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Mouse Skills
This section describes the button conventions and action
terminology used in this manual, and also the
mouse pointers used throughout the desktop and applications.
All the instructions in this manual are for the following
types of mouse devices:
The mouse button conventions used in this manual are as
follows:
- Left mouse button
The button on the left side of a mouse device
configured for normal right-hand use. - Middle mouse button
The middle button of a mouse device configured
for normal right-hand use. On many mice with a scroll wheel,
the scroll wheel can be pushed directly down for a middle mouse
button click. - Right mouse button
The button on the right side of a mouse device
configured for normal right-hand use. To reverse the handedness of your mouse device, start the
Mouse Preferences, then select the options
that you require. If you do reverse the handedness of your mouse device,
then you must reverse the mouse button conventions used in this manual.
See the section called “Mouse Preferences” for more information about setting
your mouse preferences.
If you have a two-button mouse device,
then your system may be configured to allow you to press the left
and right mouse buttons simultaneously to simulate the effect of
a middle mouse button press.
The following conventions are used in this manual to describe actions
that you take with the mouse:
You can perform the following actions with the mouse:
- Left mouse button
Select text. Select items. Drag items. Activate items. - Middle mouse button
- Right mouse button
Use the right mouse button to open a context menu for
an item, if a menu applies. For most items, you can also use the
Shift+F10
keyboard shortcut to open the context menu once the item has been
selected. For example, when viewing files in the file manager, you select
a file by clicking with the left mouse button and open a file by
double-clicking with the left mouse button. Clicking with the right
mouse button will bring up a context menu for that file.
 | Tip |
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In most applications, you can select text with your left
mouse button and paste it in another application using the middle
mouse button. This is called primary selection paste, and works
separately from your normal clipboard operations. |
| Tip |
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To select more than one item, you can hold the
Ctrl key to select multiple items, or
hold the Shift key to select a contiguous
range of items. You can also drag a bounding box
to select several items by starting the drag in the empty space around items
and dragging out a rectangle.
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As you use the mouse, the appearance of the mouse pointer can
change. The appearance of the pointer provides feedback about a
particular operation, location, or state.
The following mouse pointers are shown as your mouse passes over
different elements of the screen:
 | Note |
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Your mouse pointers will differ from those shown here if you are using a different pointer theme. Your distributor or vendor may have set a different default theme. |
-
Normal pointer
This pointer appears during normal use of
the mouse. -
Busy pointer
This pointer appears over a window that is busy performing a task. You cannot use the mouse to give this window any input, but you can move to another window and work with that. -
Resize pointer
This pointer indicates that you can grab the control to
resize parts of the interface. This appears over the borders of windows
and over resize handles between panes in a window. The direction of the arrows
indicates in which direction you can resize. -
Hand pointer
This pointer appears when you hover over a
hypertext link, in a web page for example.
This pointer indicates that you can click on the link to load
a new document or perform an action. -
I-beam pointer
This pointer is shown when the mouse is over text that you can
select or edit. Click to place the cursor where you want to type text, or drag to select text. The following mouse pointers are shown when dragging an item such as a file, or a piece of text.
They indicate the result of releasing the mouse button to drop the
object being moved.
-
Move pointer
This pointer indicates that when you drop the object,
the object is moved from
the old location to the new location. -
Copy pointer
This pointer indicates that when you drop the object,
a copy of the object is
created where you drop it. -
Symbolic link pointer
This pointer
indicates that when you drop the object, a symbolic
link to the object is created where you drop the object.
A symbolic link is a special type of file that points to another file
or folder. For more on this, see the section called “Creating a Symbolic Link to a File or Folder”. -
Ask pointer
This pointer
indicates that when you drop the object, you will be given a choice of what to do. A menu will open to allow you to choose which operation you would like to perform.
For instance, you may be able to move, copy, or
create a symbolic link. -
Not available pointer
This pointer indicates that you cannot
drop the object at the current location. Releasing the mouse button now will have no effect: the dragged object will be returned to its starting location. -
Move panel object pointer
This pointer appears when you drag a panel or a panel object
with the middle mouse button.
See Chapter 4, Working With Panels for more information on panels. -
Move window pointer
This pointer appears when you drag a window to move it.
See the section called “Manipulating Windows” for more information on moving windows.
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