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The button label issue is tricky, now that you can have
two or three button 'meeces' as well as little guys with
trackballs.
Just off the top of my head, maybe 'primary' and 'secondary'?
Or 'activate' and 'option'? Regardless, if your customers have
the option of reconfiguring button function, you cannot reliably
predict which button will do what since the user may have
altered the default functionality of the mouse buttons.
If your software is Windows-based, I would use the L and R
solutions, telling your users that button instructions assume
that they have not reversed Windows' default configuration and
warning them that if they *have* flopped the default,
they must interpret all button instructions appropriately.
Anne Halsey
senior tech writer, StorageTek
anne_halsey -at- stortek -dot- com