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OpenOffice launches mouse with 18 buttons, 52 commands

openofficemouse.com

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Re: OpenOffice launches mouse with 18 buttons, 52 commands

#51

Post by Luc »

chadaustin wrote: post #31
joe_bleau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean a digitizer, or a mouse? The digitizers were impressive, but we later switched to a multibutton mouse for AutoCAD (circa R12 for DOS). I think it had 8 auxiliary buttons in a 4x2 grid, along with the primary left and right button. They were great for AutoCAD, as you could put a different osnap on each aux button, but the company disappeared before writing a windows driver. I still have one around here, so…

Hm, I think I meant a mouse. I remember it had a grid of buttons (each with a different purpose, like a ColecoVision controller) and a really elaborate mousing surface. What brand was the mouse you're talking about?

Something like http://www.interworldna.com/images/summa/summa-cursors.jpg or http://www.interworldna.com/GTCO/gtco-ultima.php ? There's a lot of brands of these, they're called digitizers.

Re: OpenOffice launches mouse with 18 buttons, 52 commands

#52

Post by xtho »

philwelch wrote: post #42
rbanffy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I never had any problems with OOo. It just works. On the other hand, when my office's computers got bumped from MS Office 2003 to 2007, I saw a lot of people bitching about how difficult it was to find stuff and making lots of Ray Charles with moving furniture jokes.

After the initial "people are terrified of change and will resist it" though, the ribbon turned out to be an improvement.

So when can I expect them to stop asking me where this or that function is hidden in Office __2007__.

Re: OpenOffice launches mouse with 18 buttons, 52 commands

#53

Post by JBiserkov »

xtho wrote: post #52
philwelch wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the initial "people are terrified of change and will resist it" though, the ribbon turned out to be an improvement.

So when can I expect them to stop asking me where this or that function is hidden in Office __2007__.

As soon as you point them to the excellent interactive

Word 2003 to Word 2007 command reference guide

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word/HA100744321033.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=904...

Excel 2003 to Excel 2007 command reference guide

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA101491511033.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=897...

PowerPoint 2003 to PowerPoint 2007 command reference guide

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA101490761033....

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BEF...

Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007 Command Reference Guide

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102221621033.asp...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CC3...

The first link is the online version, the second - the standalone .exe

I always put a shortcut to those above the shortcut of Word/Excel/Power./Outlook, explain/show how to use them in 5 sec and my users are happy!

Re: OpenOffice launches mouse with 18 buttons, 52 commands

#54

Post by joe_bleau »

chadaustin wrote: post #31
joe_bleau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean a digitizer, or a mouse? The digitizers were impressive, but we later switched to a multibutton mouse for AutoCAD (circa R12 for DOS). I think it had 8 auxiliary buttons in a 4x2 grid, along with the primary left and right button. They were great for AutoCAD, as you could put a different osnap on each aux button, but the company disappeared before writing a windows driver. I still have one around here, so…

Hm, I think I meant a mouse. I remember it had a grid of buttons (each with a different purpose, like a ColecoVision controller) and a really elaborate mousing surface. What brand was the mouse you're talking about?

Found it--it's a Prohance Powermouse 70. Looks like it has the standard left/right buttons, plus 15 additional buttons. Normal config is F1-F10, plus esc, ctrl, user, fn, and enter. The driver allowed you to customize it for apps such as AutoCAD. Typical mechanical ball mouse guts, DE-9 serial connector. Actually pretty high quality, as you'd expect for a CAD peripheral back in the day.

Couldn't find an images online (I could take one if anyone is really interested), but I did see that someone was trying to reverse engineer the protocol: http://stuartl.longlandclan.yi.org/blog/2006/03/03/reverse-e...

chadaustin's mention of a custom mousing surface makes me think he was looking at a digitizer, although it could have been an old school optical mouse, such as the ones Sun used to use.

Re: OpenOffice launches mouse with 18 buttons, 52 commands

#55

Post by rbanffy »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #50
rbanffy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Works like Windows" has been passing for "easy to use" for much too long. My 70-year-old mother migrated from MacOS 9 and Office 98 straight to Gnome without much complain and without any problem.

So where does Windows come in this picture? You have her going from Mac to Linux ...

It doesn't. Ease of use has absolutely nothing to do with working like Windows. Unfortunately, that has been passed as the standard because so many users moving into other platforms do so from Windows.
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