Middle-Button Mouse Click Function

[B'rrr]

Only thing I remember of the first 3 button mouse is that I hought it was so useless! I never used the middle button for anything! Don't think I had them late 80's already, but early/halfway 90's for sure.

Maybe I'm just very crazy, which wouldn't surprise me

 

[MusicallyInspired]

Thing is, even if you had a 3-button mouse it wouldn't do you any good unless you had a driver that would actually figure out it has 3 buttons. I had a lot of trouble with that. The PS/2->Serial converters were the biggest problem. Somehow in the conversion it would only tell the computer (or at least the driver) that the mouse had only two buttons. Only one of my mice actually work with 3 buttons and it came with its own converter.

EDIT: I just tried KQ5 in DOSBox and it works.

[koko_99_2001]

On our old computer, we had a trackball with three buttons. And I'd say we had that at least in the early 90s. I don't recall if we had the trackball in the 80s though.

[KatieHal]

I think the 3-button mouse had its brief moment in the spotlight of trendiness before people realized 2-button mice were all they needed.

[Tage7]

Hey, I loved my 3-button mouse. It allowed me to destroy punks in Counter Strike.

[wilco64256]

I now have a mouse that has like 5 or 6 buttons (see, I don't even know) but I still only use two.  The only thing I use the third one for is scrolling.  The only time I've ever tried to use it for clicking anything was when I was trying out that icon trick.  It didn't work for me but that's probably just the way the games emulate through Gametap.

[Cez]

hey it could be worse and be like a mac....

WITH ONE BUTTON.

argh!

[crayauchtin]

I like the one button!

[MusicallyInspired]

I use the third mouse button to close tabs in Firefox and almost anything else with tabs without having to press the X button. I've grown quite used to using it for almost everything now. Mostly games, though. I also appreciate the left and right scroll button toggles (that is, you can move the actual scroll wheel left or right and it triggers two separate click actions apart from the actual middle mouse click or scroll-wheel). Handy for back and forward buttons while browsing.

[misomian]

I'd love it if cycling through actions could be done with the scroll wheel. I appreciated the keyboard shortcuts though; saved me a lot of clickety-click-clicking with the right mouse button.

[kindofdoon]

hey it could be worse and be like a mac....

WITH ONE BUTTON.

argh!

Have you used a Mac in the last 5 years?

[snabbott]

hey it could be worse and be like a mac....

WITH ONE BUTTON.

argh!

Have you used a Mac in the last 5 years?

Did they add a second mouse button? 
The worst was the round i-Mac mouse! I was always grabbing it in the wrong orientation and then the cursor would move in some semi-random direction.

[k3n]

here is how it was done in the ms-dos days:
http://www.ece.ul.ie/homepage/tom_newe/Modules/CE4204/advdos-Duncan.pdf#page=449

kinda makes me miss my ms-dos programming reference book and appreciate human interface devices apis.

[wilco64256]

Oh wow I remember having to play around with stuff like that.  Hours editing files on 3.5" boot disks to get each specific game to run just right.

[kindofdoon]

hey it could be worse and be like a mac....

WITH ONE BUTTON.

argh!

Have you used a Mac in the last 5 years?

Did they add a second mouse button? 
The worst was the round i-Mac mouse! I was always grabbing it in the wrong orientation and then the cursor would move in some semi-random direction.

Where have you been? Yes, Apple mice now have 2 buttons. Aesthetically, Apple mice still have one button, but you can click on the left and rights sides of it (left or right clicks).

[wilco64256]

I'm not sure if I would like that or not, one button but two click zones?  Yikes.

[kindofdoon]

It takes some getting used to, but it's fine for most functionality. I just wouldn't be caught dead gaming with it!

[wilco64256]

It'd be like making all the black keys on the piano keyboard level with the white ones.  I use the feel of those to know where my hands are and I use that little bit of separation on my mouse to keep my fingers on the right buttons

[Fierce Deity]

hey it could be worse and be like a mac....

WITH ONE BUTTON.

argh!

The strangest part is that after all these years, Apple still stands by the one-button mouse. It's like they don't even comprehend the act of "right-clicking". 

[wilco64256]

Same reason why I very rarely use the touchpad on my laptop, it doesn't know when I'm tapping it for a left click and when I'm tapping with a different finger for right-click.