Mouse button

In contrast to its motion-tracking mechanism, the mouse's buttons have changed little over the years, varying mostly in shape, number, and placement.

The reason for the clicking noise made is due to the specific switch technology used nearly universally in computer mice.

Most modern operating systems and mice drivers allow a user to change the speed of a double click, along with an easy way to test the setting.

This state of affairs continued until the late 1990s, when growing support for mice with a scroll wheel after the 1996 introduction of Microsoft's IntelliMouse incidentally made 3-button pointing devices ubiquitous on OEM hardware.

"My friend Marvin Minsky tells me there's great controversy in the artificial intelligence community over how many buttons a mouse should have", Jerry Pournelle wrote in 1983.

In addition, as a lowest common denominator option, it offers both a path gradual advancement in user sophistication for unfamiliar applications, and a fallback for diverse or malfunctioning hardware.

Those favoring multiple-button mice argue that support for a single-button mouse often requires clumsy workarounds in interfaces where a given object may have more than one appropriate action.

Another workaround has the user hold down one or more keys on the keyboard before pressing the mouse button (typically control on a Macintosh for contextual menus).

It also requires that the user perform actions on completely separate devices in concert; that is, holding a key on the keyboard while pressing a button on the mouse.

The additional buttons become especially useful in computer gaming, where quick and easy access to a wide variety of functions (such as macros and DPI changes) can give a player an advantage.

Because software can map mouse-buttons to virtually any function, keystroke, application or switch, extra buttons can make working with such a mouse more efficient and easier.

Omnidirectional scrolling can be performed in various document viewers including web browsers and PDF readers by middle-clicking and moving the pointer in any direction.

However, in 1992, Borland released Quattro Pro for Windows (QPW), which used the right (or secondary) mouse button to bring up a context menu for the screen object clicked (an innovation previously used on the Xerox Alto, but new to most users).

Borland actively promoted the feature, advertising QPW as “The right choice,” and the innovation was widely hailed as intuitive and simple.

Adjust serves for selecting multiple items in the “Filer” desktop, and for altering parameters of objects within applications – although its exact function usually depends on the programmer.