The OpenOffice.org Mouse is Real

http://notes.husk.org/post/235896208/ooo-mouse

by blasdel • 17 years ago

59 42 17 years ago

notes.husk.org

The many-button mouse is appealing as way of reducing movements between mouse and keyboard.

But it's even better to just stay on the keyboard and skip the mouse altogether. Mice have to be the number one source of computer-based tendon injury. Fortunately, the standard laptop is relatively "ergonomics".

sp332• 17 years ago

They should have just put a laser tracker under a keyboard. Then you'd have a 104-key mouse and you'd never have to move your hands again.

fizx2• 17 years ago

I'd actually be interested to have the area where my wrists make contact with the keyboard be responsive like a large version of the old Thinkpad "TrackPoint" cursor dot thingy.

ivank• 17 years ago

http://www.combimouse.com/

GiraffeNecktie2• 17 years ago

The standard laptop is hardly ergonomic. The trackpad and pointing devices are somewhat helpful but the keyboards are all (without exception) terrible for extended typing. You're much better off getting a separate keyboard with the left and right halves of the keyboard angled inward so that hands and arms can remain in alignment.

joe_the_user3• 17 years ago

If that works for you, great, stay with it.

But in general, I don't see anything keeping a person from holding their hands in alignment over a standard keyboard and typing. Any keyboard does involve small finger movement to hit the different keys, so a can't see how changing key layout changes anything.

Each person has a somewhat different pattern of habitual tension that can interfere with even normally easy activities, so there are many adjustments work well for some but not for others. Mice are a different story in that they require arm movements for simple input, an inherently inefficient setup.

weaksauce• 17 years ago

It sure looks like a 3D rendering to my eyes.

Keyframe• 17 years ago

unless it was photographed in outer space or hard vacuum, judging by the shadows alone, it is a 3d rendering (not to mention speculars, pinhole etc etc..

Semiapies• 17 years ago

From the second sentence of TFA: "Many people doubt it’s real, especially as the images of it are renderings"

buugs• 17 years ago

The undeniable proof of the blog posting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougerino/4077512246/

Blog posting of worse comedic quality than the actual mouse and if he is serious well then I fear for his logical thinking.

DougBTX• 17 years ago

Sorry, up-voted you by accident. The link you posted came after the "if you doubt the conference is true" comment, it is just proof that there was an OOoCon conference, which frankly I find hard to believe myself.

Somehow I thought you were linking to this post: http://openofficemouse.com/blog/?p=25

fnid• 17 years ago

This will be really great for designers who do a lot of formating and dragging things around the screen with little typing. You could set borders, padding, alignment, columns all sorts of things to make documents look really nice.

BigZaphod• 17 years ago

Maybe... except it's horribly ugly. I don't know any designers that would use it. They'd immediately reject it for the aesthetics alone.

cmang• 17 years ago

Hey openoffice mouse, I'm real happy for you and I'mma let you finish. But iMac's hockey puck was one of the ugliest mice of all time.

edit: seriously, I'm joking.

zefhous2• 17 years ago

If you want more more buttons I recommend this: http://retail.contourdesign.com/?/products/23

I can't imagine using using a mouse like that.

wheels• 17 years ago

That's not a mouse, it's a controller for media production. Key phrase: "pairs with your mouse"

zefhous2• 17 years ago

I know... I have one and use it every day.

I do a lot of video editing, but I'm also a programmer. It turns out to be great for both and for anything else.

My point is that it's a great way to get more buttons if you feel like you need them. You can map the buttons to do whatever you want depending on the application, so it's useful in other contexts as well.

It's a good companion to a mouse because it uses your other hand. You aren't going to be typing with one hand when using the mouse, so it's great to have a bunch of single buttons available for common tasks.

eplawless• 17 years ago

I'd like to thank them for creating a better parody of themselves than anybody else could have.

ZeroGravitas• 17 years ago

When did OpenOffice become a shorthand for 'bad usability'?

I mean they're basically just cloning Microsoft Office (There's a joke there but I'll avoid it). I can think of a bunch of problems with OpenOffice but I've never felt they had a particular problem with usability, not compared with Microsoft Office nor with your average Windows or Linux app.

Don't get me wrong there is always room for improvement and they used to do some crazy stuff years back (like have their own desktop) but I'm fairly certain that's in the past.

TravisLS• 17 years ago

The problem is that they're "basically just cloning microsoft office". No good usability work comes from basically cloning.

Taking ideas / inspiration from Microsoft Office is great, it's a successful product. But basically cloning just means it works sort of like office, but different enough to be annoying, with no attention paid to designing the overall user experience. It's the same reason Gimp is such a nightmare for Photoshop users.

comster• 17 years ago

dont hate.

onoj• 17 years ago

It could be a photo but the keypad is fake. The image shows too much smooth colour distribution to be an unmodified photo.

No sane product designer would propose a keypad execution like this anyway. There is a massive ergonomic difference between thumb typing and pressing with the tips of extended fingers - put your fingertips on the keypad of your phone with your hand stretched out to see what I mean.

misuba• 17 years ago

I think this is actually going to be popular amongst electronic musicians who perform live. Two-dimensional analog position data that you can map to effects sliders and such, plus the joystick, plus all the mod buttons? Not too shabby. Might let yo do things with one hand that'd be complex at best to do with two hands on a mixer.

sown• 17 years ago

This would be very useful for WoW.

zouhair• 17 years ago

I'd say Starcraft won't be against it either.

mattmcknight• 17 years ago

I am surprised it is missing a horizontal scroll wheel- although it could be programmed to use the vertical wheel in combination with another button. Does Apple have some kind of patent coverage on the little trackball scroller? I use that for horizontal scrolling in spreadsheets quite frequently.

I generally find buttons and other physical controls much more usable than touch style interfaces and would be willing to give this device a try to see how it compares with the Space Pilot. http://www.3dconnexion.com/spp/index.php

elblanco2• 17 years ago

Not sure about the future of a product most people think is a joke.

nkassis• 17 years ago

Like the red swingline?

pbhjpbhj3• 17 years ago

Can someone explain that joke(?) ?

elblanco2• 17 years ago

Good counter example. I'm not sure I would have ever drawn that analogy.

charlesju• 17 years ago

OpenOffice is getting ridiculous. All we want is a super-fast client with capabilities on-par with office 2003. YComb should fund some company to do this; load times are getting way out of hand, especially on the mac.

viraptor• 17 years ago

What are they on macs? I get 7s cold and 3s warm start on my quite dated linux laptop. Which I'm ok with.

hussong• 17 years ago

I'm still waiting for the foot pedals.

moron4hire• 17 years ago

It's not that far off from other products offered by Logitech http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices...

here's a 15 button mouse built for World of Warcraft http://campaign.steelseries.com/us/

The OpenOffice.org Mouse is Real

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