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They say "it paved the way for the one-button mouse we use today" but most people I know prefer two-or-more button mice, e.g. the classic scroll wheel design. A

They say "it paved the way for the one-button mouse we use today" but most people I know prefer two-or-more button mice, e.g. the classic scroll wheel design. A single button makes the mouse hand much less useful.

userbinator 7y ago
Three is my preferred mouse configuration - left, right, middle(scroll). Not long ago I had to use a two-button mouse for a while, and the lack of scrollwheel was very annoying.
chongli 7y ago
That's only because the system was designed for two-or-more button mice. The classic Mac OS was designed for a one-button mouse and it was far more intuitive than what we use today. It was also much more discoverable, since it didn't have modes, the thing Larry Tesler fought so hard against. Right-mouse-button context menus are modes, since the functions you are shown depend on what type of object you click on/have selected. The classic Mac OS menu bar, on the other hand, is modeless since it always shows you the same set of functions (and greys out the ones that are inapplicable to the selected object). This is a tremendous boon to discoverability, a key feature of usability.
- creeble 7y ago
  I would argue that a context menu is not a mode. You always e get the same action when you right-click the mouse: a context menu. It may have different selections on it depending on the object being selected, but it's not like right-clicking the object has unexpected, different behavior every time you do it.
- smolder 7y ago
  I'm going to have to disagree, not that discoverability isn't good, but that the addition button isn't worth the complexity. It's a matter of expressiveness and bandwidth. You can do more pointer-related actions with multiple buttons, and they aren't confusing the way keyboard modes are, because you've got feedback on the display at the pointer location. Primary clicks do the important thing, secondary clicks give you a set of other options or an alternative action. It's very easy to pick up given its universality and its usefulness. A single button just requires you to press mode keys with the other hand to get that expressiveness needed in a reasonably intuitive, and powerful, pointer-driven UI. Imagine if we didn't have multitouch and the only gestures we had on touch displays were tap, tap and hold, drag...
  - chongli 7y ago
    I think it's fair to say that everyone on Hacker News is a power user of their computer. Power users do not really know what it's like to be a regular user who is confused by multi-button mice, context menus, and all the rest. Try getting an older person to use a modern computer. They're completely baffled by all of the complexity. They don't know (and don't care) why they should be left-clicking in some cases and right-clicking in others. They prefer an iPad and generally don't use the multitouch gestures, besides pinch/spread for zoom. Simple taps and drags are highly intuitive for them. I would argue that context menus are inferior to keyboard shortcuts anyway. I certainly don't use them once I learn the keyboard shortcuts. I believe we have truly lost something special, since the classic Mac OS is no longer with us. We don't even organize our computers spatially anymore [1], we just rely on search all the time. That's a terrible shame, as spatial memory is the fastest. When you walk into a room in your home, you don't even need to look at the light switch, you just flick it on because you remember exactly where it is. Modern computers with all of their context sensitivity, browser windows, etc. are like a house where the light switches keep moving around to try to guess where you'll be next. [1] https://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-pb1/macos-x-beta-14.html https://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-pb1/maco...
Mirioron 7y ago
I find it hard to use a mouse with fewer than 9 buttons or a shift function on one of the buttons. I'm too used to having lmb, mmb, rmb, back, forward, copy, paste, enter, Ctrl+shift+t bound to the mouse. This is in addition to the scroll wheel of course. If I had 2 more buttons I would like to add home and end as well.

userbinator 7y ago

Three is my preferred mouse configuration - left, right, middle(scroll). Not long ago I had to use a two-button mouse for a while, and the lack of scrollwheel was very annoying.

chongli 7y ago

That's only because the system was designed for two-or-more button mice. The classic Mac OS was designed for a one-button mouse and it was far more intuitive than what we use today. It was also much more discoverable, since it didn't have modes, the thing Larry Tesler fought so hard against. Right-mouse-button context menus are modes, since the functions you are shown depend on what type of object you click on/have selected. The classic Mac OS menu bar, on the other hand, is modeless since it always shows you the same set of functions (and greys out the ones that are inapplicable to the selected object). This is a tremendous boon to discoverability, a key feature of usability.

creeble 7y ago
I would argue that a context menu is not a mode. You always e get the same action when you right-click the mouse: a context menu. It may have different selections on it depending on the object being selected, but it's not like right-clicking the object has unexpected, different behavior every time you do it.
smolder 7y ago
I'm going to have to disagree, not that discoverability isn't good, but that the addition button isn't worth the complexity. It's a matter of expressiveness and bandwidth. You can do more pointer-related actions with multiple buttons, and they aren't confusing the way keyboard modes are, because you've got feedback on the display at the pointer location. Primary clicks do the important thing, secondary clicks give you a set of other options or an alternative action. It's very easy to pick up given its universality and its usefulness. A single button just requires you to press mode keys with the other hand to get that expressiveness needed in a reasonably intuitive, and powerful, pointer-driven UI. Imagine if we didn't have multitouch and the only gestures we had on touch displays were tap, tap and hold, drag...
- chongli 7y ago
  I think it's fair to say that everyone on Hacker News is a power user of their computer. Power users do not really know what it's like to be a regular user who is confused by multi-button mice, context menus, and all the rest. Try getting an older person to use a modern computer. They're completely baffled by all of the complexity. They don't know (and don't care) why they should be left-clicking in some cases and right-clicking in others. They prefer an iPad and generally don't use the multitouch gestures, besides pinch/spread for zoom. Simple taps and drags are highly intuitive for them. I would argue that context menus are inferior to keyboard shortcuts anyway. I certainly don't use them once I learn the keyboard shortcuts. I believe we have truly lost something special, since the classic Mac OS is no longer with us. We don't even organize our computers spatially anymore [1], we just rely on search all the time. That's a terrible shame, as spatial memory is the fastest. When you walk into a room in your home, you don't even need to look at the light switch, you just flick it on because you remember exactly where it is. Modern computers with all of their context sensitivity, browser windows, etc. are like a house where the light switches keep moving around to try to guess where you'll be next. [1] https://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-pb1/macos-x-beta-14.html https://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-pb1/maco...

Mirioron 7y ago

I find it hard to use a mouse with fewer than 9 buttons or a shift function on one of the buttons. I'm too used to having lmb, mmb, rmb, back, forward, copy, paste, enter, Ctrl+shift+t bound to the mouse. This is in addition to the scroll wheel of course. If I had 2 more buttons I would like to add home and end as well.