Re: Why mouse-1/2/3 ?

[chad <yandros@gmail.com>]

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If we're going to talk about common terminology, then it seems wrong to
ignore the fact that the majority of UI guidance talks about "click" and
"alt-click" far more than they talk about numbered mouse buttons. This has
been true since macs went to 1 button, since laptops with 3 buttons became
very hard to find, since mice with 5-12+ (yes, really) buttons because
available in every mainstream computer store, and since laptops with 2
buttons became virtually impossible to find -- to name just a few major
inflection points. At this point, the most common interface device has 0.5
buttons -- the "tap/click/etc" action of trackpads. Mice (and their related
desktop bretheren) have bifurcated between 2 buttons plus a
sometimes-clickable scroll wheel (ubiquitous in lower-cost setups) and
devices with many physical "buttons" (typically, 2 "main" buttons, a
clickable wheel, and at least 2 other buttons). If this doesn't match your
intuition, I invite you to do an internet search for "computer mouse" and
then for "gaming mouse".

This change to "click" is not an accident: naming the concept after the
action rather than the tool has been recommended practice from UI/CHI
researchers since at least the early 90's. UIs generally can't count on 3+
buttons, and most users don't internalize that many simultaneous modes
anyway, so "click" and "alt-click" are defacto standards. Even now, the
"alt click" is losing its hold, since touch-based interfaces are the
baseline for many users' experince, and alt-tap is cumbersome for most of
those.

To put this in more concrete terms: the last 3 devices I've used as my
daily driver, covering 15+ years and a solid 5-digit hours of computer use
have been incapable of directly producing a "middle mouse click", even with
modifier-chording tricks that belie the term "emacs pinky". The same is
true of nearly all of my peers and coworkers over that period, including
programmers, prose writers, and "creatives".

~Chad

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