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Apple Developing Two-Button Mouse
An anonymous reader writes "Always the innovator, Apple is rumored to be developing a two-button mouse! Personally, I don't think it will catch on. Two buttons will be way too confusing for your average user." A few users noted a related Slashdot story from awhile back that discusses why Apple has historically avoided the two-button mouse. The article also mentions a revision to the AirPort Base Station with built-in optical audio.
In a few years Apple will invent something called a "pan wheel" which allows you to pan up and down in documents... They'll probably try and patent it as well.
I have one with five on my PC.
Oh, and my amps go all the way to eleven!
Back in my day, we didn't even have buttons. We had to move the cursonr, and *wait*!
Sig
...one button at the top end and one at the bottom end. Gotta think different.
Why would Apple design a 2 button mouse? Is that not insane? Wouldn't it make more sense to design at least a 3 button mouse with a wheel? What would really be gained by simply adding a second button?
what will become CmdrTaco's new reason to not use a macintosh?
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Slashdot gets sued for giving out trade secrets. Apple demands to know who leaked this information, which would have revolutionized the computer world as we know it.
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I picked up an Apple Wireless Mouse and found that it was good enough for everything... except reading long pages. I'd rather have a scroll wheel than another button: the usefulness of the scroll wheel would far exceed having another mouse button.
Luckily, I have a lot of multiple button Logitech mice running around that I can use. But can anyone tell me how I can map f9 to the middle mouse button? Whenever I try, it just pops Expose open instead.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
...and let me guess...it's being unveiled on April 1st?
G-Force music visualization
Microsoft innovates the 1-Button mouse as a whole new line of efficiency.
Bill Gates says: "One mouse button ought to be enough for anybody."
A minor correction - there will not be an optical out on the AirPort Base Station. The article mentions there may be in integrated optical out with new versions of the AirPort Express, instead of an external option.
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
With all the people they're hoping to get that are supposed to be converting windows users because of the IPod, I'm sure a lot of people are confused by going from two buttons to one. I know it sounds crazy, but I tend to get frustrated when I use my friend' s Mac, because one mouse button should be simple, however I am used to two buttons, plus a scrollwheel, and a few extra buttons on a mouse, you rely on what you're comfortable with.
I'm sure this will help a lot of people convert over to Macs.
-Gamma
"Back button" is in common usage already. If they call them "To Button" and "Fro Button", they can apply for trademarks.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
If Apple does come out with their own two button mouse, will it be available as an option OR is it going to replace the one button mouse completely? Are we looking at the demise of the one button mouse?
For what its worth, at least as far back as the first OSX release (possibly earlier, but I am Not an Apple User) you could use any 2 button mouse on a Mac... I have used them on Powerbooks and desktop machines running various versions of OSX.
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... you insensitive clod.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
I've got an eMac and an iBook that I love, and I happily use the one-button option Apple provides, but when I get bored of that I plug in the 5 button + scroll-wheel Microsoft branded monstrosity trackball. It all works perfectly. I'm assuming this move is to get people to impulse upgrade while they're buying a new system, and to quell the usual hand-wringing from the PC fanboys. I don't think it's going to be the default option.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
... some of whatever the author's smokin'...
Two buttons too hard for the average user?
With less than 10% of market share? And every other mouse on the planet more than 1 button?
Roll me one of those...
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Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take a shower:)
Is it Saturday night already?!
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Anyone look at the suggested retail prices for these?
Apple has just recently reduced the price of its wired mouse to $29 and its wireless optical mouse to $59. The two-button wireless optical mouse would likely debut at the $69 price point once reserved for the company's current wireless mouse.
"Jaws will drop," said one insider.
Now, I know what the Mac fans will say: 'Plenty of people spend far more than that on gaming sticks and PC peripherals,' etc, etc.
But why can't they make the mice cheaper? I had to pop out a few months ago to buy an Apple mouse for a client here in London. Not knowing any better, and needing the thing immediately for the client's OS X rack, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the prices for bog-standard and other Mac mice at Micro Anvika.
In the end I found a busted old iMac with a working hockey puck and just lifted that.
'Jaws will drop,' indeed.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
That reminds me of my Wife's first experience with a mac laptop. She inserted a floppy disc and we could NOT figure out how to get it out.
In the PC world you simply pushed a button right next to the drive. No such luck there.
After a few days I finally had to call a friend of mine to explain it to me. And to this day I don't understand why deleting the floppy icon from the desktop is more "insanely great" than simply pushing one button. Then again, maybe the emphasis isn't on the "great" but is on the "insane."
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I got my 6 button mouse working on a mac with http://www.usboverdrive.com/ fine. I'll I want know is a similar app for windows, as I can only get 5 buttons to work how I want them:/
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
Apple kept to a one button mouse for ease of us and to prevent user confusion. What the /. crowd seems to miss is that the mac is made for simplicity for the average joe who never used a computer. Most geeky folk who have a solid understanding of an OS will want as many buttons on a mouse as possible. For for people (like most of parents?) that are clueless navigating an OS with a two button mouse is confusing. While I was doing phone support for gateway last year I would have to explain the difference a right and left mouse click ever other call. It was like magic... at some point I would ask the customer to right on something for a menu and everytime afterwards when I would ask to click on a specific item they would then ask "is that a right click, or a left click"? After 3 times of this I would have to tell them click means left mouse button and right click is a right mouse button. I'm sure no apple support tech has had to deal with that. The mac version of a right click, being either ctrl + click or holding down the mouse button for 3 seconds to generate a menu, doesn't lodge an idea of different kinds of clicks in the users mind. I personally think apple should stick with a one button mouse and let the geeks buy a 2-5 button mouse (which has suported in the mac os since os 9) if they want.
Two buttons will be way too confusing for your average user.
Anyone who's done phone support with an "average user" will agree. Trying to communicate the differences between right- and left-clicking can be difficult. Never mind having the person learn in exactly which circumstances you have to do each one.
Probably because you gain a *lot* more functionality/convenience from a two button mouse, and arguably quite a bit less from three. I think they're insane if they don't add a wheel, but it wouldn't really have to be clickable (lots of folks really don't get that the wheel is a button).
I'm firmly in the 3 button camp (UNIX/Linux user) but two is better than none, and I can see why they're doing that - especially given Apple's "interesting" notions about mice.
I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who will buy an iBook the minute they have a two-button (or more) trackpad...
jeez! you can't throw it all at a user a once! the only way is to scale out those big features incrimentally.
Wasn't NeXT the 1st computer to ship with a scroll wheel mouse?
No.
NeXT never shipped a scroll wheel mouse at all. Next used a 2 button mouse. By default the second button was identical to the first. The mouse preferences allowed the user to use the second button to display a copy of the application menu at the current cursor position. Which button (left or right) did this was user definable to allow lefties and righties to use the system comfortably.
I was a NeXT user for about 9 years before switching to Macos X. I don't really miss the second mouse button. The only aspect of the old NeXT/OpenStep experience that I prefer to Macos X is tear-off menus.
Hmmmm, can't use my middle finger. I need to direct it to the M$ users when they come to ask me to help them fix their buggy, virus loaded P.[iece of] C.[rap]
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Actually, they already have this. It is a nice grey bezel box that overlays the contents of the (now frozen) screen with messages in a number of languages telling you that you now need to restart your computer. If things really go pear shaped you also get kernel error messages marching down the left side of the screen in white letters with black block background.
But people don't see these messages often, they usually mean something is wrong with hardware (most often memory).
Cursor? Luxury! In my days, we had to *type* when we wanted to do something. And we where grateful.
wait a minute....
I would say that it can be more productive - if you know how to use a second button. I've been using multi-button mice on Macs for years now. My main machine has a 6 button Logitech mouse.
But the iMac in my kitchen (which I'm using now) has a single button Apple mouse, and it's quite useable.
I think the rumored tactic of shipping a two-button mouse as an option is fine, but I don't ever want to see Apple ship a mouse with more than one button with the computers, for one simple reason. I've spent too much time trying to get computer novices to understand what a second button does, and many never get it. (these are the same people who never quite get the difference between a click and a double-click - when you throw another unlabeled button on the mouse, they lose it.)
I think a one button mouse is really useful and should come as standard with macs, it is a desigh philosophy they should keep to. It makes a world of difference to the people who are older and are just getting into computers.
Jonathanjk.com
As you can see on this page under "interfaces," the Airport Express already has optical out. What is the difference between this and what you're talking about?
I use a 3 button / USB / IBM mouse with my powerbook, and it works quite well. No need to wait for Apple to realize how much the extra buttons simplify and enhance the user's experience.
--
JP
The facts expressed here belong to all, the opinions to me. The distinction between fact and opinion is yours to decide.
Try pushing that button while the computer is in the middle of writing to the disk. Then, after reformatting the disk and checking if floppy drive still works, you may have some idea.
Well, basically the trash stands as a catch-all for "get rid of" and has since the first Mac OS. You can drag toolbar items to the trash, you can drag dock items to the trash, connected servers, if you happen to be dragging and dropping some text and you drag it to the trash can a clipping will be formed inside of it with the text of the drag etc.
Basically apple wants to create the best "digitized office" for their users. They wanted as little as possible to be on the outside of the computer, more buttons == greater complexity, for a bad example, its the same reason some people can't even program their VCR.
--Dan
Please. Comparing the BSoD to an OS X grey screen of death is just wrong. When a Mac crashes, the screen fades to grey, and a translucent box appears telling you (in four languages, no less) that you need to restart your computer. The BSoD has far less class and style...
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Anyone who has used either a touchscreen or laptop trackpad would probably agree that UIs should be designed to work with a single mouse button.
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Dragging a floppy to the trash can has the institive meaning of "delete this floppy", not "eject this floppy".
That is a bad design decision. Face it Mac zealots.
It's the mechanical eject button that is the insane design decision.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I told her that the newest wheel mice have tilting wheels. When she understood it makes horizontal scrolling easier, her face lit up and she said "Ooooh...that sounds wonderful! Tell my grandson Mother's day is coming!"
It keeps it safe, because you can 'accidently' hit the button on a PC case, which will cause it to spit out in the middle of reading/writing, causing a corrupted diskette. back to the topic at hand, A two button mouse is nice, but not necessary to run a Mac. You dont need two buttons to nagigate an OS (unless its Windows). And if it is really necessary to right click something on a Mac, I long gotten used to Control-Clicking, because my hands are on the keyboard more than the mouse. or my left hand is on the keyboard, and my right hand is moving the mouse.
I should probably add that Raskin's best achievement was to hire Bill Atkinson to whom we owe a lot of what made the Mac a Mac, like QuickDraw and HyperCard.
support of the apple floppy design is a good test on the worth of someone's opinion about apple products. If they strongly defend it, they're not objective. If they say something like, "yeah, it's a bad design, however...", then they're probably an apple fan that will give you an honest opinion.
I feel better about myself when I read comments like this..
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Heh. If I got an email from a prospective beau which said helo how R u im sitin heer thinkin of u lololol xxxxx bob, I would dump his ass, no matter how hot he was. That's kind of like meeting someone online and then discovering that he has halitosis, except in reverse.
Mind you, if someone was that incoherent, I would probably have noticed it before giving him my email address. The drool is a dead give-away.
All modern macs have an eject button on the keyboard which ejects the superdrive. This is especially advantageous because you can't accidentally hit the button while carrying the computer and have the disk come flying out (which is exactly what would happen with my old dell laptop). they even designed it so you have to hold the button in for 2 seconds before the drive will eject so that you don't accidentally eject the drive if you miss the delete key.
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Does he mean the term as used by Microsoft?
I don't even know how that can make a news. I could always plug in my 2-button USB mouse into a Mac and the mouse would work.
Customize your Apple...
Mouse
O - One button
O - Two buttons [Add $200]
So true. I particularly loved, back in the 9x days, how--after the computer crashes and forces you to restart--you are slapped on the wrist for shutting down the computer wrong. This was especially frustrating while working on a program or paper for class...
Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.
I fail to see why one can't have a zero button mouse that simply executes the appropriate action after a predefined delay. After all, many of us have happily lived with X windows auto focus to foreground for years with no obvious detriment.
The fact that Apple has supported multi-button/scroll wheel mice since MacOS 8.6 tells me that Apple was too enamoured of their decision to "keep things simple."
With the MX-500, you could make special button assignments in MacOS X that could make for vastly easier navigation of multiple windows, for starters.
Try pushing that button while the computer is in the middle of writing to the disk. Then, after reformatting the disk and checking if floppy drive still works, you may have some idea.
It's not like it has to be an either-or decision. Look at the CDROM drive on any modern PC. The eject button is not a physical hardware eject, but a electronic pushbutton that first checks with the operating system to see if it is safe to eject the drive. That is both user-friendly, and user-proof. The floppy drives were like this on many of the Macs for years and I cannot figure out why they stopped doing it lately.
It gets just plain rediculus when you have multiple tray-loading CD/DVD drives. The only way to open the tray to load a disk is to go to the menu-bar, click the eject menu, and then select the drive you want to eject. You can't tell me this is easier to learn or perform than pressing a button next to the drive you want to eject. The only possible explaination that I can think of, is that this is another one of the cases where Jobs made a decision based on what looked slick rather than what was easiest to use - won't want those ugly buttons fouling up the zenness that is the G5 case.
I actually asked a girl at a club how she would rate me on a scale of 3 to 18. She said 17 so I pulled out a 20 sider and rolled. Then I said I passed my charisma check so you have to dance with me. It actually worked! That's what happens when you start the night with drinking and D&D before going to the club.
...Once you become a more serious Mac user you really do want more than one button on a mouse!
This is especially true if you need to keep multiple windows open and are running an image-editing or multimedia-editing program.
There's a very simple explanation: you don't want people to eject the floppy while the system reads or writes to it. Especially, if, like on the first Macs, you actually load the system from a floppy. Letting the system manage the ejection of floppies (instead of the hurried user) was a simple way to avoid problems, loss of data, system crash, you name it.
Besides, one of the first times I encountered a floppy was sometime in the eighties on a friend's Commodore or Amiga. Believe me, he didn't like when I pushed the little button to eject the floppy while the system was writing to it. But for me, I had no clue the system was still using the floppy. All in all, the ejection of floppies on a Mac is surely unnatural, but is not something totally stupid as PC zealots would want you to believe.
Considering you can get a Logitech 6-button wireless mouse w/ scroll wheel for ~$28, I don't know why anyone would buy the Apple product.
:)
Not to justify $69, but the Apple one is Bluetooth, and works with a (built-in, if you prefer) Bluetooth dongle, rather than the Logitech's PS2/USB remote receiver dongle.
Minor point, but Apple users tend to prefer the aesthetics of not having extra bits plugged in everywhere
Mark
PS Cue dozens of people finding cheaper Bluetooth meeces now!
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When I throw things into the trash can in my kitchen, it doesn't magically jump out the side of my house.
Or you could just right-click on the drive itself and tell it to eject. That honestly makes more sense to me than pressing buttons on the front of my tower.
As for floppies, *I* haven't seen a floppy with a smart eject system on any PC I've used. They're all simple, stupid physical released buttons. I'd much rather have my system eject it when it's done working than have to sit and watch the LED on the drive to make sure it's done before I hit eject.
When placing 2 buttons left-right, it is extremely likely that people mix them up. However, when placing a big button on the front and a little button more to the back (for example), all those problems are gone. I really hope that Apple doesn't come out with just another me-too two-button mouse, but understands that button placement in a new way can make it a lot easier for computing newcomers.
One clarification for you - Apple's wireless mouse isn't "QuickRF"-based (like all the $30ish wireless mice), it's actually a Bluetooth mouse. Granted, non-Apple Bluetooth mice generally include a Bluetooth USB dongle as well, but $69 is pretty much in line with what I've seen most third-party Bluetooth mice sell for.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
someone has to say it.....
That is just sad, truly sad.
1.) that you would make the comment
2.) that you would make it to a girl
3.) that you would have a D20 with you in a club
4.) that you would think this would work
5.) that this actually did
The one-button mouse is a godsend for people who have no GUI-experience!
How on earth am I going to explain my mom that to do one thing, she has to click the left, and to do the other, she has to click the right button? She already gets confused at the possibility of having more than one application open.
The concept of point-and-click is screwed up by adding a contextual menu-button - that's click and point (and click again).
I know every function can also be reached only using the left button, but how would I have to explain to my mom not to use the right one (which would confuse her)?
I think Apple always made the right choice: make things simple up front. And anyone who wants more, can do so (command/ctrl/option-click or get a multibutton mouse).
Yeah, it's a relic of times when the Mac was floppy-based and had to do a lot of disk swapping. You needed a way to eject the disk without actually unmounting it, so they had to distinguish between the 'Eject' command (in the menu) and the 'Unmount' (drag to trash).
On the other hand, clued users were able to grasp this instantly, and non-clued users were able to grasp it after a minute. Compare this with the amount of time it takes to get a dumb PC user to figure out the difference between the right and left mouse buttons (which ranges from many, many years to infinite, as some users will confuse them their entire lives).
Also, since OSX, the trash turns into an eject icon when you grab a disk. And there's an 'Eject' button on the keyboard. So this complaint is now moot.
To Eject a disk in Mac OS (any version) you choose the 'Eject' command from a menu.
This is the primary method, just like opening a folder is done by clicking on it, then selecting 'Open'.
The 'drag it to the trash' thing is a shortcut just like doubleclick. Shortcuts benefit from being memorable, and the drama surrounding 'eek, the trash' surely serves that purpose.
I'd call it great design.
J
Did her moustache tickle?
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
I've been wishing for years that Apple would design a trackpad button that looks like one button, but can actually be pressed on either side for a left and right click.
The default software configuration would be for both sides to just be the same single button. Users would never have to even know there was a second. But a Power User, not intimidated even by such an arcane thing as this, could enable the second button.
The jokes in the corridors about the one-button nature of the apple mouse are certainly many, but I've also heard some interesting discussion that it has a positive influence on UI design. Notably, because you're limiting the default user inputs to one button, you're requiring designers to think meaningfully about what the most important features are, and to put them someplace readily accessible. In other words, it makes it less tempting to just pour more and more "features" into the right-mouse-button menu.
Or you could just right-click
Therein lies the rub for a one button mouse...
No it absolutely did not.
The Lisa mouse is easily recognized by having a beige color scheme similar to the original Macintosh mouse, but with a different connector, a wider, shorter button, and somewhat different case styling.
This is a Lisa mouse.
The second mouse seen here is the original Macintosh mouse, IIRC.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I remember on some of the older PowerPC's in the computer lab back when I was in elementary school, the power button was right where you'd think the floppy eject button was.
I don't think I can count on one hand how many times people have switched off their PC's when trying to eject a floppy!
How long until the DM had your character wake up from that dream?
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Funny how they push ahead with this after Raskin's death. I wonder what he'd think.
Dear Penthouse^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Slashdot Forum....
That's what happens when you start the night with drinking and D&D before going to the club.
Yep. You played all the D&D, and she did all the drinking.
(Just funnin' ya. But if you packed a d20 specifically for this, it means you had put way too much thought behind this idea.:)
Interesting that you and the previous poster got into computing around 1985 or so. You missed the dreaded "don't forget ctrl-C before removing the floppy or you will ruin it" curse in CP/M. Fixing this was the one great improvement MS-DOS 1.0 had over the older system.
This was done by changing all disk operations from "write back" to "write through" (to use cache terms). Unfortunately, the cost is a reduction of several times in disk performance as the head constantly moves back and forth between the middle of the floppy (where the file is being accessed) and the first tracks (where the FATs are). This allows you to yank out the disk at any time with a very low probability of damage and also makes it likely that you will still have your data after a power failure.
For the floppy-only 128KB original Mac it is likely that this loss in performance would have been unacceptable. So Apple selected a "write back" scheme and prevented you from removing the disk without telling the software first so it could save all of its buffers. For the rarer case of a power failure the file system stored redundant information which the built-in disk repair utility could use to make up for any unsaved data.
Here is the story of how they got that cloverleaf symbol.
Aha! I can tell you never learned the magical Shift-Command-3 shortcut for ejecting a floppy on a Mac. Of course, this is even less intuitive.
I think that the design decision they made was about two things: creating a sense of safety, and making sure the OS knows what you are doing.
By requiring you to eject the disk via a software command, the OS can always tell if the disk is in or out. On older macs with only one drive you could eject the disk, but leave a "ghost" of the disk on the desktop. This made it possible to copy one floppy to another with only one floppy drive. You could insert the first disk, eject it, insert the second, and then drag the second disk onto the "ghost" of the first disk.
As someone else pointed out though, they could have put a non-mechanical eject button on the drive linked to the OS.
The "data safety" issue: Have you ever pulled a usb memory accessory off of your PC without first "unpluging or ejecting your hardware?" Windows and Mac both grumble at you when you do this, warning that you may have lost data. To an advanced user this is an annoyance, but to a novice user, this is a bad experience that leaves them wondering what damage they have done. By always letting the OS override whether the disk could be ejected, the user no longer was responsible for potentially damaging data by ejecting the disk at the wrong time. This creates a better user experience in the long run because the user no longer is part of the equation of data loss from the floppy. It reduces worry at the expense of making the process of ejecting the disk more complicated.
On a totally unrelated note: I do think Apple deserves credit for being the first to ship a desktop PC with no floppy drive (the original iMac). At first I thought this decision was crazy -- but I don't think I've used a floppy disk in the last three years. Sometimes design decisions should show leadership, not always attempt to do whatever users want. In this case they took a big step forward.
But I find the one button mice a lot more comfortable, as my hand doesn't have to be glued to the thing in a pre-determined position in order to click it. Oddly enough, I was a fan of the hockey puck mouse before it, as I was one of the only people to use the thing correctly, by steering it with my fingertips, leaving my hand parked to the desk. Same with my ibook, I leave my thumb laying more or less horizontally over the single button. If apple goes to two button laptops, I'm pretty much fucked. =/
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
Here is one thing I have noticed. We have an eMac at home and two of my three kids are preschoolers. They have a very easy time using the zero (what I mean is that the entire mouse is one big button) button mouse from Apple. It is not too big too. At the library they have these two button plus scroll wheel Microsoft ergonomic mice connected to the computers for the kids. First of all those mice are way too big and there is this big hump at the base of the mouse that makes it very difficult for my kids to use. Since they have to hold the mouse near the top, very often the mouse will turn to the side and then the motion is all wrong relative to what they expect the cursor to do on the screen. The fact that the scroll wheel is in the way and that there are two buttons also causes confusion. What happens is that they end-up just clicking repeatedly until they finally click on the left mouse button and if they click on the scroll wheel their hand rolls off.
On the other hand the size of the current Apple mouse is just perfect. It is not too small for an adult and not too big for a child. Because of the size and the fact that the whole mouse is one big button, my kids can hold the mouse near its middle, and then it does not rotate while being moved.
I have heard the argument that once you start using a computer long enough you start wanting extra mouse buttons. What I think is that those people are not sophisticated enough. Even when I was using unix primarily, I configured fvwm and vim so that I could do almost everything from the keyboard. Today there are keyboard shortcuts for almost anything on OS X plus a bunch of small apps to add even more shortcut functionality. I really do not miss a three button mouse all the much at all. In fact I use SideTrack on my iBook and think that is perfect for the times I need to copy and paste in X11.app. Maybe Apple should make a compact keyboard with a trackpad instead of a two button mouse. If that keyboard was wireless, it would be perfect for sitting on the couch too especially with two finger scrolling.
One thing about OS X that is very frustrating is that I have not figured out an easy way to use the built-in spell checker with only the keyboard. If anyone knew an easy way to pop-up that menu with suggested corrections, I would really appreciate it. Also using the accessibility features and that spelling dialog box with only the keyboard is really annoying because the things you want to do are too many key presses away, so that is not really a viable solution...
"I actually asked a girl at a club how she would rate me on a scale of 3 to 18. She said 17 so I pulled out a 20 sider and rolled. Then I said I passed my charisma check so you have to dance with me. It actually worked! That's what happens when you start the night with drinking and D&D before going to the club."
Heh. Apple considers a 2-button mouse but the real discussion going on here is about Dungeons and Dating. *Sigh* Nerds are going the way of the dodo.
"Derp de derp."
This was so people could transfer files directly from one floppy disk to another, by dragging files onto the shadow disk; the Mac would then ask you to insert the disk you took out. An important capability in computers without hard drives.
One problem with this was that, if you tried to open a "shadow disk", it would pop up a dialog box saying "insert disk <whatever>", which would prevent any other action, and which had no button to cancel it. You could close the window with Command-. (the usual Mac means of cancelling things) but that was not stated in the window. That was an interface problem.
Eliminate the keyboard.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
The original Apple Macintosh interface had a strict subject-verb grammar. You selected something (the subject), and then went to a menu item to indicate what to do with it. This is limiting, but very easy to learn. Verb-subject interfaces are also possible; those are the ones where you go into a "mode", and the next thing you click on is operated upon in that mode. Today, verb-subject interfaces are usually associated with toolbars.
Most of the "shift-click" stuff is an attempt to express verb-subject grammar. Badly. It's usually better to stick with subject-verb. Select, then indicate what you want done. Indicating what you want done can be a keypress, or a right-click floating menu.
When you click and drag a removable drive or network share's icon anywhere on the screen OS X changes the trash can icon to an eject symbol.
Dammit, you've convinced me.
When this was first explained to me, I thought it meant that the when you dragged a drive/share icon over the trashcan, the trashcan icon would transmogrify into an eject symbol. This would be daft.
But if I understand you correctly, as soon as you click and hold on a drive or a share, the trashcan disappears (because deleting a drive is impossible) and is replaced with an eject symbol.
This suddenly makes sense to me. I suppose it would make even more sense if the trashcan were to quickly swoosh offscreen, and the eject icon were to swoosh on to replace it. In other words, the object is not changing its behaviour and appearance: a different object is positioned where the old one was.
Are there other areas where Aqua rearranges the desktop depending on context? I can imagine, for example, if you start to drag a file, some area could empty itself of icons that wouldn't accept that drop, and populate itself with icons appropriate to the format of the file being dragged.
I need to try out OSX, just so I can be more informed, but the cost! the cost!
Thank you...for making me sputter coffee all over my cubical desk.
Life is not for the lazy.
Since when did this become "The Onion" ?
"Or you could just right-click on the drive itself and tell it to eject."
Good thing apple is putting out a two button mouse.
if dragging a disk to somewhere used to be a trash can is dumb, talking something you don't know is dumber.
I understand why you don't understand.
The reality is if you are draging a disk, the trash can becomes a "Eject" sign magically.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
As a partner in a computer training company I taught more than 10,000 (probably closer to 12,000) people how to use Windows and Macs.
As for the quote from the tech support person who claimed that having someone use the right mouse button caused the person to evermore ask "right or left" when asked to click: That's ridiculous. You just say, "If I, or someone else, or a book or manual instructs you to 'click' on something without telling you which button, you use the left button." You explain that the left button is the "default" button and then go into a brief explanation of what "default" means.
Here's how to explain "default."
The "default" is what's expected in the absence of any other instructions. The default hamburger in diners and other traditional restaurants is usually just meat between two buns (with perhaps some garnishes on the side). At McDonald's and other fast food chains the default includes ketchup, pickles, onions and sometimes more.
Once you understand the default configuration of burgers at the place you eat, you know what to expect.
Insert witty sig here.
After switching to OS X a few months ago, I've discovered that I no longer miss the right mouse button!
One excellent reason is the terminal
Another is the fact that control click, command click and option click all do the same things in pretty much every program (I can't say what exactly, it's that intuitive)
All I know is that when I want a new tab in firefox instead of a new window, I always make the right kind of click
nevertheless, I like multibutton mice, and now that I see this discussion on slashdot, I'm going to go get me a USB wireless mouse with a scroll wheel. I've forgotten how nice those were...
shooting is not too good for my enemies
In other news, Apple also announced a future mouse using six buttons. Steve Jobs was quoted a saying, "We want to be ahead of the curve, since we screwed up last time and waited 20 years before catching up with other 2-button mice. Besides, we want to anticipate demand when humans grow an extra finger approximately half a million years from now.."
Microsoft has already responded by announcing a 10-button mouse, though speculation is that it will be released too late, when humans no longer require limbs and already have started using brain waves to control the world.
This is a little OT but if you're thinking about getting a Mac don't bother with the bluetooth mouse. It's very sluggish. Originally I bought their bluetooth mouse and it was horrible. I returned it and got the Logitech MX700 bluetooth optical mouse. It was better but it's not nearly as solid as a wired mouse. At least not compared to a wired mouse in windows. I have to run out and buy a usb mouse for my Mac mini. So at least I hope the problem is the fact that it's bluetooth.
Frankly, I'd be surprised if Apple released a completely standard two-button mouse without putting any kind of a twist on things. They're pretty good these days about adhering to standards, but they also like to innovate rather than releasing old, clunky designs. Along with everything else, it doesn't seem to me that there'd be much of a point-- there are already plenty of vendors of 2-button USB mice to choose from, so why bother reversing their position if they weren't going to do something interesting?
I guess they might do something like detect it by device ID and select different default behaviour though...
No reason why they couldn't, given that they would control both the hardware and the OS...
The system doesn't have a button to eject it and they count on the user KNOWING that deleting the icon will eject it? I wouldn't even think you could delete the icon to start with. Why would you delete something that isn't a file?
And she hasn't quite got the point.
She is not a stupid woman either. Techno-babble just doesn't interest her.
There are power users (for whom three buttons and a scroll wheel aren't enough) and there are the others who, like my wife, are a bit mystified by the whole thing.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Most people type like that sentence above on email, and non-legible-typing people don't seem to have much trouble getting laid.
Weeeell, that's because ppl who tipe liek this come in both genders. The stupid memes are breeding true!
People who don't write correctly formed English make me froth at the mouth, especially if I have to decode their crap in my professional capacity. Mostly it scares me that so many people have to go to special effort not to sound like chimpanzees. And it's not just email - these people usually produce the same kind of garbage on paper too.
Even though I (and most geeks) would not use it, the one-button mouse shipping standard on every Mac is a VERY good thing. Reason: It *forces* application developers to design a decent UI that isn't reliant on endless right-click menu commands. I think this is very important. I hope Apple keeps the one-button mouse forever. Anything that forces good UI decisions is a win to me.
God that desk must be uncomfortable. Do your knees keep banging into the sides?
I haven't used a mouse in years.
Look around you. Laptops are everywhere.
A mouse on a laptop is like a fish with a yo-yo.
You know, like tapping the touchpad for selection and double clicking...
The single button on macs is so stupid, I can't stand it. Such beautiful machines too...
man rtfm
You could probably narrow down the list of people who know about these sorts of things. Oh, and fire their asses.
Yes, I'm a fanboy. (Why buy Tiger separately, when you can get it and a computer for $500.)
It's inconceivable and insulting maybe to suggest that a lot of people have trouble enough mastering one mouse-button, but that's the truth of it. I don't care about all the arguments in favour of other choices, I'm all for them, as long as they remain choices. I use a two button scroll wheel MS mouse myself, and actually liked the four button scroll thing mouse a lot more, but for my father in law - a verrrrrry intelligent individual btw - I had to go back to his standard one button Apple mouse or else his brain would explode. I know other examples.
/.
There seem to be two schools on
1) good that "average" people (whatever, my father and father in law can hardly be called average and have IQ's way above...) use computers, let's accommodate them.
2) people not able to master command line should be eliminated from the gene pool.
For all you people in category 2 I hope you can live without all those people your life revolves around that sadly don't think their computer is important at all... like some extremely devoted doctors I know, or even some people elemental in the making of high caffeine beverages or pizza's!!!!!!!!!!
I think, therefore I am...I think.