Mighty Mouse discovery! Unsuspected feature of control panel...

[zen]

I have a Mighty Mouse, which was bought to replace a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer.

I quite like the Mighty Mouse, but over the last month have found myself digging out the Microsoft mouse and using it more and more. The Mighty Mouse's side buttons are a joke, the raising-left-finger-to-right-click is getting boring, and the scroll-ball is fine for up and down, but sideways and other directions is pretty lame.

Anyway, this morning I couldn't actually find the Mighty Mouse (I use an iBook, so everything gets moved around the house), so I plugged in the Microsoft mouse. After a few minutes, on a whim, I clicked down on the scroll-wheel/third button - bingo, Expose was activated. Slightly surprised, I clicked on the side button - and Dashboard appeared.

So it looks like the Mighty Mouse software and new control panel will actually recognise any multi-button mouse. Which is interesting, given that Microsoft's mouse drivers appear to have stopped working under Tiger.

Apologies if this has been covered before, but I thought it was quite interesting. You can get Expose and Dashboard activity out of any mouse. Cool and slightly surprising!

Zen

 

[JW8725]

I have a Mighty Mouse, which was bought to replace a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer.

I quite like the Mighty Mouse, but over the last month have found myself digging out the Microsoft mouse and using it more and more. The Mighty Mouse's side buttons are a joke, the raising-left-finger-to-right-click is getting boring, and the scroll-ball is fine for up and down, but sideways and other directions is pretty lame.

Anyway, this morning I couldn't actually find the Mighty Mouse (I use an iBook, so everything gets moved around the house), so I plugged in the Microsoft mouse. After a few minutes, on a whim, I clicked down on the scroll-wheel/third button - bingo, Expose was activated. Slightly surprised, I clicked on the side button - and Dashboard appeared.

So it looks like the Mighty Mouse software and new control panel will actually recognise any multi-button mouse. Which is interesting, given that Microsoft's mouse drivers appear to have stopped working under Tiger.

Apologies if this has been covered before, but I thought it was quite interesting. You can get Expose and Dashboard activity out of any mouse. Cool and slightly surprising!

Zen

Yeah I found out my intelliMouse side buttons work by utter chance to. I decided against buying the Mighty Mouse shortly after.

 

[zakatov]

Why wouldn't Tiger recognize extra buttons and map them accordingly by itself?

 

[zv470]

...the raising-left-finger-to-right-click is getting boring, and the scroll-ball is fine for up and down, but sideways and other directions is pretty lame...
Zen

Clicking works fine... just wondering why you have to lift your left finger to right click? Just leave your hand on it and click left or right. I agree that scrolling in non-orthagonal directions is inaccurate but... left/right scroll works just as well as up/down. I watched the Video Podcast Mighty Mouse review on MacTV... there was another thing... the guy said you have to press the scroll-ball right in... in which case it makes it had to scroll... i don't see why you need to press the ball in at all? just tap the middle button works like left and right click.

 

[zv470]

That's it... I'm going to go down to the Apple shop and check out the mouse again. I'm sure you don't have to lift left finger to right click??? Damn!... now I'm doubting myself,

 

[zen]

Clicking works fine... just wondering why you have to lift your left finger to right click? Just leave your hand on it and click left or right. I agree that scrolling in non-orthagonal directions is inaccurate but... left/right scroll works just as well as up/down. I watched the Video Podcast Mighty Mouse review on MacTV... there was another thing... the guy said you have to press the scroll-ball right in... in which case it makes it had to scroll... i don't see why you need to press the ball in at all? just tap the middle button works like left and right click.

With the Mighty Mouse, your left-clicking finger can't be resting on the mouse when you try and right-click, as has been extensively documented around the net. As it happens, I do, naturally, slightly lift my left-clicking finger off the mouse when I right-click anyway. But I've found that 50% of the time, I don't lift it quite high enough to break contact with the surface, so I end up right-clicking with no reaction a few times before realising why it's not working.

The scroll-ball does depress quite far into the case when you are scrolling - even just the weight of my finger on it will make the surface of the ball almost level with the button surface. It doesn't seem to affect scrolling, although it does mean that my finger rubs against the plastic of the mouse surface.

I haven't had any problems with centre-clicking.

But the least said about the side buttons, the better. Badly placed and requiring and iron grip to activate...who the hell designed that? Using the Microsoft mouse this morning I was actually quite surprised to find the side-button right where my thumb was - I didn't have to adjust my position on the mouse at all, not to mention the fact that the button just required a light flick to activate instead of a Vulcan death grip.

Anyway, I'm not here to slag off the Mighty Mouse (much), but seeing as the Microsoft mouse now works for dashboard and Expose I'm wondering whether I should just put the Mighty Mouse on eBay...

Zen

 

[zen]

That's it... I'm going to go down to the Apple shop and check out the mouse again. I'm sure you don't have to lift left finger to right click??? Damn!... now I'm doubting myself,

Unfortunately you do - the pressure sensors must be extremely sensitive, as any finger contact on the left-button side of the mouse disables right-clicking.

Zen

 

[ravenvii]

Actually nothing "special" happened when you installed the Mighty Mouse software. Yeah there's the new control panel, but that only shows up if you use the Mighty Mouse. Otherwise it reverts to the regular mouse control panel.

What happened to you is that when installing the software, it by default added expose/dashboard functions to mouse buttons 3 and 4. And that happens to correspond with your Microsoft mouse. Go to preferences -> Expose/Dashboard, and you'll understand.

Nothing to see here folks, move on.

(and the oh-my-god-lifting-my-fingers?! moanfest is getting REALLY old. There's dozens of threads on this already. As known as: NOT NEW INFORMATION.)

 

[zen]

(and the oh-my-god-lifting-my-fingers?! moanfest is getting REALLY old. There's dozens of threads on this already. As known as: NOT NEW INFORMATION.)

I was wondering when that was going to happen. I'm a Mac user and I have dared to criticise a Mac product. Flame on!

 

[Duff-Man]

I was wondering when that was going to happen. I'm a Mac user and I have dared to criticise a Mac product. Flame on!

Duff-Man says....Raven was not "flaming" you for criticizing an Apple product - almost all of us do that around here at one time or another....his comments were that the your criticisms have already been covered in many other threads already - there's a difference.....oh yeah!

 

[zen]

I was just outlining my beef with the Mighty Mouse in order to give context as to why I still use the Microsoft mouse. Then the right-clicking problem appeared to be news to zv470, so I filled him in.

Zen

 

[Chundles]

I don't see the problem with the side squeeze buttons, my fourth finger basically rests on the right hand side squeeze button so all it takes is a little pressure and it works. You don't need to squeeze both of them to make it work, just one.

 

[zv470]

Opps... sorry I was wrong. When I had a go on the mouse a few weeks ago... I didn't notice I was naturally lifting my left finger when I right clicked. Weird Well anyway... I still like the mouse, it's really innovative.

 

[Nermal]

When I had a go on the mouse a few weeks ago... I didn't notice I was naturally lifting my left finger when I right clicked. Weird

I do that too

 

[RandomDeadHead]

Yea, someone else noticed that at the office last week. Pretty cool, but I perfer a scroll weel click to perform a double click. It is ashame that my not-so Mighty Mouse had to meet such an unforunate death. But the lift finger thing pissed me off to no end, so I ended the frusteration with a tile floor. In case you didn't know, a hard floor is VERY effective at relieving stress.