Contemplated while picking gunge from rollers

[fivemack]

[Poll #1449616]

Comments

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

Kensington Expert Mouse = optical trackball (you didn't provide separate tickyboxes for wheeled and optical, tsk) + scroll ring (which I equated with a scroll wheel) + four buttons. In fact I use all four, and the scroll ring, on a regular basis; this is an Ubuntu box, and firefox by default maps #4 to the back button.

[emperor]

I have an optical trackball (LHS), and an optical mouse (RHS)

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

I ticked touch screen, but that's only on my phone. :-)

And you don't have any options for trackpads, I think I'd happily use my MBP's trackpad for anything I use a mouse for (except FPS games), if only they'd do a keyboard with one built in.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Although my wheel might be a button. I'm not sure.

[uisgebeatha.livejournal.com]

A wireless Logitech one and matching keyboard. It has three buttons technically if you count pressing the wheel. And that's enough buttons for me, unless I want a gaming mouse! ;)

[lnr]

The mouse has 3 buttons, the middle one of which is *also* a wheel, but I use it just as much for middle-clicking as for scrolling. Some people with the same mouse might consider it to have two buttons and a wheel.

[naath.livejournal.com]

My mouse has 5 buttons, one of which a wheel, two of them I don't use and have just discovered that they do 'forward' and 'back' in FF... think I'll be carrying on not using them then.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

But mostly I use a quill.

[brrm.livejournal.com]

+1 for the Kensington Expert Mouse Optical trackball. Love it, have one at home and at work.

[sparrowsion]

Technically it's four buttons, but I don't use the one which is also the wheel because the button action is so stiff that the wheel moves before the click registers. I've mapped it off "middle button" to button 4, put middle button functionality on the right button, and middle button on the real button 4 (under the thumb). The wheel is also supposed to register left and right pushes as buttons 5 & 6, but I've not got that working under Linux.

The reason I chose it is that it's the closest thing I could find to actually being big enough to keep my wrist off the desk.

[nassus.livejournal.com]

What about the option - I don't actually take that much notice so I have no idea ;-p

[seawasp]

The one choice should say *FRICKIN'* LASER. Just to be nitpicky.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I was referencing the "special heat ray which we call a 'LASER'" rather than the irascible sea-bass

[seawasp]

But I think "Frickin' LASER" sounds better!

[tanac.livejournal.com]

not sure where clown nose fits there... (perhaps 2D trackball-like thing, but it isn't, really)

[carbonel]

While my mouse indeed has a wheel (which is also a button), the number of times I've used it are still in the single digits, I think. On the other hand, I love the "go forward" and "go back" side buttons.

[ellarien]

My wheel is also the middle button, since they replaced my Sparc with a generic Linux box; I use both functions on a regular basis. Long ago, I used to have the old square Sun three-button optical mouse that only worked on the special gridded metal pad.

[fanf]

You left out the trackpad and zero buttons options :-)

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I use a touchpad. At my last 2 workplaces, I unplugged the mouse my employer provided, put it in a desk drawer, and plugged my auxillary touchpad into the USB port. (Desktop machines I used in previous workplaces didn't have USB ports, so I used a very slightly different touchpad.) It works just like the kind they have on laptops, with 2 buttons. Computer use aggravates my chronic pain badly enough that I really could not manage if I had to use a mouse or trackball. I'm aware that some people's hands are more comfortable with a mouse than a touchpad, but I have damage in some unusual places. It's most important for me to reduce strain on my thumbs, and it helps me to be able to share navigation work between my 4 most functional fingers.

I've sometimes worked with touchscreens at work, but not in *offices*. I used one in a lab, and several in manufacturing facilities. They needed an awful lot of cleaning, and frequent repair. But the main reason for the touchscreen was to keep dust out of electronics that had to function in very dusty places...I hope your computer, and your lungs, work in cleaner rooms.

[zorac.livejournal.com]

I have a shiny aluminium Apple keyboard (with numeric keypad, thankyouverymuch) and a venerable Logitech MX1000 laser mouse (three thumb buttons plus bonus ones in front of and behind the wheel)

Entirely non-coincidentally, I use the same setup at home.