3 button mouse

[Freddie Cash]

On February 28, 2005 02:31 pm, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> On Monday, 28 February 2005 at 22:52:08 +0100, Dag-Erling Smrgrav
> wrote: 
> > David Scheidt <dmschei at attglobal.net> writes:
> >> I need a three button mouse.  Just three buttons, no wheel, no
> >> bells, no whistles.  I can't find one, as everything has a silly
> >> wheel.  I'm not picky about interface (PS/2, USB, serial, or
> >> Bluetooth will work), or balls v. optical.  Does anyone still sell
> >> these things?

> > what do you have against mouse wheels?  they are very useful in X,
> > and also function as a middle button.

> Let me count the ways...

> 1.  Few FreeBSD applications support the wheel out of the box, so
> it's not much use.

Depends on the app, I guess.  All of my X apps (KDE, QT, GTK, Motif) 
work with the wheel.  Haven't had an X app not recognise the wheel 
events since XFree86 4.0.0 was released.

> 2.  Setup is non-trivial.  Every mouse seems to have its own
> protocol, and I have a number here which I can't enable.

Depends on the mouse, I guess.  All my systems are configured to use 
moused in rc.conf, and /dev/sysmouse for device, auto for protocol, and 
5 buttons / z-axis in XF86Config/xorg.conf.  Haven't had any issues 
with mouse wheel events since XFree86 4.0.0 was released.

> 3.  They're an ergonomic disaster.  The wheel that functions as a
>     middle button is in the wrong position for this function.  It
>     should be about 15 mm further towards the finger tip.  In its
>     current position, you have to bend your middle finger to touch
>     it, and then you have to be careful not to turn the wheel (unless
>     it isn't enabled, in which case it's not a problem).

This is very true, and is one reason I dislike mouse wheels.  I loved 
the old Genius NetMouse and NetMouse Pro.  These didn't have wheels.  
They had a rocker button.  You pressed and held the up button to scroll 
up, and you pressed and held the down button to scroll down.  You kept 
scrolling as long as the button was pressed.  And it scrolled the same 
as if you were holding the cursor keys.  So much simpler to use, didn't 
agravate the fingers as much, and was just plain more comfortable to 
use.  The NetMouse Pro had a nice thumb switch that let you change the 
meaning of the up/down buttons (I always had it set to replace 
ALT+TAB).  Wheels are just not comfortable to use.

> 4.  In addition to being in the wrong place, the spring on the middle
>     button is usually too heavy.

This is also very true.  It's very hard to click the middle button 
without also scrolling the page, which can have very strange results.  
On the flip-side, I've also used ones where the spring was too 
sensitive, and it was almost impossible to scroll without clicking the 
button.  Again with strange results.

> At least for FreeBSD users, mouse technology has not progressed.

Mouse technology hasn't really progressed for anybody ... but there's 
really not much more that can be done with a mouse (other than to make 
them larger -- why do most manufacturer's think we all have tiny 
hands?).

-- 
Freddie Cash, CCNT CCLP        Helpdesk / Network Support Tech.
School District 73             (250) 377-HELP [377-4357]
fcash-ml at sd73.bc.ca