explain the right-click to me please

[ShovelHead84]

hello everybody

i'm fine i'm fine thanks for askin'…

i've used Macs since day one the last any other machine i used was a PDP-11 so i have to ask: what is the right-click all about? i don't get out much…

incidentally (i know i shouldnt bring this up because my long-term memory is suspect) but was there not a lawsuit in the 80's brought against Apple by i think MS the result of which Apple promised never to use a two-button mouse (was actually constrained from this by either the results of the suit or the agreement entered into)?

anyway…

 

[floriflee]

Right-click usually allows you to get access to menu picks from the spot you click rather than having to go to the menu bar. That's the simplest way to explain it I can think of.

 

[d_and_n5000]

The right click is a way to get stuff done faster. For example, if I right click an icon in Windows, it broings up a contextual menu, where I can click on Properties, where I get properties for what that icon is for, what I can do with that icon...It's just a shortcut. In Mac OS X, I can Control-click on the line in the Dock, and see a contextual menu that will let me choose the placement of the Dock, and a shortcut to the other Dock Preferences.

And I don't think there was a lawsuit based on the mouse, unless you count the Microsoft vs. Apple where Apple sued Microsoft based on their use of a GUI and its resemblance to the Mac OS. The ruling may have had stipulation on the mice, but I doubt it - if there was, Apple probably wouldn't have put contextual menus in the Mac OS, and Microsoft would have confronted Apple about its use of the Mighty Mouse, and its dropping of the regular mouse in the Store and with hardware.

 

[ShovelHead84]

hmm…

well you may be right d&n but my memory tells me that there is more to it than that: i remember that right after Apple said they would stay with one button Woz said something like this (this was back when Woz was still talking): it is OK because the way the brain is configured one button is more intuitive and two buttons will just get in the way of brain cells implying even at this early stage of the relationship between Apple and MS that Apple guys were smarter (obvious i paraphrase from my admittedly faulty memory)…

anyway…

 

[lexus]

hello everybody

i'm fine i'm fine thanks for askin'…

i've used Macs since day one the last any other machine i used was a PDP-11 so i have to ask: what is the right-click all about? i don't get out much…

incidentally (i know i shouldnt bring this up because my long-term memory is suspect) but was there not a lawsuit in the 80's brought against Apple by i think MS the result of which Apple promised never to use a two-button mouse (was actually constrained from this by either the results of the suit or the agreement entered into)?

anyway…

Then why did they make the mighty mouse?

 

[ShovelHead84]

i doesn't know lex…

maybe it a statute of limitation thing…

anyway i told you i was working from memory don't expect facts…

and maybe the mighty mouse is not a two-button mouse as was described by the provisions of the court fight…

anyway…