Trapping mousedown with control key or right click

[Richard Gaskin]

Bill wrote:

> on mouseDown theButton -- make database find on Control/Right-click
>   if theButton is 3 then
>     ask "Find... in" && the name of the target
>   else 
>     pass mouseDown
>   end if
> end mouseDown
> 
> Which works absolutely perfect and does what someone posted earlier. The
> "theButton" is 3 means that we are holding the control key down an a
> mousedown and it works perfectly. I posted this in case someone else tried
> to make the earlier mousedown handler work so they wouldn't have to go
> through all the same frustrations.

One of the hardest lessons I learned when I first started working with 
Transcript was just how anomalous Mac OS is compared to most other 
operating systems.  The omni-platform nature of the engine required me 
to do some "unlearning" about what constitutes "standard" behaviors.

The early usefulness of the Mac's single-button mouse was wonderful, but 
now that a majority of people in post-industrial nations own computers 
there's an argument that it's time to give Mac users the benefits of a 
two-button mouse.

Contextual menus are a very useful UI element, but are cumbersome on the 
Mac with its one-button mouse, requiring two hands to activate them.  As 
a result contextual menus are underutilized on Mac OS, or implemented 
poorly (too many Mac programs ignore the universal HIG convention of 
having all items in contextual menus also available in the primary menu 
bar or through some other means).

Given the benefits of the two-button mouse (and that most of the NeXT 
team driving OS X came from a world of three-button mice as is common in 
Unixland), I hold by my prediction that Apple will do themselves and 
their customers the favor of shipping with a two-button mouse within a 
year.  When an outsider like me suggest this it may seem like heresy to 
the faithful flock, but mark my words Steve will get a standing ovation 
when he rolls it out (heck, he gets a standing ovation for darn near 
anything; at WWDC he got thundering applause when he explained how far 
behind Intel the AIM architecture is -- an enviable reality distortion 
field; how nice would it be if you got applause from your boss when you 
tell him his project will be late again <g>).

In the meantime, from time to time you'll likely encounter circumstances 
like this one where the Mac Way is so different from the way all other 
GUIs work that a little unlearning will be required.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________
  Rev tools and more:  http://www.fourthworld.com/rev