Mighty Mouse Diagonally Scrolling

ID: 050803.0823

In my May 12, 2005 blog, My New Mouse, I said:

It's a mystery among all but the most ardent Mac-heads why Apple persists in providing only one-button no-scroll-wheel mice, requiring users to press the sole mouse button (or the trackpad's single click-bar) while pressing the Ctrl key to display shortcut menus. But, that's the Mac way, and there's no changing it. (How's that for thinking different!)

The problem's exacerbated for left-handed mouse users, because (at least on the PowerBook keyboard) there's only one Ctrl key, and it's on the left. Ctrl-clicking for left-handers means crossing the right hand over to the left side of the keyboard. But now, the problem is almost solved.

Apple released the Mighty Mouse, an optical, "scroll-wheel" multi-button mouse. At first glance it looks like the standard Apple white lozenge-shaped mouse, but with a tiny ball in the top that is, in fact, a kind of scroll-wheel — a scroll ball. Not only can this scroll ball receive a click, and scroll horizontally and vertically, it can also scroll digonally. (More about that in a moment.)

There are no obvious left and right mouse buttons, but the top is pressure sensitive such that pressing one side or the other is equivalent to pressing a left or right button. "Ardent Mac-heads" who "prefer the simplicity of a classic one-button mouse" can use Mac OS X Tiger to restore one-button clicking.

Mighty Mouse — Apple was granted permission to use the name of the 1942 Terrytoons cartoon hero — is also squeezable: "Force sensors on either side can be configured to activate Tiger features such as Dashboard, Exposé or a whole host of other customizable features."

What's significantly missing, and why I won't replace my Macally BTMOUSEJR Bluetooth wireless optical two-button scroll-wheel mouse with Apple's optical multi-button scroll-ball mouse, is wireless Bluetooth capability. "As anyone who's felt the tug of a mouse cord can attest, wireless mice are a must-have," and Bluetooth is my favorite kind of wireless.

Now: What's this about diagonal scrolling? Why won't vertical, or vertical and horizontal-only scrolling do? I admit to being partially blind to the underlying problem since I use wide monitor laptops with high screen resolutions — 1920 x 1200 on my Dell Inspiron 8500 — that permit me to use wide windows that rarely require horizontal scrolling. For narrower and lower resolution screens, horizontal scrolling may be as important as vertical. Being able to scroll diagonally reduces scrolling from two actions to one.

An underlying issue however, is why should even narrow, low-resolution screen users have to scroll horizontally? In particular, why should web pages require horizontal scrolling? The answer is simple: About half of all web pages do not use "liquid" design that reflows content when window size is changed. This is true with many public sites such as CNN or Fox News. The use of layout tables rather than CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is usually the culprit.

In short, diagonal scrolling is partially a solution to outmoded web page design; design that still cannot free itself from the paradigm of the printed page. As quoted in my 2002 essay, The Tyranny of Typography, the Tao Te Ching, 38 Ritual says:

Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily released;
So ritual enthralls generation after generation.

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