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From: msp33327@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael S. Pereckas)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: trackballs (&mice & pens)
Message-ID: <1991Jun28.161714.20282@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 91 16:17:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: ux1.1991Jun28.161714.20282
References: <91176.152002LPARKER@auvm.american.edu> <b7p6s9.adp@wang.com>
Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 31


>LPARKER@auvm.american.edu (lloyd parker jr.) writes:

>>I think that the trackball is a good idea, but ...

I've just started using a wonderful mouse interface to my terminal
emulator.  When I click the right button, it sends a space.  The left
button sends backspace, and the middle pageup. (This is an IBM clone)
This way I can read news without having to reach up for the spacebar.
I just hold the mouse in my lap.  *Much* nicer.  I did it with this
extremely simple menu in the Logitech menu program:

BEGIN leftb, midb, rightb
;
leftb:  TYPE 8
rightb: TYPE " "
midb:   TYPE 0,73

Presumably Mac and Windows developers just cringe at this because I'm
not using the mouse in The Standard And Sacred Way, but I love it.
I've been discussing with a friend how you might do this on a Mac.  (I
once tried lifting the mouse after placing the pointer on the scroll
bar down thing, but every time I bumped the mouse, the pointer would
move enough to mess it up.)  The single button really limits the
possibilites.  Windows doesn't really use the other buttons, so you
could use the other button for space.
--

< Michael Pereckas  <>  m-pereckas@uiuc.edu  <>  Just another student... >
``You can be real patient if you don't have a central nervous system''
                                                       ---Dr. Ronald Pine