Please answer these questions:
1. Do you use the computer mouse with your left hand?
2. Most games that use a 2 button interface have the left button do actions and leaves the right button to "look".
As a "lefty" would you prefer this the other way? or doesn't it matter?
Thanks,
Peder Johnsen.
I am left-handed and I can answer both questions at once!
I started using computers before anybody cared to make left-handed mice so I'm totally used to using the mouse with my right hand (and in fact feel very "off" trying to use a left-handed mouse)
Windows and Linux (at least) settings allow you to flip around the control of the mouse buttons so that the left button does right buttony things, and the right button does left buttony things.
I am not left-handed. However, I do frequently use a computer mouse with my left hand - and if I do, I strongly prefer that the mouse buttons not be inverted.
(note, incidentally, that Windows allows you to invert your mouse, so whatever game or application you may be writing probably doesn't have to deal with this)
Thanks for the answers so far :).
I have to say I was actually unaware of Windows having a "swap buttons" function.
I'm an ambidexter but always use the rightmouse setting when using the mouse with my left hand.
Same answer as Darth.
I had an AMX mouse for my BBC in 1985 and the cable was too short to go to the left hand side of the computer!
ambidextrous but always used right-handed mouse, but actually when using left-handed I would mirror it. It's like the button closer to your body, left button on a right-handed mouse, is the primary button. I guess just because it is closer to your body. Well I prefer the primary button to be looking actually rather then using; but that has nothing to do with my handedness.
Shouldn't the hand you use with your mouse be disconnected from your "handedness." Say you're starting to play the guitar, when you start learning how to press the strings, you're basically learning a new move, muscles and nerves create new memory, therefore anybody can play any guitar because that's the way you learned. But say you learned to play bass then switched to a guitar, in that case your body already has neural pathways and muscle coordination set up, you could change that but it'd be a long and boring process.
Same could be said for say changing gears in a car, you might be righthanded and in the rest of Europe you find great control over the gear stick, but in say UK, you'll use your left hand and not only that, it'd feel strange if you started doing it with the other hand.
Should be the same way with controling the mouse, when you start with a specific hand (although the learning curve might be slightly different), you're basically learning a new movement and learn to coordinate it with what you see on the computer monitor. Dominant dexterity of a hand is not connected, it just depeneds how you learned to use it over time.
I'm a lefty, but a total righty when it comes to the mouse... I don't like it when the mouse tries to be all left handed and stuff, I guess like Darth, I'm just used to it being right handed cos it's been the only option ever. BBC Basic machine mice were funny, just like a sanding block with two flat lego bricks on it for buttons. Then the 386 mouses introduced a slightly flatter buttons with a split down the middle but still very boxy in design. It wasn't until a 486 that I began to use a mouse with any shape to it (other than a block). And nowadays they're all shaped like your wrist and genitals etc.
The funny thing is, I can't draw for the life of me with my right hand, but I can draw on a computer with a right handed mouse. So, I personally wouldn't prefer the buttons swapped over.
I'm a lefty, and started using computers before left-handed mice were around, but I always found it so awkward. >:(
Now I can set the mouse properly, and it's so much better. ;)
So to answer your questions:
1. Yes I always use the mouse with my left hand. Anything else is just awkward and uncortable.
2. I prefer the mouse settings 'the other way round', as you would say. So my hand sits confortably on the mouse, and my index finger is used to control the Action button.
:)
I'm left handed and can use the mouse either on my left or right. But using it with my left can get confusing because I have to think before I click. It would be a nice feature to have for militant lefties.
Thanks for the replies all!
It has helped me alot :).
Another lefty here! Put me in with the group who uses the mouse with the right hand because that's the only option I had growing up. Just can't do it with my left, especially if the buttons are inverted.
I use scissors right-handed as well because it's usually tough to come by a decent pair of lefty scissors.
If you put a left handed option in a game, I wouldn't use it.
I'm simply shocked by how many left-handed people are skulking around these forums. And here I was thinking this was an upstanding place filled with decent, hard-working right-handed people.
Goodness, what is happening to my interwebs? ;)
Ponch
Quote from: Ponch on Fri 24/09/2010 20:13:53
I'm simply shocked by how many left-handed people are skulking around these forums. And here I was thinking this was an upstanding place filled with decent, hard-working right-handed people.
Goodness, what is happening to my interwebs? ;)
Ponch
*pokes Ponch with her left hand* :P
Us lefties rule! Admit it... you envy us really. ;D
All the cool AGSers are left-handed. No wonder I never got my chances! Damn you all!! :D
I know two lefties and both use their right hands for mousing, playing guitar, and other things imposed on them by a right-handed society. Don't know of any lefty who uses the mouse with their left hand.
My brother uses his right hand as well, and he's a lefty, my father used to be a lefty as well but due to political beliefs back when he was a kid, he was forced to use the right hand. Now he uses both usually, but he prefers to write with his left. Anyhow he also uses his right hand as well.
I use my left hand to control the mouse during periods of carpal tunnel-like symptoms, always with inverted buttons. Fortunately that's a lot less often after I got a drawing tablet which also acts as an oversized touch-pad (good thing I did too - my current mouse is designed for right-hand use only).
Indiscreet question for the non-ambidextrous people: So, uh... online porn, how is that working out for you? ;)
I'm pretty surprised, I tohught the majority of the lefties would use the "switch button" option! It seems it's only me and Frodo using that...
I'm left-handed. I hold the mouse in my right-hand and do not invert the buttons.
I'm not left-handed, but this reminds me that in the PC-Engine, the I button is to the right of the II button in a joypad (just like how A is to the right of B in a Famicom joypad, unlike Sega consoles where the ordering of the buttons are all reversed). When the PCE mouse was released the button placements followed its joypad counterpart and so I was to the right of II. This caused some stupidity, as you have to click the RMB for confirmation while playing some of the games that supported the mouse (there are only a handful of them). Some of the games did get it correct though, that they switched the buttons' functions. You could redefine the buttons in only a few games.
Troublesome titles included the PCE version of Lemmings. I was tempted to call it left-handed Lemmings. ;D Luckily it wasn't hard to get use to, at least not as hard as playing a platform game with the button functions reversed (i.e. not following the "SMB configuration"; this applies to may early Sega console titles and some other console games mainly produced in the west).
I'm just like Vince and most other lefties :P here:
I write with the left hand, but use the right hand for the mouse, or for knives, scissors, while playing badminton...