and supplied a set of audio tapes that taught you how to use your OS. This ensured that even people who didn't have a clue about computers could get up to speed in just a few hours.
The thing that is missing with Windows and OS X is the in depth tutorial for complete n00bs.
Such a simple solution for such a redundant problem.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
In my day, we had to point and click. and we liked it. None of this fancy scroll wheel or mouse gestures crap. I tell ya, scroll wheels and the obeseity epidemic are not just a coincidence. Sit up straight and do it the good old fashioned way: move that mouse and click for gosh sakes. it builds character.
must... stay... awake...
He can't play minesweeper with just one button...
Select did normal selection and clicking duties, Menu brought up the context menu where available, and Adjust did either the inverse of the Select button (e.g. if you're scrolling with the down button of the scrollbar in a window, pressing Adjust would scroll up -- perfect if you'd overshot a bit when scrolling) or "special" selection duties such as multi-select in the filer.
I don't ever recall reading about any confusion regarding which button did what -- it was just accepted, and was pretty intuitive.
That will never happen. The ego is strong with that one.
That's why I don't use it.
That makes no sense! If anything, having one button on a mouse is MORE confusing because you don't know how to easily get to what you need to do. You have to search through menus or settings to find something that's easy to do on a PC. Also, apple added TWO buttons to the keyboard! These buttons are there because macs lack a right mouse button.
that's exactly right - but you're forgetting that it's the 50 year olds on their way to prostate exams that like to THINK they're "hip" 20 somethings. So showing the 20 somethings in the ads is exactly the way to get the baby boomers.
A bit like how books aimed at 10 - 13 year olds will have 15 -18 year old protagonists.
Advanced users are users too!
Actually, it is the infamous Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field that he keeps ramping the power on. Gates is filled with envy over it, as his own versions of the thing keep crashing.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Ah, just wait until you're 50. You'll probably have the same problem learning how to use the hypergizmo interface they've come up with by then.
Sorry. I'm not buying that. I know 50 year olds, 60 year olds and 70 year olds who have picked up computers in their later years and are willing to learn. Yes, they do struggle, but that's different from the stubborn type that refuse to learn.
I was helping one old guy, and he kept asking questions and writing stuff down in a battered old notebook. Sometimes he would flick back through the pages and ask to clarify something someone else had told him.
It was hard for him - with the old memory cells not being what they used to be, but boy did he try - and the notebook helped.
He also loved to demonstrate what he had learned so far.
I think he's in his sixties , and never owned a computer until a few years ago. Retired truck driver so not exactly a techie type (but I bet he could fix a diesel motor with one hand tied behind his back).
Respect for one's elders does not include putting up with self-limiting stubbornness - and not all seniors are that stubborn.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
My mother (in her 50's) doesn't get it, one button mouse or 5, and she could care less. My father, same age as my mother does.
My grandmother (80) uses a 4 button mouse (came with her box) like she was born with it. It took her all of one minute to understand. My great-grandmother (100), uses my grandmother's computer with no probs.
The whole age-ism in this issue is BS. The whole argument about the nuumber of buttons (like you stated) is also BS. I've decided, from observation, that Apple ships one button mice because they think they look cool. That hockey-puck-thing on the iMacs is the classic example. Can't use it without accidentally clicking all over the place. Gives you tunnel-carpal if you use it for more than 5 seconds. But, it *looks cool* with an iMac. And how it looks is what must be really important.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
I work tech support, and I had the same question for the first couple of weeks of this job.
In this, as in most things :), Slashdot users have a skewed perspective. They know computers, inside and out, and it is a fair assumption that many if not all of the people they know know computers inside and out. But there are a lot of people out there -- even (and this shocked me) young people -- who don't have the first clue about how to use the machine.
Do I think the one-button mouse is necessarily more appropriate for them? Well, I'm not really in a position to say. The company I work for only makes one-button mice. So I won't comment.
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Check out Sidetrack . It let's you define certain areas on the trackpad as mousebuttons and scrollwheels.
First off, how do you map the zoom function to the mouse button? That would be terribly useful!
My biggest complaint with Apple's insistance on keeping with the one button mouse is that there isn't a nice, elegant, ergonomic multi-button mouse from Apple. I don't care if they call it the Apple Technical Mouse or what, I just wish there was one.
I always stayed away from Apple in the past for several reasons; a major one was the mouse. Being a recent switcher (last year, and no it had nothing to do with iPods) I can say that an interface that assumes that the user will only have one button is very well designed.
Since using a Mac with and without a multi-button mouse, I've seen many people, including otherwise competent ones, click wrong buttons on the PC. It makes me think that maybe Apple is really thinking about things instead of just being stubborn.
It allows your users to use fonts without needing an Admin to install them. When Sally Schmoe downloads 4 fonts (or brings them in from her home machine) she can put them in ~/Library/Fonts rather than bugging the admin to do it for her, which means she can install them at her leisure.
Very nice in my opinion.
IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH "TOTAL WIMP" (user 564548) YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT THOUGHT!
You said it. My idiot 3 year old nephew keeps re-implementing vectors no matter how many times I tell him to just use the template from the STL.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
::Looks down at his Apple keyboard::
::shrugs::
Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Up Arrow, Down Arrow
That seems to work fine and is on the keyboard. (Albiet on the right side but so what...) I can also hit the space bar to progress one page in Safari, just like pine.
Most of the time I just use the scroll wheel on my IntelliMouse.
From that I'm not sure exactly where to begin with your argument, but I can say at a minimum it wasn't researched, some parts it lacks so much reason that it makes no surprise that the closed mindedness on this issue keeps it making news on slashdot.(Why they seem to care so much about buttons is beyond me, especially when it's clear they don't use the hardware for any real length of time.)
For starters an end user isn't really to know whether or not their software is running on a 8, 16, 32, 64 bit machine. The reality is with much video acceleration and vector calculators often code is running on 128 bit machinery, but you don't know this until you bother going under the hood. This however doesn't change their UI experience, while the mouse button does, and the photoshop argument still stands to reason from your particular slant.(If you wanted to take it down you might have noted that it's one button nature is really to cope with graphics tablets anymore than it is to cope with the Mac platform.)
As for Maya, you might have not noticed recently, but even according to Alias, the promoted Alias user base and even the images used for press, OS X is the preferrered platform for Alias Maya.(At this stage it's most likely a marketing slant i'm sure) But you'll find them noting things like that the loading screen was created by a Maya user on OS X, to OS X being listed above Windows and linux in just about every drop box on the alias.com website.
So sure you might not be trolling, but you are on the other hand haven't done any useful research before hitting reply.(Try that this time before you reply to this.)
So Maya -requires- a multibutton mouse, not from Windows, but from PowerAnimator days on IRIX. Additionally since Maya doesn't ship with OS X as standard, I don't see why it should be made sole-mouse button friendly. If you can afford maya, I think you can afford a new mouse.
Also take a look at apple laptops, be amazed with the shock and awe that they too only feature one button on the track pad... So it's definitely something they like to keep up on all their hardware not just their mice.
This sort of topic presented on slashdot is such a perfect example of why a lot of software for windows and linux is poorly presented and generally unconsumable, the average person in this crowd doesn't 'get' the idea of the one mouse button(nor is interested to), to them it's about a list of technical advantages over an aesthetic design choice, and they most certainly don't get any other subtleties that come with dedicated UI refinement. (Notice that word refinement.. it means not adding crap just because you can, but removing items because you can, the second mouse button, a third...or 7th on some MS mice.. that's the excessive crap that needs removing.) Design relies heavily on what you can take away without having an expense on the experience, the mouse button comes under this.
As a result of this design ethic, you won't find extra buttons on apple keyboards for instant mail, instant internet, instant shopping, etc etc. Which interestingly counters another argument 'would it be so confusing to add another button to the keyboard?' in short 'no, but it'd be stupid and probably damn ugly' *thinks compaq, hp and dell*
The design ethic follows through to most other design choices, from having things in plain white, or plain brushed metal, to having no exposed latches, hooks, etc on their laptops, while other brands are fine having plastic hooks sticking out of their screen.
For the wider /. audience, if you don't get it by now, then don't bother trying anymore, it's clearly not for you.
She just cannot see the difference between left and right mouse buttons.
I hope to God that she isn't allowed to drive!
"if you have an interface that needs two mouse buttons to do most tasks, there is something wrong with your interface"
Remove the word mouse, and change buttons to pedals, and then explain to me how you operate your car. Do you press Ctrl-pedal to brake?
Sometimes having seperate buttons for seperate jobs is a good thing. I wonder if some of these complaints of people who can't comprehend the difference comes from knowledgeable users who simply don't understand how to describe things in terms an adult novice can understand. Teaching an adult is very different from teaching a young child. (I teach violin to each of those categories, and they are both quite capable, but in different ways.)
My mom has no problem with two buttons, and the last time she used computers (before last year) was when you controlled them with punch cards.
I'm flabbergasted at all the posts here that claim that any idiot knows how to work a mouse with multiple buttons.
Doesn't anyone do any usability studies on their applications with "joe six-pack" user types?
I've done a few myself (mostly websites) and nearly every time, there is at least one person who has trouble working the mouse to one degree or another:
- clicking the wrong button
- hesitation of picking up the mouse for repositioning
- disorientation between the cursor onscreen and their hand
And let's not even get started on how many people still have a problem with scrolling down a pageSeems to me a few of you just take your own experience levels for granted
In 99% of programs it does.
Actually, that works fine with a CTRL-click. Mac apps are designed to benefit from 2+buttons, but only require 1. It's a set-up I like because I find a 1-button trackpad more pleasant to use than a 2+ button one, but a 2+ button mouse even more.
If your user base is mostly Mac, then you'll probably almost completely igore the right mouse button, maybe putting a few things in there for those users who don't see Ctrl+Click as so much of a pain, but definately not providing the same rich context menu support you would if you expected everyone to be right clicking.
No, there's a difference... I think you've stumbled upon it on the end of your post. [Most] Mac developers don't ignore the right mouse button. That would be foolish, it's really useful! However, because the default configuration of the platform is ONE button, they do not link a feature to the right mouse button which can not be found elsewhere. This just ensures good design. The right mouse button is there for speeding up a task, but it shouldn't be something a program depends on. Much like nobody would use a keyboard accelerator (Command-Q, Alt-X, etc...) without having a visible UI component that does the same thing. It's role is a time-saver, and this helps keep it that way.
Apple has been shipping a one-button mouse longer than anybody else currently in the computer industry has been shiping any kind of mouse.
In this matter, it's not Apple that's being different. They were here first.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Gee, that seems to be a Microsoft idea, too, although they don't say that context menu items should always be available as menu bar items:
as Apple does in the Apple Human Interface Guidelines:
The GNOME Human Interface Guidelines are somewhat less emphatic:
The KDE User Interface Guidelines don't have anything obvious on context/popup/shortcut menus.
Of all the times not to have mod points...
I can't agree more with this poster and the parent. Look at early cars, look at early radios, look at early televisions. There were lots of things that needed to be adjusted, fiddled with, watched, etc. Ultimately the interfaces were simplified to the minimal complexity necessary to do whatever one wanted to do with the mechanism. Apple takes the time to do the analysis of what people want to do with their computers, and simplifies the interfaces until they allow the user to do as much as possible while requiring minimal learning and minimal ongoing effort.
Making the simpler interfaces allows people to do the task they set out to do, rather than spend time making the computer work. Having a minimal interface also allows new users who, as you say, have a lot of "mental baggage" to more easily learn the computer.
Making something complex is easy, making something simple is hard...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
The difference is, Apple "enforces" this user interface guideline by making it impossible for developers to rely on the existence of the right mouse button.
Yes, the user interface guidelines you cite all suggest that contextual menus shouldn't be the only way to do things. Apple is the only designer to force the issue.
And, as somebody who gets to explain left mouse button vs. right mouse button all day, I think they're absolutely right.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Apple's "one button" mouse has five buttons. It's just that three of the buttons are on the keyboard, and one is based on timing:
Click
Double-click (the equivalent of the third button on Xerox original design)
Control-click (the equivalent of the second button)
Command-click (the equivalent of the third button on Sun's original 3-button layout)
Alt-click (the equivalent of the third button on many X11 apps)
Shift-click
How this is simpler and easier to learn than two buttons, I'll never understand. Especially when these extra buttons are not just accelerateors or shortcuts but are absolutely required to perform many functions.
But anyone who claims a single button is easier had better be able to show a study that compared apples to apples... the ones Apple published really compared two-buttons plus only context menus to single buttons with menu bars, and nobody's modern two-button mice actually behave that way.
In any menu system that uses clicks, EITHER left or right click will dismiss the menu and activate teh selected action. IT DOESN'T MATTER.
But I do support, and I still get users who are trying to double-click on things that only take a single click, or double-click on menus. ALL of which is Apple's fault... because with only a single button mouse they couldn't use the middle button for "action" like Xerox had... so they "invented" a second button called double-click.
No, the "stupid users" argument cuts both ways. The answer is, "stupid users are stupid... design for smart users, and train the novices, necause you have to anyway. The only "intuitive" user interface is the nipple.
I just invented an 89 button mouse. It's an 87 key notebook keyboard that you can roll around on your desk, with an additional scroll wheel and two mouse buttons.
Advantage: Only one cable is needed, instead of separate mouse and keyboard cables.
Disadvantage: It's a really retarded idea.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
and you don't think 'ok this is a waste of time' when you do anything else in windows? I do like my scroll wheel on my logitech but on a mac i also rely on the keyboard. Keyboard being used in conjunction with a mouse is way more productive than just scrolling away or p[laying with contextual menus
Why do you like a high dpi? I'm really not trolling here, I'm wondering if you've ever actually used a 1024x768 Powerbook. OSX resizes graphics very, very gracefully, so there's not the usability hit that you'd see on other OSes.
You go ahead and buy what makes you happy, but this 12" Powerbook is the best computer I've ever seen for my purposes. YMMV.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
There's a very good reason why Macintoshes have a single button mouse. Right-clicking just plain sucks as a user interface. You have no visual way of knowing what is right-clickable or not, and you have no clue what features will be available before you click. That is something you get to learn on your own, and that's certainly not a user-friendly interface. Remember that Mac OS has a long history of being intuitive and right-clicking is a geek thing. If you want to go the geek way, you can, as Mac OS X supports buttons-endowed mice, but it should not be that way by default for the beginner. It sucks even more on Windows as contextual menus only pop up once you release the button (makes absolutely no sense, isn't consistent with left-clicking, doesn't allow for mistake correction, etc etc), so at least it's done right on Mac OS X.
Moreover, with softwares properly designed at least, the options available under the right-click are also available in the menu bar, and have keyboad shortcuts.
So while you might disagree with using a single button mouse (I myself have bought a Logitech replacement), you have to agree that such choice does make sense and is consistent with Apple's politics regarding user interface.
Open the finder to your desired directory. Give the web browser focus. Drag and drop the image. works for non-finder windows like word documents too. Don't get me wrong, I use right-click but drag and drop is done single button and is intuitive as well for this purpose.
Geeks seem to have a problem accepting that somebody would want to use anything on or with a computer in a different manner than they do.
--
Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction. --Albert Einstein
I suspect this is really bullshit. Those developers that want to pollute the interface with useless functions can rely on Cmd+click, which is basically the same as the right click, only more cumbersome. And those developers that understand the value of usability follow the Human Interface Guidelines voluntarily and then boast about it on their websites.
The real reason is that there is no compelling reason to change the official Apple policy, because everyone can get a 2-button mouse and everyone can use cmd+click, but there is a strong reason not to change anything, because Apple would look stupid for sticking so much to a stupid design decision.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Three words: Font Book, motherfucker.
Yeah, fuck Windows and its font aliasing that looks like it's on a British dental plan... Jaggies so horrible, you could put someone's eye out with MS Word.
Three More Words: Color Sync, bitch.
I'd like to see proper color separations prepared on a PC that actually deliver imaging on a monitor true to a PANTONE color wheel... Sorry, pal, ain't gonna happen.
Add to that, Apple displays are SWOP Certified.
You know what's more.. have you ever tried inserting a special character into HTML on Windows?
Three More Words: Option Button, stupid.
That's right, all your umlauts, em-dashes, en-dashes, accents, carats, etc. etc. ad infinitum... easily inserted into HTML or posted on a form without crawling back to that horrid, sloppy bastard of a word processor just to use the "Insert character" menu to go scrambling for a symbol.
Let's see...
Font Smoothing below 8pt:
OS X - check
Windows - no dice
Organized Font Manager:
OS X - Font Book
Windows - Buy Adobe ATM or a $700 app that has it
True SWOP-certified color and color profiles:
OS X - You betcha
Windows - Productivity? Who wants that in an OS?
A few last things for everyone bemoaning OS X font management, one-button mice, or the lack of a mechanical eject button on the DVD-ROM drive... Aside from all of the aforementioned that makes an OS X desktop look picturesque, compared to the Windows desktop that looks like some retard used a buggy version of MS paint with a palette consisting exclusively of garish colors and absolutely no opacity control...
Pages is the streamlined publishing beauty that MS Word wishes it could be... and for everyone who has ever wanted to kill the guy who insists on using the stupidest animations and sound effects Powerpoint can provide, Keynote is Michelangelo by comparison.
All OS X GUI objects have an embedded alpha channel... Being able to manage continuously variable levels of transparency, OS X has a depth of field in the desktop that all versions of Windows can only have wet dreams about.
This may seem superfluous to the wannabe-geeks who simultaneously believe that Windows has real administration capabilities (I'm sorry... did I miss something or did Windows become a UNIX-based platform?)... but if you're going to stare at a screen for more than eight hours a day, it helps if looking at text and images doesn't feel like razor blades are being tossed at your eyeballs.
Lastly, Core Audio, Core Image and Core Video... Core Audio, facilitating almost zero ms latency sampling, is already destroying any hopes of Windows being taken seriously by audio professionals. Core Image and Core Video will do the same to Bill Gates' dream of Windows and Windows Media being multimedia reference standards. Core Image may also spell doom for Adobe, whose After Effects & Premiere market share is already being destroyed by Apple's Shake, Motion and Final Cut Pro... but Core Image will eventually put in the hands of OS X itself, an enormous amount of realtime bitmap filtering that requires rendering time in Photoshop.
The gloves are off, and Apple, in their most profitable, highest-revenue, highest stock price since the 1980s, is poised for their next greatest trick...
Apple's next big move may very well be to combine the strengths of Quicktime 7 (specifically the H.264 codec) and Core Video to deliver HD-quality movies via an online store as the sequel to the hit iTunes Music Store that proved that, yes, indeed, people will pay for music downloads if it means they don't have to sift through countless half-corrupt Mp3s in a nonintuitive interface that has absolutely no browsing or track preview functionality.
It'll be a real slap in the face to Microsoft, the PC industry and the army of DMCA-minded attorneys at the MPAA if Apple reveals that, as a recent Slashdot article speculated, that the Mac Mini was all-along the proverbial trojan horse that would infiltrate millions of homes to facilitate and popularize internet-based movie distribution.
Actually, if you saw some early Apple tutorials on navigating the finder, double-clicking was never mentioned in them. They'd always tell the user to open a file from the Finder by single clicking it, then going to the "File" menu and choosing "Open."
Double clicking was an optional shortcut that has become common place.