A: Yes. There are, however, some
limitations inherent to the design of the mouse, which is
neither a true two-button mouse, nor is it completely accurate
in determining whether the left or the right "button"
is
pressed.
1.5 Buttons
The Amiga is one of the few computers that was
not only born with a mouse, but it had its operating system and applications
constantly focused on making best use of two-button mice (the
Amiga never had a one-button mouse, and three-button mice were
rare). As a result of this, the Amiga and its software have more
than 20 years of experience with two-button mice. Obviously,
passionate Amiga users like the Amiga Forever Team could not
resist the temptation to closely watch Apple's first steps in
the two-button world.
Some of the very creative and intuitive uses that the
Amiga and its applications made of its original two-button
mouse, e.g. the simultaneous or combined use of both buttons
(e.g. to select multiple menu items) are not supported by the
"Mighty Mouse". A two-button mouse normally allows for a full
two-button dimension of use, but it appears as if this mouse
might have been designed with a more limited single-button
dimension of applications in mind.
The device uses a single mechanical click
trigger, combined with a sensor to interpret the left or right
click intention of the user. Because the left and right click actions
cannot be combined (you can click only once, then the whole
mouse must be released) the device is, in practice, a hybrid
between a one-button mouse and a two-button mouse. Also, the
left vs. right detection did not always work correctly in our
tests, and sometimes the result was that a right click was
incorrectly processed as a left click, apparently based on how
the hand and fingers were placed on the mouse.
Mighty Mouse Meets Amiga
Within the above-described limits, left and
right button events are processed correctly by the Amiga
operating system and
applications. Squeezing the side pressure sensor results in a
single side button event (e.g. Back action on folder or web
browser). In the Workbench 3.X environment of Amiga Forever 2005
all of this is preconfigured and supported (e.g. buttons and
wheel when displaying Workbench content, in AWeb, etc.)
The limitations within the Amiga environment,
which are not specific to the Amiga emulation or operating
system or to the Amiga
Forever configuration, but which are intrinsic to the mouse,
are:
-
Either the left or the right button can be
clicked (e.g. Amiga Workbench select, Intuition menus), but
not both at the same time (e.g. page drag action in
Personal
Write, or Magnify mode centering in
Personal Paint)
-
It is not possible to press one button, and then
the other button while the first one is still held down (e.g.
standard Amiga menu multi-select, or to cancel the current
selection, equivalent to pressing Escape with some applications)
-
The side sensors can be squeezed, resulting in a
single type of action (e.g. Back), but there is no separate action
for left and right side button
Installation on Windows
When connected to a Windows system, the
Mighty Mouse is
automatically recognized and supported as a regular wheel mouse.
If this is not the case, verify whether the PS/2-compatible
mouse driver is still being used, and remove that if necessary.
The Mighty Mouse should use the standard HID USB mouse driver.
Once the mouse is recognized by Windows, the Amiga emulation,
the Amiga operating system, and the mouse-specific add-ons in Amiga Forever
will automatically use the available features.
Mighty Mouse Speaks Amiga Contest
The Amiga Forever Team promises to offer a full
copy of Amiga Forever 2005 Premium Edition (consisting of one CD
and two DVD-9s) to the first developer who can convince the
Mighty Mouse to say "This
is Amiga speaking" through its built-in speaker. Mighty
Hacker please contact us. (Void where
against the law.)
