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Graphics Businesses Software Apple

Apple Requires Three-Button Mouse for Shake 2.5 116

Posted by pudge from the but-i-only-have-a-five-button-mouse dept.
SpillerC writes "The requirements for the newest version of Shake (cross-platform: Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, Irix) will require a three-button mouse on the Mac. Are there any other Apple-produced applications (Apple owns Shake) that require a three-button mouse? Will Apple release its own three-button mouse now?"
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Apple Requires Three-Button Mouse for Shake 2.5

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  • One specialized application that Apple sells requires a 3 button mouse, and you think this is going to cause them to ship 3 button mice standard?

    Does Dell ship cad/cam tablets standard because AutoCad suggests using them?

    What kind of nonsense news is this anyway? Can't the Slashdot editors tell a troll when they see one?
    • The poster didn't suggest "standard". He (or she; I admit not knowing) suggested it might be done "at all".

      Does Dell ship cad/cam tablets standard because AutoCad suggests using them?

      No, but they might sell cad/cam tablets if they had the idea that more people might want them, which is what the poster was probably suggesting.

      I, personally, would be very interested to see what the Apple Design Group would do for a 3-button mouse, but I'm so hooked on my lasermouse-with-mousewheel (that acts like a 3rd mouse button, in a pinch) that even snazzy design and the "Jobs Reality Field" probably couldn't pull me away from it. I'd rather see the ADG work on more important tasks.
    • Does Dell own AutoCAD? No, it's just something they offer in a particular bundle on particular workstations.

      Does AutoCAD require a cad/cam tablet? No, and in my opinion they aren't particularly useful, especially considering AutoCAD's powerful and flexible command line system.

      In contrast, Apple does own Shake, and Shake does require a 3-button mouse.

      Personally, Apple would only have to add one button to the iBook to get me to buy one...

      • The second and third mouse button are largly overrated. Look, up until last december I was a fervent x86 user and never had any mouse with less than 2 buttons. I laughed at Mac because I found it very limited.
        Last december however I bought an iBook (impulse buy...mainly due to OS X), and after about one week you are completely used to it. Your second hand just rests near the "Option" key. I've become that used to it that now when I'm on a PC, I tend to push "Control"-click accidentally. Needless to say that doesn't work ;-) Honestly, don't diss the iBook just because it only has one button. Oh, and the touchpad is the best I ever used. On PC laptops I never found any touchpad that was as accurate and responsive... never... *sigh* Actually with PC's I give up the touchpad after 2 hours and connect a mouse because I'm sick of it.

        One thing that is great about the Mac is the pr0n surfing with Internet Explorer. Press Alt-Mousclick on a thumbnail and the link will be saved using the download manager. This is the only reason I still use IE for Mac, because mozilla does not have this function.

        I probably sound like a "Apple convert", but really the second mouse button is not needed. And on intel machines I never use the third mousebutton unless running Linux where it's copy paste.

    • Funny how an off handed, benignly curious statement can cause such a stir.

      In any case, I'm one of those who've wondered where the right mouse click is on my mac(I work on a PC). It provides more robost/immediate io management for me. So 3 is even better. Bring it on.

      Otherwise, why not take the mouse click away entirely and instead, when you are over something interesting you hit some 'other' key? Thanks, no.

      • In any case, I'm one of those who've wondered where the right mouse click is on my mac(I work on a PC).

        On a one button mouse Mac, you press the Control key when you click the mouse button, and this gives you the right click.

        In Mac OS 9, there is a wonderful free control panel called FinderPop that gave you a right click just by clicking and holding the mouse button.

        It also added a bunch of contextual menu features. That's the nice thing about Mac OS, you can add menu items to the contextual menus.

        Back when I ran BeOS on my Mac clone I got tired of clicking on modifier keys for the other two buttons so I bought a three button mouse.

        Now I use that Mac as a dual boot into OS 9 for my son, and LinuxPPC for me. The mouse comes in handy, but my son prefers to use the one button optical mouse from my G4, since I use an MS Intellimouse Optical.

        People need to realize you can plug any USB mouse into a Mac, doesn't matter how many buttons it has. If the company doesn't make drivers for OS X, you can use USB Overdrive to program the extra buttons.

    • One specialized application that Apple sells requires a 3 button mouse, and you think this is going to cause them to ship 3 button mice standard?

      Maya also requires a three button mouse.

      And programs like Photoshop are a lot easier to use with a two button mouse.

      I think Apple might come out with an optional multibutton mouse... but then again there are a few compnaies making USB mice that work in OS X...

  • Temporary (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Aram Fingal ( 576822 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @11:18AM (#3951357)
    My understanding of Apple's position on multi-button mice is that they unnecessarily complicate the user interface. They give the user one more place to have to look to figure out how to do something. OS X supports multi button mice if you want an alternate way of doing things but Apple ships one button mice to keep programmers from writing stuff that depends on the additional buttons.

    Shake is something which Apple acquired from another company. I suspect it will only require a three button mouse until Apple has a chance to rewrite it.

    Having said that, one other Apple product which used a three button mouse was, the now long gone, A/UX (Apple UNIX).

    • Nice theory, but... (Score:3, Informative)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      Shipping one-button mice is not much of a safeguard -- half the Mac people I know use aftermarket mice. The real safeguard is the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines [apple.com]. Alas, Apple itself no longer seems interested in enforcing these guidelines, even for their own products. I've never used OS X, but I've heard complaints that it violates the MHIG right and left.

      • Re:Nice theory, but... (Score:5, Informative)

        by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @12:19PM (#3951846) Homepage

        This is because OS X apps are not supposed to conform to the MHIG. There is a new set of Human Interface guildines called the Aqua HIG.

        These aren't guildines that are "Enforced" -- you can make your app look and work like windows if you want. But Apple certainly does encourage it.

        The interface builder has the guildlines built in and will tell you where to place your controls in relation to each other, comes with a default menu layout and the default hotkeys set up. etc.

        As to 3 button mice, Apple is correct in not shipping them out of the box. It breaks the paradigm and actually slows people down. I use a three button mouse, though, I got it because its a trackball, the scroll wheel and other button are useful, and I like them.

        But for most users, a one button mouse is the correct choice to ship. Billions in productivity have been wasted by microsoft choosing to ship the 2 button mouse (not to mention the billions lost wasting time reinstalling your os, etc. on windows.)
        • "Billions in productivity have been wasted by microsoft choosing to ship the 2 button mouse (not to mention the billions lost wasting time reinstalling your os, etc. on windows.)"

          Holy shit! I've got five (5) buttons on my mouse, that must translate into trillions, no, quadrillions, no -- THE UNIVERSE IS ABOUT TO IMPLODE!

          Sorry dude, just joking around.
          • Holy shit! I've got five (5) buttons on my mouse, that must translate into trillions, no, quadrillions, no -- THE UNIVERSE IS ABOUT TO IMPLODE!
            I'm supprised there's no really bad Carl Sagan joke yet...
        • If you ask me, the second-button context menus omnipresent in post-3.x Windows releases are really handy; the saved cursor travel time and convenience really add up. AFAIK, virtually all Mac apps that implement context menus (usually because of a port from Windows) make you hold down the button longer than a normal click length to invoke the menu. Does the amount of time spent by new users on differentiating the buttons really outweigh these?
          What is the paradigm being broken? I had always thought that the cursor was a hand metaphor; and a hand is more of a multi-purpose tool than a single button mouse would seem to allow for.

          Not that anyone one asked me. =)
          • AFAIK, virtually all Mac apps that implement context menus (usually because of a port from Windows) make you hold down the button longer than a normal click length to invoke the menu. Does the amount of time spent by new users on differentiating the buttons really outweigh these?

            Only web browsers do that click and hold thing. Everything else makes you press the Control key when you click. BTW Mac OS has contextual menus, and it's not a port from Windows! ;-) Applications like Photoshop and Illustrator also have them, and they are also not ports of Windows apps, but alas, Quark does not.

            I agree that a two button mouse is faster on a Mac.

            But I know a LOT of Windows users that have no clue what the right button does, even though they use a PC everyday.

            But the paradigm on Mac OS is the modifier key. Holding either Option (alt), Command or Control, or a combination of them changes what a mouse click or drag does. Option drag copies a file, while Command-Option drag makes an alias (shortcut). Different programs, like Photoshop, use modifier-click for different functions too.

    • Re:Temporary (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Orblivion ( 548121 )
      Where I work, we recently purchased a new Mac so we'd have something we could separately test OS X with reasonable performance. I tried plugged a usb wheel mouse in and it worked. Now having that extra button was great because it actually pulled a menu like I've grown accustomed to on other OS's and desktop environments. Having rarely used a Mac, it wasn't common sense to hold down the Control key and click (2 steps). Seems easier to right click (1 step).

      • Re:Temporary (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Aram Fingal ( 576822 )
        ... and it was also not common sense to do it the more traditional Mac way and use the top menu which changes as you move around select things to include the stuff which you might otherwise get by right-clicking, etc.

        Nothing that I can think of on the Mac actually requires control-clicking except for situations where you are emulating some other machine. A basic part of the HIG, which others have referred to, is that you can find every function of a program in the top pulldown menu. That way, everything is in one place and you don't have to search.

        I take your point that it may be easier for occasional users coming from another OS who regularly use a mouse with more than one button. You want to be able to do things without having to think.
        • ... and it was also not common sense to do it the more traditional Mac way and use the top menu which changes as you move around select things to include the stuff which you might otherwise get by right-clicking, etc.

          Or the keyboard shortcuts, since that what the Mac users around me prefer. Just being used to a multi -button mouse and the features associated with it, it was nice under OS X to have it work.

          You want to be able to do things without having to think.

          I think (no pun intended) it's not about being able to think about how to do stuff, it's more about usability, and being able to use it efficiently....or I'm probably just lazy :-)

          • i have a logitech optical mouse (my G4 came with the old hockey puck mouse). i have been noticing that OS X and Apple software has stuff that is totally written for the right side button, like the included Mail.app. i been using OS X since the first day it shipped and i have not bothered to download the new drivers for the mouse. so far everything i need is in the OS. it's pretty cool. i do not have the full functionality of all 4 buttons... but the 2 buttons and the scroll wheel work fine and that's what i really wanted.
            as a long time Apple user i am still not used to taking advantage of it, so i still try to old keyboard shortcuts or "click and hold". i think as i remember to use the buttons i will dig them. i never use windows, so i don't even think of there being more than one button. i bet a lot of dedicated mac people are the same way. give them a multi-button mouse, show them it does something and they will learn.
            i can support the simplicity of 1 button for newbies. maybe they'll start shipping the Pro models with multibuttons, but it hink the iMac an eMac will stay single button for a while. updating the laptops will be a whole new issue. much bigger than just swapping a device. if not the next G4 revision, i would think the next BIG change to the Pro tower (G5 or whatever) would be the logical time to ship a 2+ button device.
  • Who here is suggesting that Apple might go to a 3-button STANDARD? Sure, some folks are grasping at crumbs 'cause they want it bad. Others are better at reading what they want to see than the actual words on the page.

    A well-done Apple 3-button mouse standard could be good in many situations and extremely good in a few. Don't hold your breath.

  • Who cares, really? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by webToy ( 37548 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @11:24AM (#3951401)
    I use Apple's ONE button mouse and works just fine. Control-click is not that hard, and if I wanted a two or three button mouse I would probably just buy one from Kensington...
    Is it really that big of a deal that Apple doesn't produce one of their own?
    • It's more of a big deal on the laptops. I'm still salivating over a tibook, but the fact it only has one button for the pointer device is sooo frustrating. Sure I could get an external mouse, but that defeats half the purpose of the laptop IMHO. Desktops aren't a big deal, as the mice that come with most of them (PC and Mac) usually suck enough that I want to get my own anyways.

      • Re:Who cares, really? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by great om ( 18682 )
        I've just got a Tibook. Held off from getting one for a while beacuse of fears about the uni-button mouse. Its not that hard to adapt to it, especially since (most of) the places I'd want to press a 2nd mouse button --if there was one-- allow me to emulate control+click by simply holding the mouse button down for 2 or 3 sec. With Games, I'll admit that I use a logictech USB 3 button mouse. But I'd probably use a mouse anyway --ever try to aim with a trackpad?

        I would, however,like Apple to allow the trackpad tap to emulate a second mouse button

        -

        • Re:Who cares, really? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by snafu ( 18104 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @01:10PM (#3952198)
          (preface: I'm a Windows *, Linux, Solaris, and OS X user.)

          I have come to realize that on a laptop (like my iBook) with a touch-pad or a pointy-stick, one button is much easier to use than two buttons. Using the pointer devices on laptops requires you to contort your hand to use the other button (to right drag or get a menu, usually what I'm doing with it).

          However, with OS X and one button, I simply use 'ctrl' with my left. Both hands stay in a natural position and (IMO) this is much faster than right clicking in windows (on one of my pc laptops).

          When using a mouse, however, I like the convenience of having two buttons and a scroll wheel, so that's what I plug in (right clicking yields a context-menu, even in "classic" which I don't use).

      • I just don't get this. My TiBook has - for all practical purposes - a touchpad with 78 buttons. Your hands are there anyways, just use the command and option keys just above and to the left of the pad.

        That said, I vastly prefer my tiny two-button and scrollwheel Macally USB optical micro-mouse. Its small enough to use the space to the right of the touchpad as a mousing surface.

      • Re:Who cares, really? (Score:4, Informative)

        by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @12:28PM (#3951904) Homepage


        This is the silliest reason not to buy a TiBook I've ever heard.

        You should buy it. you'll quickly discover that you don't need the extra buttons and the machine works fine without them.

        The idea that you need more than one button is a false one, it simply isn't true, and you only think you do because you've been using poorly designed operating systems that make you use absurdly complicated controls (like three button mice when only one is *necessary*.)

        Something tells me that TiBook would have to be an X86 running at 1/4 speed under battery too, and THEN you'd really buy it.
        • It's not the reason I'm not buying one (money is the reason). I admit that I'd probably get used to it, or figure out some way to do it (like the person who said there was a 78 button mouse implied). If I had the cash and wanted it bad enough, I'd deal with it. I'd just rather not have to relearn things if I don't have to (I'm lazy that way). My response to one mouse button is simply a gut reaction and the troll in me wanting to get out.

          Responding to your other points:
          I don't think it's a question of _needing_ a mouse with more than one button, it's a question of what your used to and what makes sense to you. Personally, on Windows (rarely used), I use an MS Explorer mouse with 5 buttons. I _really_ like the forward and back buttons for browsing on the mouse. That doesn't work in Linux however (not by default anyways, someday I'll figure it out if I get bored). I don't think this is absurdly complicated and it is quite nice actully because it minimizes the amount of extra movement you have to do.

          Personally I don't like using two different input devices. It's not as much of an issue on a laptop because they are so close together you don't need to move your hands. With a desktop though, it would be nice not to have to move my right hand back and forth between the keyboard and mouse. Yes, I'm sure there is hardware I can buy to avoid the issue, but I don't wanna. It seems to me that if I had to make as big of a context switch as moving my hand from keyboard to mouse, then the mouse should do a little more than point and click. And if that's all that's required by the OS, then it seems that the OS should be designed to be more efficient by only using one main input device that doesn't require your hands to move anywhere (yay keybindings!). Laptops with a trackpad right under the keyboard or the ones with the little nipple in the keyboard allieviate this quite a bit and I like that, I just wish they were as easy to use as a mouse (not quite there yet for me, but I probably just need more practice).

          I just wish there was an option for more buttons on a ibook, more options are always nice (but having options in hardware isn't really what running a Mac is really all about is it?)
          (Sorry, that was too easy and too much fun).

          I'm not quite sure what your dig about being and X86 running at 1/4 speed under battery really has to do with anything. I could care less what's under the hood and I certainly don't want to lose speed for any reason. I can run the software I need to run on whatever OS/platform I can get (well almost any platform).



          • My point was that x86s don't run at full speed and most people ignore that fact when comparing them to powerbooks-- its yet another reason that the powerbooks are much much MUCH faster computers and better deals since the prices are the same.

            You want to us a 5 button mouse iwht your powerbook? Feel free-- you can use the one you already have if its USB.

            On the road, however, you can't carry a mouse on any laptop, and so you're going to change your formfactor... and the tibook pad works very well. (Better than the pds on some pc laptops I've tried)

            I just think its a silly thing to say you're not buying one because of the mouse button. If its price then you're not buying a laptop at all because of price, cause the Macs are the same price as PCs.

            Oh, and you can get used powerbooks, even used tibooks, for less than a grand. They hold their value well.
            • "Oh, and you can get used powerbooks, even used tibooks, for less than a grand. They hold their value well."

              Your statement implies that they do not hold their value well. 1/3 the cost after only a year or so? I think not. Even more so now that 10.2 is coming soon.

              • I didn't say $3,000 powerbooks could be had for less than a grand.

                Remember, some TiBooks cost $2,000 or so.

                And they've been out for a year and a half.

                iBooks even longer.

                Sheesh.
                • When [apple.com] were they ever 2 grand or so? I recall 550's going for 2200, but i am prolly wrong. and that was when the 800's were imminent. iBooks were not mentioned before were they?

                  My only real problem with Apple (yes, I am currently drooling over 700MHz 12" iBook), is that they upgrade the OS to force people to buy more of their hardware. It is not a easy thing to upgrade a CPU in a Mac and get much more than 10 or 20% gain in performance. And, you have to pay several hundreds of dollars to do it. To upgrade my AMD, it costs $200 tops, and I can get 25% out of it.

                  • Re:Who cares, really? (Score:4, Informative)

                    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @06:06PM (#3954510)
                    My only real problem with Apple (yes, I am currently drooling over 700MHz 12" iBook), is that they upgrade the OS to force people to buy more of their hardware. It is not a easy thing to upgrade a CPU in a Mac and get much more than 10 or 20% gain in performance.

                    But that's changing the subject, isn't it? Pretty much nobody upgrades the CPU in their laptop computer, Mac or PC, so it has nothing to do with it.

                    I could get into the "desktop Macs are too hard to upgrade" debate with you, but it's way off the topic of the thread.

                    Getting back on topic, you simply will not get more ! for your $ in a laptop than buying a Mac. Their CPU's run cooler (and on less power) than either AMD or Intel chips, which allows them to run full-speed and fanless for hours on a single battery. They've got pretty much every feature you need already built in (modem, Ethernet, external video, USB, firewire) and an antenna for adding 802.11b wireless networking for a mere C-note. They are built rugged, have nice screens, and are reasonably priced.

                    Apple may never be able to compete on raw cost-for-hardware in the destop arena, where a home-built PC remains the ideal choice for penny pinchers (unless a Mac OS machine is worth the slight premium to you)... But their laptops take a back seat to nobody.

                    • Their CPU's run cooler (and on less power) than either AMD or Intel chips, which allows them to run full-speed and fanless for hours on a single battery.

                      The CPU certainly runs much cooler, I haven't been able to locate it on my iBook. However there is one component that runs pretty hot and that's the harddisk. Okay, it doesn't get much hot in the sense "it burns!", but a nice "hmmm, warm".
                      While it is true that the Apple laptops are very very energy efficient, it is mainly due to the fact that the energy management is very good, not because of the CPU. I run Seti@Home on my iBook all the time, and you'd better turn it off while on battery power because I'm pretty sure it won't last 2 hours. (I should time it, I think) Turn Seti@Home off however and it can be used for ages.
                      Of course, I don't want to know how long a Intel/AMD laptop lives on battery power running Seti@Home. :-)

          • Personally, on Windows (rarely used), I use an MS Explorer mouse with 5 buttons. I _really_ like the forward and back buttons for browsing on the mouse. That doesn't work in Linux however (not by default anyways, someday I'll figure it out if I get bored).

            That's the same mouse I use in Mac OS X. On my PowerComputing Mac clone I use a three button ADB Mouse Works mouse for Linux.

            OS X naturally uses the right button, and I use USB Overdrive to control the rest of the buttons. The MS software is an OEM version of USB Overdrive, but has fewer features. The cool thing is assigning different button functions for different applications. So I use the forward and back buttons in Mozilla, and then use them as copy and paste in everything else.

            I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, but Maya on OS X also requires a three button mouse.

        • The idea that you need more than one button is a false one, it simply isn't true, and you only think you do because you've been using poorly designed operating systems that make you use absurdly complicated controls (like three button mice when only one is *necessary*.)

          But with macs. You have to CTRL + click. IMO, that's more complex. So their goes that argument. Macs are just as bad as PC's in that respect.

          Of course. With a lastop, your hands are close to the keyboard anyway. So it's not as bad as a desktop.

          • Re:Who cares, really? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by blukens ( 27693 )
            But with macs. You
            have to CTRL + click.

            I think you, and others, are making a inaccurate assumption here. Unlike Unix or Windows, in a properly designed Mac application there should never be a time where an operation is accessable only through a context-menu. This is, you should never have to ctrl-click (or right-click) on anything.

            One of the core interface elements to the Mac environment is the unified menu bar. In many ways, it behaves like an omnipresent contextual menu. Switch from one app to another, it changes to reflect the new context. Within an application, items will enable/disable as they pertain to the currently selected object.

            For instance, in Windows it is very common to have a window without menu bar - like in an installer perhaps. If that window contains a text input element, and you want to access Copy and Paste commands (ignoring ctrl-key shortcuts) you have to get them from the context-menu. On a Mac, there will always be an Edit menu in the top menu bar, with those commands ready and waiting.

            The fact that Shake requires a 3 button mouse says to me that it is not a properly designed Mac app. That can be okay in some instances. Here, time to market was obviously an issue. And these types of professional apps tend to be an environment unto itself. You'll start the app at the beginning of the day and quit it when you go home, rarely switching between other programs. In such a case, having its own set of rules isn't quite as unforgivable. But I expect Apple to clean it up in time.

            • In that case then. Win2000 is properly designed in terms of the context menu issue. I have never came across a command that could only be acceced via a right click.

              Don't forget. Win has it possable to access anything via the keyboard. So it has to be possable to do things without the right mouse button.

              It may be more inconvenient to not use the right mouse button. But that's the same story with macs, unless all you ever do is want contextual menus for links in IE.

              Rules are made to be broken by the way. And there is no deffinite reason why one mouse button is better than 2. It's just a guide. Anyone who thinks otherwise has no real understaning of actual usablity.

              In cases like Shake. It maybe that designing it to use one mouse button maybe infact decrease usablity as opposed to increase it.

            • Some apps are designed to be intuitive and easy to use. Other are designed to be powerful and efficient for a trained user. Multibutton mouse make apps like shake and maya very efficient to work in. The maya interface, for example, is a nightmare at first. Its is confusing and essentially counter-intuitive. Once you get going with all your mouse buttons, your modifier keys, and the most efficient (and complex) contectual menu system ever created the interface becomes sealmess and godlike in efficiency.

              And it requires three buttons. Because it isn't supposed to be easy to use. A mac out of the box is meant to be very easy to use, hence, one button. The amount of text on slashdot concecerning this issue is shocking, but lets get this out. You don't need three on a mac, but you can have them if you need them, which you might. In one sentance: Macs ship with one button for beginners, but allow more for advanced users. There is no should here, its flexible, like it should be.

              END OF LINE
        • Only one is necessary for the OS but for programs like Shake, Maya, and Softimage|XSI (best use of the three button mouse ever) it really a very elegant solution, and the simplicity of a one button mouse gets in your way, there needs to be more control.
    • Control-click is not that hard.

      you're right. it's not. but if i have to exert any more effort than moving a hand a little bit, i's too much. isnt the macintosh idea to be a computer which a ham snadwich can run? so if i have to use TWO HANDS to do any operation, it's outrageous. right?

      it's like this -- what is easier? click this way or that way; or press some button and click with that at the same time; know what i mean?

      i'm surprised more people dont have a problem with this. really. i mean, maybe i'm off base here. but isnt a mac supposed to all the work, so i dont have to? which means i shouldnt ever have to do a two-handed action. right?
      • To me it is more exertion to always have to NOT press the right mouse button, than to press the CTRL button on the very few occasions that I have to when I am using ill-designed software. CTRL-clicking puts much less strain on my hand. It also allows me to work faster, since I do not have to take extra time every time I click the mouse to make a (conscious or subconscious) decision on which button to press. If the software is not designed for a one-button mouse, then CTRL-clicking is better than to use a mouse with more buttons, because it does not harm my hands. If the software is designed for a one-button mouse, a one-button is the best choice, because it saves time. Apple is not to blame for badly ported Windows games, or M$ bloatware. And in my opinion, they did the best of a bad situation when they added CTRL-clicking functionality to the UI.
        • hm. pretty sound argument. yes, i suppose it does come to a matter of software design. i still argue moving a fFinger is easier than moving a hand or ant entire arm. but you make a good point. if the software is designed entirely to be used in a given way, that way -- no matter how odd it may seem to others -- will always be the best way to use that software.

          moral: use the right tool to do the right job.
      • Well, I'm not surprized that using the Shift key is also too much work for you.
  • If a post-house is going to buy Shake and a new Mac, surely they can afford a $30 multi-button mouse?
    • now this is a good point. perhaps this is really worth dwelling on a moment.

      oh, i should mention, i'm a PC person.

      so when i buy a PC, i almost as a rule buy a new mouse too. because most pre-packed PC mice just dont cut it. i need an optical mouse with several buttons. all there is to it. and standard pre-packed mice usually are not optical, and often wont have more than 2 buttons.

      so. perhaps that's an interesting lesson here: the cost of a nice new mouse should just sort of be tacked on to the price of a whole new machine.

  • Not a Chance (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dman123 ( 115218 )
    Apple went from a one-button mouse to a zero-button mouse. If anything, the next interface device will be some sort of device that depends on telepathy or eye movement.

    But seriously, Apple will design new hardware for a single piece of software that very few use? If anyone can afford a third-party mouse, it's a Shake user.

    Count on Apple simply rewriting the necessary code for version 2.6.

    • dman123 writes:

      > Apple went from a one-button mouse to a
      > zero-button mouse. If anything, the next interface
      > device will be some sort of device that depends on
      > telepathy or eye movement.

      An early model of the Mac telepathic interface was lent to Toho in 1996. You can see it, in operation, in the 1997 movie released in the US as "Rebirth of Mothra 2". The same movie also featured Rainbow and Aqua Mothra, and was released five months before OS X and the rainbow hued iMacs were announced.

      The number of buttons on mice are platform specific:

      The Macintosh is one button,
      Windows is two buttons,
      The X Window GUI, used on many flavors of UNIX, is three buttons.

      How do you get a program requiring three buttons on a one button platform like the Mac? Simple, it was most likely first written for UNIX/X and ported.

      Mac being a minority platform that is ported to alot, has to support multiple buttons, while retaining its native one button preference.

      The reason why this comes up on Slashdot so often: Slashdotters are more likely to want to run X under OS X so they can run ported UNIX apps. X requires 3 buttons, and a new mouse is a lot pricier to many Slashdotters than it would be to a Shake user.

      Though I wonder why someone doesn't just modify their open source X server to simulate the three (seven counting chords) buttons with the same modifiers used by the Mac on its single button. Unless you need to be able to press the middle button in concert with the Control key for some other purpose?

      "What I'm thinking is different from what you are."
      Belabera, "Mothra 3" 1998

      • The reason why this comes up on Slashdot so often: Slashdotters are more likely to want to run X under OS X so they can run ported UNIX apps. X requires 3 buttons...

        Sometimes I get this really odd feeling that His Steveness is developing a three-button (or more) mouse but keeps putting it off every time CmdrTaco complains about it. Sort of like how CT wrote in a FAQ file somewhere that he would delay updating SlashCode every time someone complained about the next version being released later than promised.

        Though I wonder why someone doesn't just modify their open source X server to simulate the three (seven counting chords) buttons with the same modifiers used by the Mac on its single button.

        You would think that the geeks that try to make web servers out of their telephones, PDAs and Olivettis would have no problem with this. I'm not enough of a geek to know why it's not done more often.

      • a new mouse is a lot pricier to many Slashdotters than it would be to a Shake user.

        I can drive for 20 minutes and buy a 4 button optical mouse for $7. $5 if I don't need it to be optical. $6 can get you a three button mouse and a keyboard. All of the above have scroll wheels.

        Mice are cheap! If you buy ten or more, you can even get a bulk discount. Some people can be so cheap.
  • CmdrTaco would be proud!

  • Why don't they (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Evro ( 18923 )
    just bundle a $20 3-button mouse with this $5000 app? Problem solved.

  • that explains the price cut... (Score:5, Funny)

    by anothy ( 83176 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @11:40AM (#3951533) Homepage
    Apple computer today announced that Shake, a recently-aquired software product, will sell for half price on Apple's own computer systems. The savings is approximatly $5,000.
    In a seperate, unrelated announcement, Apple announced it would be releasing a new, multi-button mouse for use with Shake. The new mouse, initially available in a three-button model, will sell for $5,000.
  • More probable is that Apple will require people buying the $5000 package, and possibly a $5000 G4, to also go out and buy a $25 mouse.

    That being said, I'd probably buy an Apple wheel mouse if they made one. Doubt it'd happen, but a guy can hope.

    --Dan

    • Apple doesn't sell a $5,000 G4. The most expensive stock model at the Apple store is $3,000.

      Sure you can add stuff to get a G4 up to $5,000 in cost, but you can do that with any computer.

      I'm tired of hearing people misrepresent the prices of Macs to make them look expensive. These lies to justify your own prejudice are annoying.

      ESPECIALLY in the context of pointing out that Apple is giving its customers a $5,0000 discount.

      Once again (Final Cut Pro, Cinema Tools, iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro) apple releases software that used to cost $50-$5,000 more at a great price, saving their customers %100-%50 of the cost and you guys try to use it to claim that Apple's products are overpriced.

      How desperate are you?
      • you obviously havent been to the Apple Store lately.

        the ultimate model of the G4 sells for $4,099.00. youd know that if you checked your facts every third millenia or so. and btw if your going to be using shake, your probably going to need the ultimate model plus some scsi drives, lets say 2@72gb. thus bringing our total to $6,049.00, before tax. remember, this is quite cheap compared to what SGI or SUN would charge you. hell the SGI Fuel begins at $11,000. and dont even get me started on the cost of an Octane. real machines cost real money.

        now go crawl back into your pc using hole and shut up, you dont know what your talking about.



        • You're an idiot. What I said was that the standard configuration G4 is $3,000. Ok, its $2,999. Quote from the Apple store this morning.
          Yes, you can get a $4,000 BTO machine. You can get at $5,000 BTO machine if you want.

          But the idea that the standard Mac is a $5,000 computer is absurd, and just a continuation of the myth that macs are overpriced.

          They aren't, you PC loving zeolot.
      • Uhh, someone needs to be a little less sensitive.

        If you're spending $5000 on a software package, you're NOT going to get it stock, with 128 megs of ram and a shitty monitor. You're going to need to crank up all the stats and get a kickass display. The display doesn't factor into my five grand, but I've been building a dream system and even mine comes out to about $8000 USD, so you'd better believe a production film studio is going to drop more than I am on their system.

        Stop freaking out dude. I never said macs were overpriced. Hell, I have one in my living room, G4/533, bought it brand new, with a monitor that can do 1900x1440 or some shit like that, and it only came to like three grand total. Oh, and a laser printer too. Maybe it was five grand actually, but that's $CDN, so oh well.

        Let people say macs are overpriced, it just means you wont' have idiots buying them and bitching because they're too stupid to go out and buy their own two-button mouse instead of bitching about how one isn't included.

        --Dan
        • Let people say macs are overpriced, it just means you wont' have idiots buying them and bitching because they're too stupid to go out and buy their own two-button mouse instead of bitching about how one isn't included.

          Well you got me there! :-)

  • It's official (Score:2, Insightful)

    by alernon ( 91859 )
    Rumormongoring about a mouse? Man MWNY must of really dissappointed alot of people if they need to speculate about a new mouse just to make them feel better.

    (Posted with a five button Microsoft Intellimouse on a g3 pismo.

  • Sure you could use your MAC with a single-button mouse and still feel happy 'cause you only run Photonsh0p or something like that. But what if one day you wanna play War Crvft 3 and find you cant either command your troops or make 'em attack , so what's it that you play for?
    • Have you ever tried to play War3 with your keyboard? your hand has to be on the left side of the keyboard anyways (for assigning teams) so why not use the keys they've allocated.
      Once you learn the keyboard shortcuts you'll find its much faster to play the game without the second button (just try building an orc burrow, f/e).
      Your way: point at grunt, click on grunt, point at build command, click on build command, point to burrow structure, click on burrow structure, point to place on map, click on place on map.
      My way: point at grunt, click on grunt, hit B, hit O, point to place on map, click on place on map.
      I'm not even a hardcore gamer, talk to any true gamer and they will tell you you have to combine your UIs before you can get good at any game.
    • Actually, my iBook is my preferred machine for StarCraft. (It unfortunately doesn't meet the specs for War3.) It's so convenient to have your mouse (trackpad) so close to your keyboard. Set rally points. 0sz9sz8sz7sz. A minute later, I have 24 zerglings ready to group. And how to do that? Control click, control-1, burrow. Control click, control-2, burrow. Pop and attack. Where did I need a second mous button? Attack? Nope. Attack-move. Hit the 'A' key and single click on the ground.
    • Duh! Someone has to be the cannon fodder!

      It's so fulfilling when your entire city gets wiped out while you sit and watch - all because you only have one button (or no button).

      Quit whining!

      MWNY - Steve Jobs: Oh my God! Apple's gone from a one-button mouse to a no-button mouse!

      I'm going to assume you're naive and not stupid. It has to change? No, your ability to read manuals has to change. Command-click - duh!

  • article about apple mice (Score:3, Informative)

    by trianglecat ( 318478 ) on Thursday July 25, 2002 @12:52PM (#3952073)
    an article on the subject of apple and mice at
    macobserver [macobserver.com]

  • Apple has shipped multi-button machines (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The original Apple PowerBook Duo line (210,230,270) shipped with two track ball buttons. The two buttons could be mapped to perform different tasks.

    I remember a small extension that allowed one button to be mapped to control-click so that you could use the contextual menus in System 8.x.

    As far as I know all of the other PowerBooks with two buttons were actually wired in parallel so that you could not make them perform different tasks.

    -Jason
  • Maya PLE [aliaswavefront.com] requires a 3-buton mouse. Not made by apple, but not exactly weak sause either.
  • apple's optical "pro mouse" has lousy tracking and the cord is too short. i find it very difficult to work with, but maybe i'm used to moving my mouse too quickly. otherwise, the design is great.
  • God, it's amazing how people fret about their mice. Pretty good example of people letting their computers train them instead of the other way around.

    Macs come standard with a no-button mouse. The mouse is hinged, you press the front of the case. It's amazing how little thought you give that after ten seconds. Go noodle on one in the store, see if you even notice it; I'm used to a two-button trackball, and the Apple Optical mouse feels fine.

    You can buy the mouse of your choosing -- my optical trackball works fine -- and set it up any which way on your Mac. The Control-click thing works just fine. The OS will let you configure key equivalents for right-clicks and so on. In this case, it'd be simple to assign whatever combo-platter of clicks, chords, and keys you wanted to work this program. I've done the same thing for Photoshop, Pagemaker, and all sorts of games.

    There is no correct mouse layout, it's a matter of taste. Apple's deliberately gone a different way, which is kind of cool, okay? Their OS can take anything you throw at it really. What's the big deal? Are you just so completely conditioned by your machine that you can't imagine someone designing it better?

  • ((takes deep breath))

    shake is not for the first time computer user.

    As has been said thousands of times, Apple ships their computers with a single button mouse because it's less confusing. They aren't stopping you from buying another one (although persnally I'd LOVE an Apple-branded two button optical mouse. rock mouse body left / right for different buttons, but that's just me). No new mac user is going to spend a huge chunk of change on a new computer and then throw down $5000 for a program they've never used.

    Think of it this way - would you edit professional level digital video on a computer without a jog wheel? Same idea - it's the right tool for the job.

    Triv
    • Right. It's a specialized tool for folks that use tools that largely work BETTER with a three button mouse. I'm surprised that MAYA for OSX doesn't support a 3-Button mouse. Just the thought of doing 3D animation and modeling with an one-button mouse makes my gums ache.

      Yeah, you can use CTRL or ALT or APPLE buttons, but largely these button combos are already mapped to other functions. Since when is using two hands optimal over just one.

      Plus, Quake on a one-button mouse gargles the fat sack of Satan, lol.

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