Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!stan!dce
From: dce@Solbourne.COM (David Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: X for MAC-OS?
Keywords: X mac mouse
Message-ID: <858@marvin.Solbourne.COM>
Date: 22 Apr 89 19:33:28 GMT
References: <2847@tank.uchicago.edu> <1429@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu>
Reply-To: dce@Solbourne.com (David Elliott)
Organization: Solbourne Computer Inc., Longmont, Colorado
Lines: 59

In article <1429@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu> lih@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu (Andrew Lih) writes:
>In article <2847@tank.uchicago.edu> ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes:
>	How does the Mac emulate a two button mouse?
>
>As you know, most X workstations (hosts) use at least a 2 button
>mouse, and some use 3.  Fortunately, on a two button mouse, X lets you
>hold down *both* buttons to emulate the 3rd button, but how does
>eXodus and other X packages for the Mac provide for the second and
>third button?

The implementation really doesn't have anything to do with it.  X
is configurable enough to handle a 1-button mouse in a lot of cases.

Window managers help a lot.

With awm, you can set up various parts of a window to be special
contexts.  The title bar can do one thing, and the area close to
the window border can do another.  Also, there are items called
"gadgets", which are placed in the title bar to allow you to do
other things.  For example, I have a little box on my title bar
that will move the window to the left or right a few pixels when
I click in it.  Not a great use, but anything you can do with an
extra button you can do with a gadget.

With twm, you can assign multiple "f." functions to a button
using the "Function" definition.  One example (given by Tom
himself and used without his permission) is "raise-lower-move":

	MoveDelta 5
	Button1=   : title: f.function "raise-lower-move"
	Function "raise-lower-move" {
		f.move
		f.raislower
	}

This says that if the first pointer button is pressed in the
title bar and the mouse is moved more than 5 pixels, the window
is moved.  If it isn't moved that far, the window is raised
or lowered, depending on it's current status.

Another thing is that you can assign buttons in combination with
the shift, control, and meta keys.  This multiplies the abilities
considerably.

Of course, this doesn't address the problem of applications expecting
certain mouse buttons (i.e., cut and paste and scrollbar grabbing in
xterm), but I was talking to twm's author yesterday, and we discussed
the idea of having the ability to have the window manager map events
into other events.  That is, it might be possible to have
"shift-button1" and "control-button1" be mapped to "button2" and
"button3" respectively.

The main thing is to give it a try and see what doesn't work.  X
is still under development, and the only way to improve it is
to use it and see what's missing.

-- 
David Elliott		dce@Solbourne.COM
			...!{boulder,nbires,sun}!stan!dce