Xref: utzoo comp.misc:7732 comp.cog-eng:1496
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!voa3!ck
From: ck@voa3.UUCP (Chris Kern)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Multi-button mice (Re: Xerox sues Apple!)
Summary: How Xerox uses the mouse in its office automation software
Message-ID: <349@voa3.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 89 20:46:33 GMT
References: <172@comcon.UUCP> <7326@ficc.uu.net> <9320@hoptoad.uucp> <1989Dec18.081450.28019@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> <MWM.89Dec18115216@raven.pa.dec.com> <7351@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: ck@voa3.UUCP (Chris Kern)
Followup-To: comp.misc
Organization: Voice of America, Washington, D.C.
Lines: 38

In article <7351@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
>Anyone know what the three-button mouse on the Xerox Star does?

The mouse on the Xerox 6085 (the box, successor to the Star) under
ViewPoint (the office automation application, successor to Star) has
two buttons.  The left button is a selector.  The right button is
basically a modifier.  For example, to select a section of text within
a file, you would click on the start of the selection with the left
button, then click on the end of the selection with the right button.
(There are various "accelerators" that allow you to select lexical
chunks of text by multiple clicking.)

In recent releases of ViewPoint, the right button is employed instead
of the left button to signify that the user wants an operation to be
performed in the background rather than the foreground.  For example, to
move a file from your workstation to a file server in the foreground,
you would (1) select the file icon with the left mouse button, (2) press
a dedicated "move" special function key to the left of the alphanumeric
keyboard, and then (3) click on the file service icon (or open window)
with the left mouse button.  To perform the same operation in the
background, you would use the right mouse button in step 3.

I guess you could say the right button is overloaded, since the
foreground-background dichotomy doesn't really fit within the select-
modify model that is used for other operations with the mouse.  In
practice, our ViewPoint users (we have approximately 1300 of them)
don't seem to be confused by the second mouse button or the way Xerox
has chosen to use it.  There seems to be little psychological interference
between the left- and right-button functions, and one develops a sort of
kinesthetic sense about the mouse.  You just never think about it.
I suspect this is a reflection of good design -- in other words, I
imagine it would be possible to design a two-button mouse that would be
difficult to use -- but perhaps it is just that people adapt to any
mechanism that they need to use throughout their work day.

-- 
Chris Kern			     Voice of America, Washington, D.C.
...uunet!voa3!ck					+1 202-485-7020