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Subject:Re: Mickey's shorts From:Faith Weber <weber -at- EASI -dot- ENET -dot- DEC -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 10 May 1994 10:18:48 PDT
Mark,
Our standard is MB1 (left button), MB2 (middle button), and MB3 (right
button). I think this is a DEC convention.
But to be honest, we don't use it much in the text. In most cases,
"click this" or "double-click that" is all that's required for our
users to understand the instructions. The terms are only needed when
we're asking them to use the middle or right mouse buttons, which
in our case isn't very often.
I'm wondering myself whether I should just use left, middle, and
right. New users will do what you say and it will work, because
they're using the default configuration for their mice. Most
people who have reconfigured their mouse buttons know
enough to know that left means right for them. The Windows
documentation appears to follow that line of reasoning.
Like you, I haven't figured out a concise way to say "the right
button, unless you've reconfigured your mouse, in which case it's
the left button"! I think there are times when you just have to
assume the user is reasonably intelligent.
Faith Weber
EA Systems Inc.
weber -at- easi -dot- enet -dot- dec -dot- com
