Use the Mouse in Mac OS X

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A mouse is any pointing device—including trackballs, pointing sticks, and graphic tablets—with one or more buttons. This book assumes you’ll be using a standard Apple mouse, which has only one button, or the touchpad on a PowerBook or iBook. However, you may have chosen to add a mouse with two or more buttons to make right-clicking easier.

Note

In some cases, the entire mouse is its single button, and you press the mouse itself to activate this button.

Moving the mouse moves the pointer on the screen. You select an object on the screen by moving the pointer so that it is on top of the object and then pressing the button on the mouse. (If your mouse has two buttons, press the left button.)

Note

Apple uses both “control” and “ctrl” on desktop keyboards and uses “ctrl” on PowerBook and iBook keyboards, all for the control key. This book uses control to represent that key.

If your mouse has two buttons, press the left button to click. Press the right button to right-click. You can use either your left or right hand to control the mouse. (To control a trackpad, you can use either hand or even both hands together.)

If your mouse has only one button, hold down control and click to right-click.

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