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Multi-Button OpenOfficeMouse At OOoCon 2009

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the flying-in-the-face-of-simple-design dept.

An anonymous reader writes "WarMouse has announced their new multi-button OpenOfficeMouse for OpenOffice.org at the 2009 OOoCon in Orvieto, Italy. The mouse, which features 18 buttons, a scroll wheel, and an analog joystick, has double-click functionality on every button and stores up to 63 application and game profiles in its 512k of flash memory. The OpenOfficeMouse runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X; its customization software will be released as free and open source software." We couldn't decide if this was a protest against Apple's new magic mouse, an elaborate practical joke, or just plain insanity run amok. In any case, it is hard to imagine a world in which so many tiny buttons on a mouse make sense.

27 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Reinventing the wheel by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just put a mouse-roller on the damned keyboard instead.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Reinventing the wheel by clone53421 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Grandparent meant the bottom of the keyboard.

      --
      Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
    2. Re:Reinventing the wheel by zippthorne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      True, but they're also hard to find if you want "just a basic" anything but USB mouse. For instance, it's very difficult to find an encrypted, bluetooth, full-sized, optical, wheel mouse without side-buttons.

      Whoever thought side buttons are a good idea for a non-gaming mouse should be drug out into the street and pelted with rotten produce. Freakin' have to hold the mouse ever so gingerly if you don't want to accidentally flip web pages* or, if you're on a mac, something even more annoying.

      *It's freakin' 2009. netbooks have 2GB of ram. Why the 'F does the page have to reload when I hit the back button, or two pages reload if I did so accidentally and hit the forward button immediately thereafter. Why aren't the fully rendered pages cached for several levels of back-ed-ness? (determined by some algorithm relating to the available RAM, to balance off use against the filesystem cache) If I need to reload, F5 is right there on the keyboard. My main use of tabs at the moment is because "back" is not implemented properly on any of the browsers I use.

      It seems I have a lot of anger.

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      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    3. Re:Reinventing the wheel by iron-kurton · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you need that much security, you're probably better off going with a wired mouse anyway. Besides, you also get better accuracy and less/no lag.

      --
      Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
    4. Re:Reinventing the wheel by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Why aren't the fully rendered pages cached for several levels of back-ed-ness"

      Because then people will claim your browser has a memory leak.

    5. Re:Reinventing the wheel by Guillaume+Castel · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Why the 'F does the page have to reload when I hit the back button"

      Because a lot of web pages (including slashdot) are served with HTTP headers that tell the browser not to cache them, and the browser follows that directive. Yes, it's annoying. I use tabs for that reason too.

  2. A modest proposal ... by rrhal · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps we could just mount a mouse ball on the bottom of a key board. You just move the whole keyboard around when you want to scroll. The 105 button mouse.

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    All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
    1. Re:A modest proposal ... by networkzombie · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why stop there? Mount a small LCD to it, throw in a small HDD, and call it a mouseputer. If you attach a chair to it it would be a SOMO (Small Office/Mouse Office).

    2. Re:A modest proposal ... by tom17 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Home Office/Mouse Office

    3. Re:A modest proposal ... by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's nothing. I keep my mouse stationary, and rotate Earth to scroll.

    4. Re:A modest proposal ... by zapakh · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's nothing. I keep my mouse stationary, and rotate Earth to scroll.

      You rotate Earth to scroll? I have a teamouse. It scrolls by Brownian motion and then I simply destroy the Universe when the cursor moves in a way I didn

    5. Re:A modest proposal ... by rrhal · · Score: 4, Funny

      Smart Heuristic Reprogramable Open Office Mouse (SHROOM)

      --
      All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
    6. Re:A modest proposal ... by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Funny

      Please stop disrupting our seasons Mr. Norris.

  3. Oh yeah? by avg_joe_01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Clearly you don't PvP...

    1. Re:Oh yeah? by adamchou · · Score: 4, Funny

      Seriously. They're obviously not as l337 as we are. They don't know how hard it is to PvP in OpenOffice. Those damn characters come from everywhere using all kinds of punctuation weapons. Go troll elsewhere you n00bs

  4. I'd like to see Steve Jobs face by ClaraBow · · Score: 4, Funny

    when he lays eyes on one of these -- 18 buttons! Seriously, I don't know how I would work this mouse as it looks cramped and it would be like learning a new keyboard layout.

  5. OS/X by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    WTF is OS/X? Bastard child of OS/2 and Mac OS X?

  6. I call Shenanigans by Wannabe+Code+Monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    The features of the OpenOfficeMouse include:

    • ...
    • Clickable scroll wheel
    • ...

    It truly is the world of tomorrow... Today!

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    We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
    1. Re:I call Shenanigans by Wannabe+Code+Monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also, if anyone wants to see what this monstrosity looks like now that the site is slashdotted, I got this in the coral cache: http://www.openofficemouse.com.nyud.net/branding/images/OOM-OSS.jpg

      --
      We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
    2. Re:I call Shenanigans by sconeu · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh no! They've put the WordPerfect 5.0 interface on a mouse!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  7. Metaphors by sbeckstead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This mouse is a good metaphor for Linux and OSS. Too many choices and very confusing interfaces. Good job guys!

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    Why bother
  8. Double the buttons by geekoid · · Score: 5, Funny

    and you could start considering it for Emacs.

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    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  9. Fuck it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We're doing 19 buttons

  10. Re:God damnit by jayme0227 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, it wasn't that long ago that the scroll wheel was added. I thought that was pretty cool. Also, the side buttons on my mouse are pretty useful while browsing the internet or gaming.

    But if you're still attached to your same old mechanical ball-style mouse with only two buttons and no scroll wheel, I guess that's your prerogative.

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    But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
  11. It's like the Homermobile from the Simpsons by Quarters · · Score: 4, Funny

    To all of the people who ever said, "OSS should stop copying and start innovating" - this abomination is your fault.

  12. 18 Buttons? Madness! by Bob9113 · · Score: 4, Funny

    it is hard to imagine a world in which so many tiny buttons on a mouse make sense.

    You think that's crazy -- I've heard that some people keep an entire extra grid of buttons next to their mouse that has -- get this -- over *100* buttons. Not only that, but some of the really extreme cases out there actually develop *pure muscle memory* of where all those buttons are. There are even people who call themselves "Eee-Maxers" (sp? e-macksers maybe? emacsers?) who also memorize and even customize dozens of what they call "key chords" -- pressing multiple buttons simultaneously to extend vastly beyond the 100 key limitation.

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    Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
  13. Heathens by confused+one · · Score: 4, Funny

    The prophet says "Thine mouse shall have at most one button"