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No Invoking Expose and Spaces with Magic Mouse?!?!

N

ncsmith4

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 15, 2007
347
29
So, I LOVE the design and multitouch-ness of the Magic Mouse, but I use Mighty Mouse ALL THE TIME to invoke Spaces and Expose. (Click the ball in for Spaces, and squeeze the sides for Expose).

Can Magic Mouse invoke Spaces and Expose???
 
Im sure that 3rd party developers would be able to write programs which will allow the magic mouse to open expose!
 
this was also my 1st thought as a heavy expose user, looks like ill be sticking with my logitech, besides the ergonomics of the magic mouse have me a bit worried too, im yet to use an apple mouse i like
 
Yeah i'm going to wait until people write some software to activate expose and middle click somehow with it. If nobody does, it looks like i'm sticking to my mighty mouse.
 
Icaras said:
Firmware anyone?
Click to expand...
It's not a matter of "oops, we totally forgot about those gestures, let's patch them in!" It's more like they actively decided to take them out. So I don't think we'll see the feature from anyone besides hackers.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

ventro said:
Icaras said:
Firmware anyone?
Click to expand...
It's not a matter of "oops, we totally forgot about those gestures, let's patch them in!" It's more like they actively decided to take them out. So I don't think we'll see the feature from anyone besides hackers.
Click to expand...

But this is not the first time Apple has actively removed a feature or limited functionality, only to later add it back in with a simple firmware update.

Do you recall the maddness with the new MBPs when Apple purposely capped the SATA to 1.5GB SATA and then later brought it back to 3GB when a flurry of angry customers stormed forums all over the Internet?

And I know this is dodging what you just said, but the last line of classic non-unibody MBPs were later upgraded, via firmware to allow for multi-touch gestures. So my point is, what's to stop Apple from doing the same thing in the future? Additionally, I think it also ends up looking good for Apple, and it usually does, provided they don't offer a stupid $10 or something fee, because it can be seen as injecting new life and new functionality to an existing product. If its something limited to the internal technology of the mouse, then of course there would be no way to do it, but I highly doubt Apple is limited with what this mouse can potentially do in terms of multi-touch technology.
 
yeah, corners are the way to go. also, i'm wondering if there'll be a middle click... like, open a link in a new tab. it'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
 
I was really anticipating this mouse because I figured it would improve on the activation of spaces and expose, both of which I use regularly during video and audio editing.

As you may have guessed, I am bummed. Not only did they fail to improve the method, they removed the ability!

Hopefully a three finger swipe up or down will come in an update. I might even write the script myself at this point! (And no, hot corners doesn't cut it for me. I use it now, but if I could use spaces as easily on a desktop the same way it's invoked on the new laptops, that would be ill.)
 
I have to ask, how in the world do people know these things already? I've yet to see a confirmed report of how any of the new products work that were announced today.

So much assumption and matter of fact statements.
 
jessica. said:
I have to ask, how in the world do people know these things already? I've yet to see a confirmed report of how any of the new products work that were announced today.

So much assumption and matter of fact statements.
Click to expand...

If you watch the Magic Mouse info video on Apple's site and read through reviews on Engadget or Gizmodo, the Magic Mouse shows and limits to only 2 finger gestures (Right Click, Swipe, Scroll).

Also, as someone mentioned, it's not like Apple didn't invent the 3 and 4 finger gestures last week; they've been out for a year. If they wanted to include it, wouldn't you think they would on launch of their new- multi-touch-ground-breaking mouse??!

It's hard to do 3-4 finger gestures on that small mouse, and even do regular gestures 2 finger style.

Hot corners is the only solution (I use it on my old MBP) BUT it is an annoyance sometimes. I'd much rather be able to do a simple gesture.
 
Craigger said:
do non of you guys use hot corners?
Click to expand...

+1

I won't miss expose or spaces from my MightyMouse.

Hot corners are the way to go anyway, IMO, so you can contiguously drag an object from one window to another through spaces/expose.

I do, however, use the middle button (on the scroll ball) for Dashboard - but, it's no big deal. Having the momentum scrolling (and no physical ball) will be well worth it.
 
gr8tfly said:
+1

I won't miss expose or spaces from my MightyMouse.
Click to expand...

Lucky you... for me getting Spaces with a click is something very important as I use it a LOT.
I don't use Exposé that much, therefore I stick to keyboard or corners for it, but Spaces is very important to me.

gr8tfly said:
Hot corners are the way to go anyway, IMO, so you can contiguously drag an object from one window to another through spaces/expose.
Click to expand...

It would be interesting tracking the overall distance you do every day just to reach a corner (and of course the time it takes to do that).
For some people, the numbers would be amazing...

gr8tfly said:
I do, however, use the middle button (on the scroll ball) for Dashboard - but, it's no big deal. Having the momentum scrolling (and no physical ball) will be well worth it.
Click to expand...

So in the end, you use the button in the middle... but you're willing to adapt your behaviour to Apple's lack of usability (and if this feature of a middle button is not provided, it's a big big usability mistake and Apple knows it).
If you fall for the multi-touch thingy... glad you like it. I do like it too, but I'm not exchanging a multi-touch for a middle button and its scroll ball which does the same thing.
Even though Mighty Mouse is said to be crappy for its usability and ergonomics, I think that it is quite useful, but this new Magic Mouse... is a step back if they don't provide some features that they should provide with the top-selling marketing idea of multi-touch...

I hope... I do really hope... 10.6.2 includes at least the middle button, and it would also be interesting to include the zoom as I can do that gesture on the surface of my Mighty Mouse without much trouble (and its surface is not as flat as Magic Mouse's).
In a few days we'll see if the 69 dollars (or euros... this is funny... when euro is stronger than dollar... the exchange rate for Apple is 1:1, but when it was the opposite... it was different...) are worth it or not
 
FSMBP said:
If you watch the Magic Mouse info video on Apple's site and read through reviews on Engadget or Gizmodo, the Magic Mouse shows and limits to only 2 finger gestures (Right Click, Swipe, Scroll).

Also, as someone mentioned, it's not like Apple didn't invent the 3 and 4 finger gestures last week; they've been out for a year. If they wanted to include it, wouldn't you think they would on launch of their new- multi-touch-ground-breaking mouse??!

It's hard to do 3-4 finger gestures on that small mouse, and even do regular gestures 2 finger style.

Hot corners is the only solution (I use it on my old MBP) BUT it is an annoyance sometimes. I'd much rather be able to do a simple gesture.
Click to expand...
I wonder if my newly purchased steermouse will help this.
 
Everyone who's owned a Mighty Mouse for long enough will know the gripe about cracking the case open and using Elmer's to temporarily glue it shut -- all because it becomes routine to clean the #$%^&* ball.

I use Exposé a lot and I figured wtf -- I would still rather have good scrolling functionality than exposé.... because lately I've been hitting the keys on my keyboard for Exposé anyways, rather than the mouse ball button (don't get me started with the Mighty Mouse's SIDE buttons... )

So Apple decided to remove one LESS function (if you take into account the Mighty Mouse's irritating SIDE buttons which the user would almost always have disabled when the mouse gets older (and the buttons click more inadvertently when you try picking up the darned thing on your mousepad while trying to get more area) Yes ... one button -- the scroll ball button. I think Apple thought exactly this:

"Well, everyone hates cleaning the scroll ball, and everyone hates the side buttons that always click inadvertently... scroll ball button is OK, but let's face it guys -- 2 out of 3 things are duds... if we do this, we get rid of a middle-click but at least we improve the scrolling altogether"

And who knows? they just MIGHT allow you to use that ONE most-often used exposé command afterall -- in the two-finger swipe.

So damn it. I'm getting the bloody thing. Exposé or no... I'm definitely getting it if only to avoid the frustrations of a gummed up scroll ball.

***mumbles off curses about being a sucker for the inital hype that the scroll ball would NEVER get dirty like the old mice balls of late***
 
I was envisioning the magic mouse to be more of a wireless MBP trackpad type device. I was hoping to actually use all the gestures I can use on the trackpad while it's stationary, and also be able to use it like a normal mouse.

I've heard rumors that the upcoming tablet might also be used as an input device for mac computers. If that's the case, maybe Apple took the Expose/Dashboard/Spaces functionality out of the mouse to give people even more of a reason to buy the tablet.
 
They didn't take anything out to get people to buy something else. It simply would not be practical to do 3 or 4 finger gestures on that small of a surface. Three would maybe be possible, I tried it on my mighty mouse. I am not sure of the dimensions of the new mouse though. Even so I think it would be more of a chore than actually useful.

There is always a conspiracy theory though.
 
Possible additional functionality:

Double tap the tips of 3 fingers on the mouse to toggle Expose.
or
Swipe two (or 3?) fingers down the length of the mouse to toggle into Expose.

and to middle click, place 3 fingers on the tip of the mouse and click.

I can do all of the above on my mighty mouse without discomfort and with room to spare. Even though the magic mouse is slightly narrower, it could all still be possible on it.
 
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