Moving to the dark side
In general, I disapprove greatly of system add-ons. On the one hand, they make it easier for a user to configure the computer the way he or she likes. On the other, however, they tend to break on system upgrades, sometimes in ways that are difficult, or at least confusing, to trouble-shoot.
But, the non-configurability of my Mighty Mouse was getting more and more annoying. I want my Back and Forward buttons for web browsing, dammit. And, as I was working on my map in Canvas, I was getting more and more frustrated by the seemingly random appearance of contextual menus, suggesting that my primary click was being interpreted as a right-click. I don't know whether this was a cause or an effect of the hand pain I was suffering from. But the lack of tactile feedback that would distinguish the two primary mouse buttons makes it an easy enough mistake to make. What's worse, one of the options on Canvas' contextual menu, at least in the mode I'm working in, was to reset the size of the area affected by the paint tools. So, instead of erasing one pixel at a time, as I intended, I would suddenly be erasing 49 pixels at a time.
So, I broke down and installed USB Overdrive, a neat little Preference Panel that provides greater control over mouse configuration. Even though there's a chance that it will break with OS upgrades (apparently, it broke with the upgrade from 10.4.4 to 10.4.5), the maintainer is quite responsive and the fixes are rapid. It's shareware/nagware; all features are available at all times, but if you pay the $20 fee you don't have to wait 10 seconds or so after you open it. This means that you can try it out before paying for it.
My primary goal was to get the Mighty Mouse side buttons to map to Back and Forward in my browsers. But I was delighted to find an additional option for application-specific button mappings. So, I disabled right-click specifically for Canvas. And I'm finding it a lot easier (though no less tedious) to edit my maps.
So now all I need to do is to pay for USB Overdrive.
But, the non-configurability of my Mighty Mouse was getting more and more annoying. I want my Back and Forward buttons for web browsing, dammit. And, as I was working on my map in Canvas, I was getting more and more frustrated by the seemingly random appearance of contextual menus, suggesting that my primary click was being interpreted as a right-click. I don't know whether this was a cause or an effect of the hand pain I was suffering from. But the lack of tactile feedback that would distinguish the two primary mouse buttons makes it an easy enough mistake to make. What's worse, one of the options on Canvas' contextual menu, at least in the mode I'm working in, was to reset the size of the area affected by the paint tools. So, instead of erasing one pixel at a time, as I intended, I would suddenly be erasing 49 pixels at a time.
So, I broke down and installed USB Overdrive, a neat little Preference Panel that provides greater control over mouse configuration. Even though there's a chance that it will break with OS upgrades (apparently, it broke with the upgrade from 10.4.4 to 10.4.5), the maintainer is quite responsive and the fixes are rapid. It's shareware/nagware; all features are available at all times, but if you pay the $20 fee you don't have to wait 10 seconds or so after you open it. This means that you can try it out before paying for it.
My primary goal was to get the Mighty Mouse side buttons to map to Back and Forward in my browsers. But I was delighted to find an additional option for application-specific button mappings. So, I disabled right-click specifically for Canvas. And I'm finding it a lot easier (though no less tedious) to edit my maps.
So now all I need to do is to pay for USB Overdrive.
posted by Aliceq @ 2:57 PM
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