I want more control of my mouse buttons

Hello-

What I am looking for is very simple. So simple, in fact, that it probably does not exists, but I'll ask anyway...

I want to be able to hold my left mouse button down, and have it stay that way until I am finished. Maybe some special function key could be used to activate and deactivate this mode. It would help me drawing with the mouse, and I am sure there are many people with joint pain who would benefit from such a program as well. Does it exist?!



-HandsOff

 

Racking my brain. Seems I have seen something like what you are requesting. Just do not remember if it was native to XP or Firefox or........ Will do some digging.

 

Think I found what you are looking for if you are running XP. Go to Control Panel\Mouse. It is called ClickLock. Hope this helps.

 

If you will be doing a lot of drawing, maybe you can ask Santa for a Tablet.

If you want relief from joint pain caused by mouse use, I have found nothing better yet than this Ergonomic Mouse.
It takes about a month to get used to having your wrist elevated off the mouse pad, but no more wrist pain even from all day use. Your hand is completely relaxed during use. There is also a clickless software option so you don't even have to click.

 

And how did I miss that! That looks like it should work fine, though I would prefer if I could just use a function key to enable it. In photoshop you do a lot of window moving and resizing and it is likely to be activated accidentally doing those things, whereas I just want it for certain drawing actions. Maybe I should have a long hold time setting, at least to start with. I think this stands a good chance of working, though! Thanks for the suggestion!


Devinco- I did take a look at that mouse just to see what it looked like. I can see where it would definitely relieve the hand from the kind of motion that ordinary mouses require. My situation is this: I have a Waccom Tablet that I hardly ever use. I wanted one for years, but was convinced it wouldn't work. Well, by the time I got one, even though it works fine, I am so used to using the mouse to draw with that it actually feels unnatural for me to use a stylus! My latest pointing device fantasy is for a cordless mouse, Only...I really doubt it will work right. Seriously! I've tried cordless game controllers and I can detect the slight lag time between my action and the games response. It's just enough to be distracting.

-HandsOff

 

@ Handsoff. Let us know what ends up working for you. Have you thought about a "vertical" mouse. Designed more for wrist relief. May or may not help in your situation. Also, the ones I have seen are a bit pricey. Good Luck.

 

For a function key...I suggest the following path...find a script or some way to shortcut turning on and off click lock, then use macros to run and enable/disable this script. If, say, clicklock could be activated by a command line, then I would macro this to turn on with a hot key and off with another. If that doesn't make sense, let me know.

 

In fact, my friend, as a regular photoshop user, I can tell you for sure that macros will save you tremendous amounts of time. American System's EZ macros has been my favorite utility bar none. I never even bought the full version because the sample macros can be had for free and work forever. If you would like to know more, let me know.

 

Well I guess you have to "believe" in the pointing device you choose.
For serious/heavy artistic work like digital painting, sketching, and drawing, a tablet has many benefits.
It has absolute positioning (unlike a mouse's relative positioning), pressure sensitivity, and some even have stylus angle detection.
For drafting, CAD, and general purpose computing, a standard mouse or vertical mouse like the AirO2bic works better than a tablet with a stylus.
Some tablets come with both a stylus and a puck that looks and works like a mouse.
For light video gaming a vertical mouse is acceptable.
For serious/heavy gaming, a standard mouse like Logitech or MS works the best. For first person shooter type games there are also some specialized gaming mice like the Razor Mouse.

 

Hi everyone,

Well, I've set the delay for the click hold implimentation up to the maximum. It would be much better to have the switch be a function key instead - It is definitely something that cannot be left on! Any one of a dozen common tasks has me holding the button long enough to enter the hold mode. My solution has been to drag a shortcut to the mouse control to the "quick launch" on the tool bar. quick launching, then check box, and hit enter. It is actually quicker than it sounds. I will have to see if I use it often enough to justify going into the labyrinth of macro setting - although as a heavy photoshop user myself, I would love having some other macros. Who knows how photoshop decided what menu functions get shortcuts? I know I find it impossible to do any thing without several trips up to the menu bar! I used to use Iolus (?) Macro Magic for keyboard macros, but I never tried macroing mouse movements. It would be something to write home about if I pulled it off!

-HandsOff

P.S. - I actually like the small simple two button laser wheel mouse that I am using. The smallness, and lightness make up for and position shortcomings. What I need to do is replace the hard mouse pad. If you use a laser mouse you want a hard mousepad made of glass, for instance. In this way you mouse "glides" which is a lot nicer than having to drag it over other surfaces!

 

Devinco- we "cross posted" so I'll just respond to the point of "absolute" positioning of the pointer. That is my main reason for not liking the the stylus! For one thing it is very annoying to be writing near the corners where you wrist is near the edge of the tablet. It is extremely unnatural for the hand to draw cosistently going from being over the desktop, to being over the tablet. If the tablet were a proper box, instead of swoopy-doopy I would make a frame to go around the tablet so that its surface would be flush with the surface your hand is on, when writing at the edge or corners. Probably an extra 6 inches on the right hand side, and 4 inches on the front side would work. If I do make one, I'll probably be the only one in the world with a halfway decent tablet!


-HandsOff!

 

Handsoff,

I think the glass mouse pad is a great idea!
I wonder if it will work with an LED optical (not laser) mouse?
Ideally, the edges would be rounded and polished (or beveled) so as not to be sharp.
One could also encase the glass with some sort of edge molding.

For the tablet, measure the thickness that you need to build up and buy several nice mouse pads of the right thickness so it would be level.
You can then put the tablet over the mouse pad, trace the contour with a pencil and cut the mouse pads with a sharp scissors.

For an excellent macro program, check out Macro Express 3.

 

They actually sell the glass mouse pads, although I have not gone looking for one. In the early days when an optical mouse was something to impress your friends and neighbors, one had to have the glass mouse pad too. it was fairly thin with beveled and rounded edges and it had a very fine "egg-crate" grill that I suppose was to give the mouse something to see. The worst thing about other surfaces is the bottom of the mouse picks up dirt and then slides even worse than before! Glass is much better for keeping clean!

I like your idea about the tablet, it made me realize that it could, be done - when I start using it more, I will come up with something!

The macro thing I will give a try when I feel lucky!


-HandsOff