IMHO: Are You a Man or a Mouse(r)?

I hate to dredge this one up again after all these years, but I've just gotta know. Why do people use the mouse so much?

Not that I'm some kind of anti-graphics, anti-mouse, character-mode brontosaur. The graphical user interface was an important step forward in usability. But every time you take your hands off the keyboard, you slow yourself down. And mousing may ultimately be worse for your joints and tendons than keyboarding.

I would not be without the mouse for many editing tasks, such as selecting blocks of text, dragging things, and using the scroll wheel to schuss through a document or spreadsheet. And graphical tasks, such as photo editing or drawing, are inconceivable without the help of the little rodent. But when I opened this document, I typed (Windows Key) W, which started Microsoft Word. Compare that to (move) (click on Start) (move) (click on Word). Yeah, I know, you're lightning-fast with your mouse. My keystrokes are faster. In case you never noticed, even Microsoft refers to them as accelerator keys.

Yes, I keep a shortcut to Word in my Startup folder, and I renamed it to Word from Microsoft Word so that I could start it with its first letter. I can start Excel with Win-E, or Internet Explorer with Win-I. Netscape Navigator is Win-N, and so forth. I renamed Windows Update to Yindows Update so I could keep it handy yet not have it interfere with Word.

I'll grant you that you have to keep more in your head to use the accelerator keys. You have to remember that you can (in Word, for instance) bring up the find/replace dialog with a simple, if non-mnemonic, ctrl-H. Even the menu-slogging alt-E, e is faster than mousing. And the more you use them, the more ingrained these "keyboard macros" become.

I find it interesting, too, that Windows is aware of how you're navigating the menus, and offers help in a very nonjudgmental way: When you click on the Start button, you see your choices. If you bring up the Start menu with the (Win) key or ctrl-esc, you see the same items, but with their accelerator keys underlined.

So tell me about your keyboarding and mousing habits. Are accelerator keys the province of experts? Dinosaurs? Obsessive-compusives? Click on over to our survey and set me straight.

Copyright © 2002 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in ExtremeTech.