Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!bionet!arisia!ebert
From: ebert@arisia.Xerox.COM (Robert Ebert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: The Mouse -- What is its History?
Summary: Button assignments
Message-ID: <13104@arisia.Xerox.COM>
Date: 11 Oct 90 17:23:57 GMT
References: <21056@dime.cs.umass.edu>
Reply-To: ebert@arisia.UUCP (Robert Ebert)
Organization: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Lines: 61

In article <21056@dime.cs.umass.edu> leban@par3.cs.umass.edu (Bruce Leban) writes:
>So here is IMHO the "right way to do it":
>
>  One button:     Click
>  Two buttons:    Click, Shift-Click
>  Three buttons:  Click, Shift-Click, Command-Click
>
>I don't think that button chording is a good idea.  But I'm sure people will
>do it anyway.  So here's my suggestions:
>
>  Two-buttons:    BOTH = Command-Click
>  Three buttons:  FIRST TWO = Option-Click, SECOND TWO = Command-Shift-Click

Admittedly, this list is based on the Mac interface, so some options aren't
readily available, but I think using this mouse would be a pain.

To add more than just an opinion to the discussion, I'll describe the mouse
usage in the Xerox Development Environment and GlobalView worlds.  Both use
a two button mouse.

XDE defines the left button as POINT, and the right as ADJUST.  Clicking point
makes a selection.  Double clicking selects a word.  Tripple clicking selects
a line/paragraph.  Quadruple clicking selects the entire text.  Here there is no
time limit between clicks.  (I.e. double click to select a word, then click
again 10 seconds later to select the line, moving the mouse resets the
click counter.)  ADJUST extends a selection to the point where the mouse is
when you click adjust.  So, to select three sentence, tripple click the first
one, then click ADJUST on the last.  First/last can be reversed, or you can
start in the middle then ADJUST on the last then ADJUST on the first.

There are some other nuances, like if you POINT down and hold, you can move
the selection.  (On any of the clicks, so double click, holding on the second
click, makes the selection a word, and you can drag the mouse to whichever
word you want to select.)

CHORDing pops up a menu.  You then hold ADJUST down and use POINT to select
items off the menu.  (Menus vary depending on the window you're using.)  If you
release ADJUST when an item is selected, the item gets executed.  If you
click POINT (while holding ADJUST) on a menu item, the item gets executed and
the menu remains up, so performing multiple operations from menus is easy.

GlobalView uses a very similar POINT and ADJUST scheme, without the CHORD.
It was decided that a chord was too complex for the people who would be using
the machines.  (Secretaries and CEOs, mostly...)  With more recent releases,
chording will provide a pop up at some locations, but to select an item you
pick it and then release all the buttons.  (Only one need be held down to
keep the menu up.)  You can't select with one button and keep the menu up
like you can in XDE.  But then, the few operations that are available in the
pop ups don't lend themselves to being done more than once.

So, for the Mac, a two button mouse used as CLICK and SHIFT-CLICK would come
the closest to this scheme.  The problem is that applications seem to treat
SHIFT-CLICK differently.  I.e. a double click (select a word) followed by
a SHIFT-CLICK sometimes extends the selection word-wise, and sometimes
character wise.  (There may be UI Guidelines for this that just aren't
followed.)  Also, there's the down-and-drag problem.  CLICK down and drag
extends a selection, rather than moving it.  This would provide two ways
to extend selections, click-and-drag, and CLICK and SHIFT-CLICK, but both
from the mouse.  Not bad, but not an ideal usage of mouse buttons.

			--Bob (Go GlobalView!)