I used to be among the haters of one-button mice. Then the Mac came. I decided to live with one button for a while and see how it worked out, see what all the religion was about. Surprised myself how easy it was to make the transition – I never miss the right button anymore (took a couple months to stop missing it). Then the baby came. Babies change the mouse game, not because the kid wants to use the box, but because he gets thrust into my hands almost as soon as I get home — Amy needs a break. That, in turn, means I get a whole lot less machine time in the evening than I used to, and the time I do have is mostly surf time, not typing time. Surfing one-handed with a one-button mouse, holding the baby in the other arm, am disabled – not able to open links in a new window, not able to reveal the desktop with a quick keystroke, etc. May have to go two-button again after all. Apple — consider the children!
I recently gave up my Apple Pro mouse in favour of a Microsoft optical scroll mouse. I can get by with a one-button mouse, and yes, I adjusted to it fine. However, the two-button is unquestionably more productive. Not only is opening things in a new window (which I do constantly) easier, but it makes programs with complex context menus like Reaktor or Flash MUCH more efficient. Yes, you can get the same things from the menu, but once you switch back to a two-button mouse you notice how much time you wasted mousing all over the screen to do things. If my mouse is on an object and I want to do something to that object, I should interact with that object, not merely say hi to the object then skitter off to interact with some menus.
“Say hi to the object” — love that image ;)
So would you go as far as to recommend the MS optical scroller?
I gave up on the Apple Pro mouse rather quickly. I found a Logitech mouse that is absolutely perfect for my hand. Two buttons plus clickable scroll wheel, optical, and wireless. It is by far the best mouse I’ve ever used, and works with Mac OS X without drivers (though if you install the Logitech software, you get extra features).
I wrote more about it on my blog. I would never go back to a single-button mouse.
Thanks for the tip/recommendation. A friend also recently went Logitech and is very happy with it. I’m struggling with this one – I actually do really like the Apple Pro mouse quite a bit – feels better in the hand than any mouse I’ve used, but of course I do miss the functionality of the scroll wheel (and now the one-handed penalty thang). It is amazing that Apple doesn’t even give the option though.
I would recommend the MS optical scroll mouse, yes. I tried the Logitech, and it did work as Michael Alderete says, quite well in OSX, but did not in OS9. (It operated as a normal mouse in OS9, but the right button and scroll wheel did not work.) The Microsoft mouse works well in both operating systems. I can’t imagine this being a concern unless you have a need to boot OS9 regularly, though. I like the -feel- of the Logitech better, and it was less expensive.
Dragging-and-dropping the links to the tab bar works fine for me in Mozilla Firefox. I don’t know which browser you’re using but I’m sure something similar is available. I love the one-button mouse.