Windows Basics:
The Mouse

Before you can explore the Desktop and Taskbar, you must know how to use your mouse. Your mouse is a pointing device. You use it to point to things on the computer screen. There are other kinds of pointing devices, like touch pads and game pads, which we will not discuss here.

A mouse has at least two buttons - left and right. Most have a middle button or a scroll wheel between the left and right buttons. Some mice have several other buttons that can be programmed for special functions, especially for games.

Other pointing devices are described in the lesson Computer Basics: Input: Pointing Devices

The normal shape for the mouse pointer is an arrow:

What You Do with a Mouse

Practice Mouse Skills

(Mozilla Firefox sees it but does not respond to the mouse actions in it. Internet Explorer works as expected. Google Chrome works OK except for the dragging. I have not tested in other browsers.)

Refresh your window to get back to the original layout. Be careful how you click. Things may move!

• Move your mouse pointer over each image at the right. After a brief pause, a popup tip appears.

• Click on the cars. Something changes. Click on other images. Do they all change?

• Double-click the fish. Another change. Double-click other images. Which ones change?

• Right click on a picture. Right click but not on a picture. You get two different context menus.

• Drag the scrollbar at the right of the images down A new set of images comes into view.

• Click and double-click these images also. Do they change?

• Drag the images around. Can you get them into a single stack... with even edges? What other arrangements can you create?

• If you mouse has a scroll wheel, put the mouse over the framed area. Rotate your scroll wheel. You can move the images up and down in the frame just like the scrollbar did. When you reach the top or bottom of the framed document, rotating the wheel any more makes the whole page move.

To reset the images, refresh the page by clicking the Refresh button of your browser.

These images are the card backs from Solitaire in WinXP.

 It's physical! To use your mouse comfortably you must practice, practice, practice. This is a physical skill which uses muscles in your hand and forearm and even the chest that you may not have used before in quite this way. You should expect some soreness when you first start or when you have an unusually long or intense session with your mouse.  You can develop serious problems like carpel tunnel syndrome if you do not have the proper physical setup for your keyboard and mouse.

Pointer Shapes

The shape of the pointer changes depending on where it is and what is happening. The term cursor is used for the shape that shows where your typing will appear. You can position the cursor by clicking in a spot in a document. So the pointer and cursor work together, but are not the same thing.

The hand shape usually means that the pointer is over a link, like on a web page.

Since pointer shapes can be customized in the Mouse dialog (see Control Mouse), your pointer shapes may look quite different or be animated. For example, the following animated shapes are used in pointer schemes that come with WinXP for the shape Working In Background:

            

~~  1 Cor. 10:31 ...whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.  ~~

Last updated: 04 Oct 2011