Xref: utzoo comp.misc:7713 comp.cog-eng:1489
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!think!Think.COM!barmar
From: barmar@Think.COM
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Multi-button mice (Re: Xerox sues Apple!)
Message-ID: <32328@news.Think.COM>
Date: 18 Dec 89 23:07:20 GMT
References: <172@comcon.UUCP> <7326@ficc.uu.net> <9320@hoptoad.uucp> <1989Dec18.081450.28019@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Followup-To: comp.misc
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA
Lines: 24

In article <1989Dec18.081450.28019@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> flee@shire.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee) writes:
>The problem may be just lack of consistency; every application seems
>to want to use the mouse buttons in a different way.  If, say, the
>right button always moved windows around, there may be less confusion.

I agree that this is the main problem.

On Symbolics Lisp Machines it is relatively easy for UI designers to
provide consistency by allowing mouse clicks to be assigned using symbolic
names.  Instead of binding an operation to "left button", you can bind it
to the "select" gesture.  The translation table between symbolic gesture
names and physical gestures can be customized by the user (so that a user
who would prefer menus to be on the middle button with the Shift key held
down can get this), and it can also be initialized by the system for
different hardware configurations (e.g. single-button vs. multi-button
mice).

I believe a similar mechanism will be included in CLIM (Common Lisp
Interface Manager), a portable, object-oriented UI programming interface
being developed for Common Lisp.
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar